El Bosque

If you don't know, and I sure didn't, El Bosque means Forest. On Friday I went to El Bosque with Yvette. Yvette is the principal of the Company of Mary school in El Bosque. She is working on her Master's degree in Medellin, so she has a two year leave, but everyone knows her as the principal of the school. She is the youngest sister I have met. She must be about 35.

A little back history: When I was offered this opportunity, I was told I would work in the rich school four days a week and in the poor school in El Bosque on Fridays.





As everyone knows, rich and poor are relative, but my version of poor could not even touch the level of poverty I saw in El Bosque. But, as is often (always) true, the people were lovely to me. Before we left the nuns' house in El Bosque, Yvette had me put only my camera and an umbrella in a smaller bag and leave everything else at the convent. She told me she would act as my passport to the community, so we walked through the neighborhood and stopped to say hello to many of her neighbors. She explained that if the people saw me with her and met me, they would be more likely to protect me than hurt me. (Should that have given me comfort?) One of our stops was to the home of a woman who is a leader in the community. She has helped get daily breakfast for 80 students at the Company of Mary school and is working on getting it for 80 more. The first picture is of this particular woman and her family with Yvette. The second picture is of the woman standing in the road next to her house. She and her husband built their house literally one brick at a time. It is not yet finished, as you can see in the picture (It's the house on the left with open brick.) The husband just lost his job and has no prospects, so they will move in with her family and rent out their home. I have to admit that I wondered who would pay to rent their home. As we continued walking through the neighborhood, though, my question was answered. Some of the homes were nothing more than discarded boards and materials put together to create shelter. I am sure living in a brick home, completed or not, would be a welcome change for some of the people living there. At one point we stopped to talk to some men. Yvette told me not to take out my camera, although I must admit I wasn't even tempted to. She later explained that one of the men had just gotten out of prison and she wasn't sure whether he would want to have his picture taken. Speaking of prison, El Bosque surrounds a prison. Most prisons I have seen have open area around them, but this was happily surrounded by homes and people. When we walked by the school, I noticed it had something written in large letters on one of the outside walls. Next time I'm there I'll take a picture of it, but it said something like, "This school is a place of peace." I thought that was a sweet thing to write on the school wall and something befitting most schools...That is until Yvette explained it was meant to remind the community that they needed to leave their violence outside the school walls. Not only is El Bosque the poorest neighborhood, it's one of the most violent. I don't know if I'm ready to come out of my bubble. This is all too real and sad. By the way, I hope it's obvious from the pictures that El Bosque is far from being a forest.









After our visit to El Bosque, Yvette, Anita (another nun from El Bosque), and I went to a neighborhood called La Paz. I guess La Paz is a step up from El Bosque, but still extremely poor. There is an order of nuns who follow San Camilo who live there along with a priest named Fr. Cirilo. They have built an amazing complex for the retired community in La Paz. It is beautiful. Currently they are building a library and community center for anyone in the community. They also built and run a school for children with physical and mental disabilities. There are a few pictures of the community center and library, and of the Last Supper, Carribean style. Pretty cool, I'd say. The last three pictures are of a sculpture by a famous Colombian artist who donated the sculpture to the center. It is of an indigenous woman carrying her baby on her back. The baby is dead and the mother is standing on a mine with footprints. The footprints represent the number of indigenous people who died from mines that were strategically placed to rid the country of its own people. (I wonder why so many countries have worked so hard to rid themselves of the indigenous peoples.)

We then went back to El Bosque and spent some time with another influencial woman in the community who actually built a school for the children in El Bosque. She did such a good job, the government is tripling the size of the school. She is also in the process of building a community center. I wish I had taken a picture of her. She was awesome.

I am sure I could continue with many more boring details, but today was the first day of school and I am beat. I'll write all about the first day of school tomorrow, but right now I need to lie down.