Zebra shoes

Hacienda Los Laurales

We left the hotel yesterday at about 11am and rode two hours up to the plains area west of Bogota. The last 20 minutes was through a single lane dirt road that wove through fields of cattle and farmland. We arrived at a hacienda that has been preserved since the 1800's and is used primarily for visitors and weddings. It was originally a Jesuit monastery and has a small chapel on the grounds. The house is filled with photographs of portraits representing generations of families though we were never given information about who owned the house or what they did in colonial Colombia. One response to the question was, "The ownership turned over many times."

The outdoor areas were vast and green with a wide variety of flowers and trees. Against a dramatic sky that turned throughout the afternoon from blue and billowy to gray and rainy, long stretches of magnificent trees marked the distant boarders of the property. We spent the afternoon eating, walking around the property and then held our first discussion group in the living room. There was a fire in the fireplace that was especially inviting as the sun set and the temperature dipped. We returned to Bogota for dinner at 8pm.

living room divided from the dining room by a wooden screen

traditional lunch

chapel

grounds

house from the back

Tuesday

We left at 6:45am for Gimnasium Sabio Caldas on the south side of the city. They told us it would take an hour from the hotel and it was easy to see, as we crawled through rush hour traffic, why that was the case. Once we left the highway we entered a mountainous area and wove through narrow and steep local streets to reach the main road where the school was located. The ride through the school's surrounding neighborhood, in light of the fact that we learned that all the students live within a 20 block radius (about 1 mile) of the school, made it an eye opening trip. This school is located in a low income area of the city and the homes are a wide range of new brick structures and high rise buildings, metal-sided shacks and deteriorating cement structures. It reminded me a lot of 1970's Taipei. Narrow streets, lots of metal grating on the windows, people walking side-by-side with buses and trucks and lots of scooters and motorcycles. One distinct feature was dogs roaming the streets and piles of trash everywhere we turned. It looked like the trash had been piled intentionally by the road, but the dogs had certainly has their share of what was inside the plastic bags that spilled into the streets and across the roads. Even vendors, set up on the corners, worked along side the trash.

We were greeted at the school by two 10th grade students, Diana and Luis, the head of school, Ruth, and several other administrators. We were also greeted by Angela from Envoys. All of our interactions, inside and outside of the classroom, were by first name.

The two visits to the classrooms, a 9th grade chemistry class and a 3rd grade geography class, for which we had planned lessons, were fun and gave us a chance to meet students. The surprise was that each class had about 45 students and it was remarkable to observe a third grade teacher interact with such a large class and still take the time to call students by name, respond to their questions and excitement. Each class had time to ask us, the American teachers, questions. The most compelling question from a 9th grader was what we thought Colombia should do to address the problem of violence and war. In the 3rd grade the questions were very specific and intimate: names, family members, birthday, age, favorite color, favorite food. One student asked about the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

Among the many things we learned is that this school is part of an alliance of private schools that was started 15 years ago to fund and support public schools. The alliance is made up of private schools that provide curriculum guidance, teacher training and access to funding streams. The school was created in a low-income neighborhood, one of 25 in the concession, and the administration of the school was given to the alliance; a fast track to higher standards of quality in education and access to resources through the private schools. It was an effort to create an educational opportunity that would bypass the corrupt efforts of the government. Some of its funds, about $1000 per pupil compared to $1200 per pupil for public schools, come from the government.

I had forgotten how different I might appear in a group of Americans. Students followed me, stared, approached me to try to figure out what nationality I am. They could not understand the concept that Americans can be of different races and ethnicity. I realized that I have forgotten that it is possible in my daily life that I am perceived as Asian first; now also, older and Asian. One boy in particular appeared every time I crossed the main center of campus and finally approached me with a karate chop. He really wanted me to tell him if I was in the image of the martial artists he associated with Asian appearance. A teacher joined our conversation and explained that it is possible to be a foreigner, in this case an American, and still look like a person from another country. I was only frustrated at my inability to have a conversation with the children in Spanish to explore their understanding of these differences.

There is such joy in Colombia. The children are happy and there is lots of laughter and pleasantness. It is remarkable especially in the context of a history of conflict and violence. One group reported having a conversation with 5th grade students about conflict and peace. They asked the question: The world would be a better place without conflict. Yes or no? All but two of the children chose yes to the surprise of the American teachers. One said later that in her classroom the students all perceived conflict as being the healthy right to argue a point or disagree and then resolve your disagreement. They saw conflict as giving rise to ideas. The students at Sabio Caldas defined conflict as the result of war and associated it consistently with losing people and issues related to safety. One girl, a fifth grader, told the teachers that she, as a girl, is not as safe to walk on the streets as a boy. Another said that if there were no conflict they wouldn't lose members of their families. The children know the country is struggling and school is their safe place. Mariana, our Envoy leader, reflected on how she felt about the children's response. On the one hand, she said, she was very glad that the children were thinking that without conflict there would be peace. One the other, she wondered if it was important to help the children understand conflict in broader terms.