A day of rest and relaxation
July 26

Sunday in Barranquilla was slow and relatively quiet. The streets were less busy than Saturday night and the stores opened later in the morning. We had breakfast at the hotel, a long meeting and then set out for an afternoon at the museum and a stroll through a local market.

The Museum of the Caribbean is a cultural museum that examines the history and indigenous tribes that live along the Colombian coast. It is organized so that each floor focuses on a different aspect: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the natural world, people, language or words, actions and creative expression. The description of the culture of Colombia as valuing "orality" was something I had described earlier in a reflection about our visit to Sabio Caldas. It was my impression at the school that written words are not as highly valued as oral language. The idea was also discussed with the Kogi teacher who said that there is resistance from the elders to allow the Kogi language to become a written language because they believe that the flexibility and complexity of meaning will be lost when defined only by one context.

The media displays included full walls of the natural environment of the Caribbean coast from the estuaries to the coastline to the tropical rain forest to the snow capped mountains all of which are home to a wide range of birds and animals. The more I understand of the vast diversity of the ecology of Colombia, the more I can appreciate Pedro's passion for talking about the inspirations from nature that filled his Peace Museum.

There was a whole room with viewing stations to learn about 10 of the indigenous tribes. I was glad to learn more about the Kogi and the Arhuacho though what I took in from the Spanish subtitles was insignificant. The visuals were enough to hold my attention.

We ended the afternoon at a market and browsed through local kitsch; leather goods, wooden goods, hand made woven bracelets, and musical instruments. Lots of bags and some furniture, but nothing of high value though all fun to look at. I bought a set of leather coaster in a holder that looks like a bus and a little purse made out of a gourd for Ruby.

July 27

Today was our visit with the Secretary of Education of Barranquilla and a visit to the school five of us will work with over the next three days, Colegio Madre Marcelina. The school has about 750 students, pre-k to 11th grade. The Department of Education is one of many in the district of Atlantica, the equivalent to a state in the US. The Secretary crowded us into his office that held only his desk, two small couches and a very larger color printer for making posters. The posters, all entitle "Barranquilla florace para todos!" (Barranquilla flourishes for everyone!) and showing pictures of students, were displayed on many large white walls throughout the district offices. He talked about the programs that are underway to make Barranquilla the leader in bi-lingual education, Spanish and English with a third option of French. The initiatives also involve bringing native speakers to Barranquilla primarily through Peace Corps and World Teach, a research program out of Harvard University.

I noticed that the student body had a different look than in Bogota; darker skinned girls and finer facial features. The proximity here to the indigenous tribes makes me wonder what presence they may have in these schools or what relationships may exist between indigenous people and white Colombians that could have led to students of mixed heritage.

The neighborhood in which the office was located was surprisingly commercial and packed with street vendors. The street was narrow and the sidewalk even narrower with vendors lining the curb; everything from internet access to tools to water and fruit. From the ground it was hard to detect the official office that spread across the second floor of one of the buildings.

Our day included a discussion with the English teachers who we will shadow tomorrow and a tour of the main building with the head of the school, Sister Luz Marina. The school was founded by an order of nuns who established themselves in Barranquilla over 100 years ago. They have a church and an elder care center where the students do service hours. We also saw a Sena class in clerical skills (they called it filing skills) that could open the door to office work in hospitals, libraries or businesses. We saw a computer room filled with laptops that were donated to the school and several classrooms. The Director said that only two classrooms lacked air conditioning, but the one classroom we stepped did not have the air conditioner on and it was very hot and stuffy
Dinner tonight was at yet another pizza, wings and Mexican food restaurant. The eating in Barranquilla has not been very satisfying and it seems we are surrounded by all sorts of versions of American pizza or Mexican food chains. I think the group will rebel if the next meal is similar. I managed to find a rice and shrimp dish on the menu and it was quite delicious with a beer. I was glad to avoid all the beef and chicken options for one meal. There is definitely an absence of green vegetables in the diet here. The fresh juices, however, are spectacular: mango, lulo, berry.

On the Caribbean shore, Saturday, July 25

I woke up to discover that the beach was within arm's reach and went out to catch the sunrise. The walk west ended at a very large boulder, but walking east continued a very long way. We heard that at some point walking east would take you to the river. The sound of the surf was very loud and strong. The world's tallest coastal peak is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta rising from sea level to 18,942 feet. It is separate from the Andes mountains and by its position in relationship to the coast causes the strong tides.

I slept in a room with three beds. The owner had warned us that the water levels had been low, but reassured us that they had enough water for us for the overnight we would be at the hotel. As with everywhere else we've gone, toilet paper is deposited in a waste basket by the toilet, not flushed. There is a worm wood that is very heavy and sits at the bottom of the ocean. The elder whose daughter runs the hotel told us that he had started collecting this wood to make furniture and that the tables we ate at were so heavy that it took four or five people to carry it to the beach when they wanted to have a celebration on the beach. 

Saturday at the beach was our free morning and everyone spread out, some people walking, some catching up on sleep, some lounging on the vast assortments of hammocks, chairs, recliners and canvas sling chairs. At one point in the morning Mariana, our guide, came around and asked if any of us would like a massage. It turned out that they called three masseuse to come to the hotel and the little huts on the beach (one in the photo past the trees) were for massages. What a treat to get an hour's massage with the ocean waves creating a rhythm in the background. The cost was about $18.00. 

We left Palomino at about 2pm to head to Barranquilla. It was much too soon to say good bye to the beach. We stopped briefly along the road to buy bags made by the Arhuaca tribe. They are woven with a steel needle and it is the women's job to use their time to create the bags. In the Koghi tribe the plain white bags are for a wife to give her husband. Most others have six stripes in natural tones of browns, blacks, and beige. The Arhuaca bags have more designs, but are also natural colors. 

The highway to Barranquilla followed the coast most of the way. During one stretch we saw that there was a large body of water to the south lined with miles of homes. Some were brick or concrete structures, but many were patched together from assorted materials including metal sheeting. Simon referred to it as an estuary and said many of the people who live there harvest oysters. 

We arrived at Barranquilla after dark and had dinner at a small local cafe that served large plates of rice with chicken, beef or vegetables.

Sewyaka Indigenous School, Palomino, Colombia


One of the highlights of this trip to Colombia was the opportunity to visit a school in the mountains outside of Palomino. We went on Friday, July 24. The Kogi are an indigenous tribe of Colombia, the only tribe that was not ruled by the Spanish. They have managed to maintain their cultural integrity high up in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. This mountain range makes a triangle along the northern coast of Colombia and is the only snow-capped mountain range that arises from sea level and can be seen from the beaches below. Our path up the mountain followed the Palomino River.

We had been told it would be a two hour hike up and two hours back and everyone was prepared for the ascent to the school. What we may not have understood was that we would be trekking after a 5:00am wake-up for a 5:55am departure to the airport, a one hour flight to Santa Marta and a one hour bus ride to Palomino. We had breakfast bags from the hotel, a meat and cheese sandwich, juice and a piece of fruit, and what has become a recognizable collection of snacks: roasted corn, breakfast fruit bars, peanuts, dried cranberries.

We gathered in Palomino at a cultural center to use the bathroom before heading out on the trek at around 12:30pm. It was at least 90 degrees and bright sunshine by the time we headed out. We started down a street that led to a narrower dirt road that quickly became an incline up into the mountain. I walked for about 15 minutes before starting to feel the heat and humidity and a bit of starry eyed lightheadedness. Simón, one of the group leaders, walked along with me for a while and then stayed as I stopped to rest. After waiting a few minutes he offered that I could ride the horse that we had brought on the trek. Edwin, one of two young men accompanying us on the trip, had been riding the horse when we started. Whether he knew that he was likely to lose his ride or whether they had brought the horse anticipating the need, I will never know. I agreed to ride the horse seeing that as the only alternative to staying on the trek. I mounted the horse, Sia, for what turned out to be a different kind of challenge. The first discovery was that the stirrups were the metals objects we had seen at the hacienda earlier in the week; made from metal and a full front "boot." 

The path was no wider than one person all the rest of the way and the terrain was sandy, rocky and root-covered in some places. I quickly realized that the only way to feel safe on the horse walking along the edge of the cliffs was to move with him. Leaning into the inclines; leaning back for the descents; allowing my body to rise with the jumps down rocky steps. I hung on tightly to the horn the entire ride especially when Edwin gave the directive to hold on "duro."

About half-way through the jungle we stopped at a swimming hole to eat lunch and watch some people tubing down the river. The river flows right into the Caribbean. It was then that three people decided not to continue on the hike, suffering mostly from overheating. I was able to continue on by horseback to complete the ride to the school and back to town. By all reports from the people who completed the trek, it was a challenging hike. We arrived at the school around 3:00pm.

Sewyaka appeared in the distance and we entered through an opening in a fence to first pass through a property with a house and family. It's not clear if the family is related to the school, but there was a woman and her 5 children. There was an assortment of dogs, chickens, pigs, and turkeys and baby chicks and puppies. The woman and some of the children were in traditional off-white cotton dresses; a heavy cotton, hand sewn into a tunic style dress. We saw the same garment for men when we met the teachers. The men wore a tunic top, pants that gathered just below the knees with a black band to finish off the edge and rubber boots that came to the top of the pants. They said that they grow their own cotton.

The Koghi have a carrying sack that they use for everything including carrying children on their backs with the shoulder strap held across their foreheads. The bags are usually made from agave leaves and are a fine netting. The men carry at least one bag for their coca leaves and poporo, a gourd that contains the lime or calcium of crushed shells that is necessary to release the power of the coca leaves. 

The classrooms and school buildings surrounded a large courtyard. We sat around a tree to listen to the teachers talk about the school. The stones in the center,  arranged to create chairs, closest to the tree are reserved for the elders. There are 85 children at the school, 1-5 grades, mostly boys. They talked a little about the challenge of getting girls to school; girls are believed to need protection and the idea that boys and girls should be treated the same way challenges their belief in the balance of male and female. They are also unsure of the future of education for their children because the only alternative is to leave this area of the mountain and attend a school with other groups. There is great commitment to sustain the Kogi culture through education, but encouraging children to leave the Kogi villages threatens that.

As we sat in the courtyard we were under a mango tree and nearby their were trees laden with starfruit. The guide encouraged us to find good fruit on the ground, rinse it off and eat it as we toured the village.

We entered the village that is adjacent to the school to see where the mammas, elders, teachers and students live. The huts are either woven palm leaves or mud, but the roofs are all made from palm leaves. We passed a small area of plantain trees, one of the staples of their diet. They are, it seems, completely self-sufficient producing their own food. The mamas live in one hut and the women and children live in others. Husbands and wives do not share the same house. There was one structure dedicated to cooking.

We arrived back in Palomino at around 7pm and it was already dark. As soon as we arrived at the hotel the staff helped move the luggage to the rooms and we split up into threes and fours to share large rooms. The sound of the surf was very strong and you could barely see the water through the trees in the dark. We gathered for dinner on a deck with large handmade wooden tables and chairs before ending the evening with a visit from the man who had helped to found Sewyaka Indigenous School. His daughters and son-in-law ran the hotel and he lived there.

He described himself as part of a hippie movement in the 70's searching for the answer to his existentialist questions. He had moved up onto the mountain, earned the trust of the Koghi and integrated himself into their life style. His children also grew up with the Koghi. At one point he said that he believes that the past is what's in front of us; we can see it and know what happened. The future, however, is behind us; unknown to us. This reversal of traditional thinking that we look toward the future and turn our backs on the past was compelling.

5:25am Leaving for Santa Marta and Palomino

We ended our last visit at Sabio Caldas with a student performance and a visit to Transition A, pre-kindergarten. Without any language I didn't expect to do any more than observe, but quickly realized that I can count and know some colors. This series was the result of one boy who kept calling friends to join the photo so that we could count. We started at one and made it to 13 before the high school students who were leading the lesson called the children to play musical chairs.

After leaving SC we went directly to Montserrate Peak. The climb up 1,500 steep steps is often completed as a pilgrimage to the altar of the church that has a figure of the Fallen Christ dating from the 1650s. We took the tram and ended up accompanying a shark who was taping a promotion for Shark Week. 

GCC 2015

Wednesday night

There are some things for which photos just don't do the experience justice and tonight's final activity of the day was one of them. We rode from the school to the office of the Deputy Director of Education to meet him. From there, we headed to dinner. We arrived at an apartment building in the northern section of the city. Apartment 701: The Museum of Peace; Museo del Paz. Pedro greeted us and started his tour as we gathered in the doorway to the apartment. "Welcome to one of seven apartment museums in Bogota," he said with a flourish. His energy swept us into the door.

The apartment was packed with all sorts of natural materials, kitsch and books in English and Spanish. He told us that the museum was organized in three sections: inspiration, innovation and transformation. We stood just inside the door in an area no bigger than 100 square feet. This is Inspiration. One wall from floor to ceiling was books in Spanish and English. He pulled one book off the shelf, Culture Matters, to recommend it to us and then quickly flipped back the whole wall of books like a closet door to reveal another layer of books behind it. On the back of the front section was a map that he explained was for a property outside of Bogota that he had just purchased and on which he hoped to establish his museum. Inspiration also included baskets of tree roots, seeds, and objects.

Innovation was the living room, another space of about 100 square feet with a couch and a large square coffee table. Spread out on the table, covering every inch, were a vast assortment of wind-ups toys, a gas pump handle, dolls, switches, mechanical toys, machine parts and other curiosities. Pedro talked to us and then decided it was time for dinner.

He asked if any of us were good cooks. "On a scale of 1 to 10?" "A nine!" Margot responded immediately. "Great! Then you are the head chef and here is your staff." He swept his hand in the direction of the other 16 of us. She confessed the next day that she thought he was joking when he declared her head chef and thought there was a dining room hidden somewhere in the apartment that was all set for dinner.

We started preparations for dinner with a tour through his kitchen, a small, but compact space. The counter was covered with cooking utensils and supplies; one corner was filled with wooden and clay bowls of many sizes and shapes each one holding local produce: roots, fruits, vegetables, and grains. Pedro named each item and described how it was cooked. He made sure to mention that the produce was organic, highlighting the irregularities of each piece.

Next he pulled open draws to display one whole drawer of spoons made from seed pods and wood, one drawer of metal utensils, one drawer of linens. He opened cabinets to reveal stacks and stacks of bowls and plates, all dark black mud. There were assorted pots including a pressure cooker and an oven that he turned on for us, but said he had no idea how to regulate the temperature to roast cauliflower. He never used the oven.

Everyone jumped in to help with peeling, chopping, mashing and cooking and the resulting meal, which we sat on the floor on pillows to eat, was a beautiful array of freshly made dishes; salad, plantains filled with guacamole, fresh roots all similar to sliced radishes or turnips, quinoa with tomatoes and onions, and potato salad. I was anxious to take photos and to write down the names of foods, but in the end I volunteered to stay by the stove and learned to make plantains and quinoa.

The evening included a slide show telling Pedro's story of an evolution from a corporate venture capitalist with McDonald's to the founder of a non-profit to benefit Colombia. The final room of the museum, Transformation, was a visit to his bedroom to see his original bed frame made from the roots of coffee trees. He let us lift a sample root and it was surprisingly heavy. We left at 10:45pm without time to help with dishes. There was a mysterious feel to the night somewhere between curiosity and fascination. I was reminded of Mary Poppin's visit to her Uncle's house with Michael and Jane. You didn't ask questions, but there were surprises at every turn.

Thursday
Our final visit to Sabio Caldas. We had presentations from students about all the extracurricular and club activities, a student performance that started in the cafeteria and ended outside in the vast courtyard. The courtyard has steps and a mountain and can hold the entire school, all 1040 students, at one time. During the performance period I arranged to visit the Transition A, 4-5 year olds. The teacher came to get me and walked me down to the classroom. The children, all 30+, were seated at tables coloring with colored pencils and crayons in coloring books; fairy tales, Peppa Pig, My Little Kitty. The teacher got their attention and introduced me as a visitor from America. As soon as the children said hi she left and said there were students who would be in the classroom. There were five high school students in charge.

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 lunchchapel

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. 

    Ride up to Sabio Caldas

Main center of the schoo3rd grade geography

9th grade chemistry

Ended the day at the Museo del Oro

Four most important resources in pre-Hispanic Colombia:

1. gold

2. corn

3. jaguars

4. coca leaf