Medellin, Colombia

I'd like to begin by saying that there is someone brilliant in Colombia. Someone in this country decided next week needs to be a vacation week for schools. Hats off to that brilliant person. I am not saying I need a break from the students or teaching, but I need a couple days to sleep in. As I have said more than once, school here begins at 6:30 every morning with daily prayer in the teachers' lounge (not to be confused with the teacher's lounge, as the sign next to the door says); on Saturdays, I have begun teaching a 2-hour English course to girls in 6th and 7th grade, which begins at 8:00 a.m; and church begins at 9:00 on Sundays. For most people those hours would not be a problem, but I rely on my one-day-a-week-sleep-in regiment. So this coming week I am going to do everything in my power to take advantage of the break.






Enough of that...Let's talk about Medellin. Medellin is a city in the interior of the country with approximately 3 million people, making it about twice the size of Barranquilla. It is a beautiful, clean, and organized city. It is called the "City of the Eternal Spring" due to the weather. The city began in a valley, and as it has grown it has spread to the surrounding hills. It's quite a site to see. My pictures do not do it justice. Sometimes people from Barranquilla feel like their city is the ugly step-sister to Medellin. For me, although Medellin is a much more beautiful city than Barranquilla, I would not trade it for Barranquilla because of the amazing people here. The people in Barranquilla are incredibly open. They may not be as polite or patient as the people from Medellin, but they are fun and loving. They have made me feel like one of their own.





So why am I writing about Medellin? A couple weeks ago (yes, I am that far behind) I had the awesome opportunity to go to ExpresArte at La Ensenanza in Medellin with some girls from the school, Ana Elisa, and Milagros Tejada (one of the teachers, who happens to be awesome). All of the Company of Mary schools in Colombia were invited (although one of them was a no-show) to partipate in the 4-day extravaganza. Every school brought one or more performance pieces to share. Some schools danced, some played music, some acted, etc. The 18 girls from here danced (actually 17 of the 18 danced). Their performance was definitely the best. They began with a traditional Cumbia that morphed into 3 other Colombian dances. At one point the girls ripped off their long skirts to reveal super-short skirts that allowed them to do an awesome Afro-Carribean dance. I was videotaping the 10-minute (yes, 10-minutes) dance for one of the girls, so I did not get any pictures of the dance in action. In all, there were over 200 students who participated. Since all but two of the Company of Mary schools in Colombia are all girls, there were only 6 boys out of the over 200 students.


When we weren't in performances, we were having other adventures. We were the first school to arrive, so we got a personal tour of the ginormous school campus. I actually got a personal tour from Isabel (the woman who visited a few weeks ago from Medellin who I went to lunch with). Before Medellin, I thought this school was big; now this one seems small. Not only does the school there have 30% more girls, it is on a property that is at least twice as large as this one. It has a veritable orchard as part of the campus and there are two separate convents. All of the visiting adults stayed on campus in some guest rooms next to one of the convents. The visiting students all stayed with families of girls from La Ensenanza in Medellin. The first night we were there, the girls waited anxiously for their host families to arrive. They were supposed to be picked up at 6:00, but I waited with the girls until almost 8:30 and Alejandra still hadn't been picked up. Fortunately, she got picked up shortly afterwards. I kept telling her there was room in the convent, but she didn't seem to want to take my offer.







The next day began with a mass in the morning in which the girls from here did a liturgical dance. I really liked it. Most of the girls danced with flags while two of the girls followed with the bread and the wine. I thought it was interesting and well-executed.












After mass, we all went to the Botanical Gardens in the city. Beautiful!!!! All of the students had name tags with different colored lanyards, which put them in groups. Milagros and I joined one group for the beginning of the day through lunch and another after lunch. The students from the different schools got to know each other, played games, ate lunch, and then had a scavenger hunt with activities. It was great fun. I actually missed the scavenger hunt part because I was talking to one of the English teachers from Medellin. It started raining while we were talking, so we took cover under some sun shades where I found Maria Alejandra and Claudia who were not feeling well. I hung out with them during the rest of the scavenger hunt. After the scavenger hunt and a group picture, we headed out of the gardens. A group of us stopped to take a couple pictures on a kiddy train and somehow we lost the rest of the group. We found 4-5 other stragglers and Sister Gaby, but we could not see any buses to take us back to the school. Fortunately, Sister Gaby called someone who said they were waiting for us at the Metro. (Medellin has a very nice above-ground metro.) After making a couple wrong choices in getting to the right platform, we finally met up with the group and made it back to school.




And now a little side note to illustrate how amazing the girls here are. As I have shared before, the students of El Bosque are some of the poorest of the city. As a Company of Mary school, they too were invited to the ExpresArte extravaganza. Because they really wanted to go, two girls from La Ensenanza (Angie and Julieth) volunteered to help them prepare for a performance in Medellin. Every Wednesday for months, Angie and Julieth went to El Bosque on a bus and spent the afternoon teaching the girls all about acting and performance. As for the performance, all I can really say is "WOW!" They did an incredible job. They created their own version of Cinderella, which included lip-synching and dancing. It was terrific!!! Angie's birthday was on Friday while we were in Medellin, so the girls bought a cake and surprised her. The smash-someone's-face-in-her-cake-tradition seems to be alive and well here.











That night the girls from here had their big performance. There were other groups who danced, as well, and several musical performances. Some of the performances were local teenage bands. The girls seemed to like them, but I couldn't understand a word they were saying and they were singing in English. After the performances ended, Ana Elisa, Milagros, Gaby and I sat around talking for quite a while. It was fun, but I probably should have been in bed.















The next day, there were several performances during the day, but we also spent about 3 hours going to "classes." Milagros and I chose a group to be with and we participated in all the classes, too. One class was on recycling. In one part there was skit in which Aura played a tree, and Maria Isabel and Milagros played recycle bins. After the skit, Vidrio, a big green recycling creature, visited the class. We sang and danced with him. We then went to a craft class where we made a macrame thing-a-majig. I kept messing mine up, so by the time class was finished mine was only about 1/2" long. It's sitting in my bedroom waiting to be finished. We then went to a class in which we made kites. The man who taught how to make the kites was quite funny. He also gave us all a cat's cradle string, but I couldn't remember how to do anything. After that class, we flew our kites. There wasn't really wind, but we ran around and pretended to fly the kites. Our next class was one in which we had to make up a commercial for some object we had on us. In my group there was a girl who had a bracelet that we decided could be a spiderman-type web slinger to allow people to climb walls. Our commercial was great because we sang and danced. We then went to a class where an extremely handsome (read: HOT) man taught us about music. He had us sing in rounds and in Latin and we all enjoyed it far too much because of him. I really wanted to take a picture of him, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without it looking like I was taking a picture of him. Naddia actually took a video of him while he was teaching. The last class was one in which we did a lot of moving. We played several games to get our hearts moving. In one of them we had to face someone and both of us would do a move. If our move was the same, we had to clap our hands together; if our move was different, we kept going. I was playing with Claudia and we had the same move six times in a row. It was funny, but scary that we kept doing the same move.




That night we had another evening of performances. This time, though, the rock bands were students from Company of Mary schools and their music was danceable. Unfortunately, that meant I was dragged onto the dancefloor. For the first time ever, I learned the basic Salsa dance step from Isabel, Mary Moli and Milagros and danced my own special version of Salsa. Of course, I have lead shoulders so I could do none of the shoulder moving, but I kind of got the hip part going. At one point, the band played a very 80s-type song and I got my skank on. Somehow, Andrea knew how to dance how I was dancing, so we had our own little dance party. I was having so much fun dancing, I was still dancing after most of the girls had left with their host families. Milagros stayed and danced with me, but she kept doing moves that were impossible for me, so I just laughed. It was a super fun night.

As is obvious, I had a wonderful time. The girls were amazingly fun. They all took care of me, making sure I knew where to go and had a group to go with, especially Valeria. I felt like she always had an eye out for me. We laughed a lot (sometimes at the wrong times - Natalia and Maria Isabel), played a lot, and got to know each other. I can't think of anything better than that. Everyone was extremely impressed with the girls' English, including one girl who kept staring at Claudia and me one evening while we were having a conversation. It was as if she couldn't believe we were actually speaking English.


I have to give props to a few more girls. Claudia, Maria Isabel, and Aura all had to sit next to me on different legs of the flights. Because they had to sit by me, they had to speak English the entire flight. All three of them kept up with me perfectly. Oh, and a shout-out to Mafe, Mary Moli, Aura, Claudia P, Claudia G, Natalia B, Maria Isabel, Valeria, Giannina, Alejandra, Naddia, Daniela, Andrea M, Adriana, Maria Alejandra M, Maria Alejandra F, Natalia C, Andrea G, Milagros, and Ana Elisa who showed me love the entire 4 days.

Love and Friendship Day

Somehow I am over two weeks behind on my blogging. I don’t how it happened, but here I am with many things I want to write about. As we all know, in the US we celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14. Well, did you know there is another holiday similar to Valentine’s Day, but the focus is more on friends than lovers? It’s called Love and Friendship Day, and it’s celebrated in Colombia on the Saturday closest to September 15. What a fun holiday it is!











Here at the school, the students in each class draw the name of a classmate who they will buy a gift for. They keep the name secret. The class decides the price limit and sometimes a theme. The week of the celebration, sometimes the students will give hints to their classmate about who their secret friend is. On the day before the actual celebration day, the school celebrates. And boy do they celebrate. Students roam the halls giving each other candy and gifts. I got more candy that day than some trick-or-treating years. Much of the candy I got was wrapped like a gift. At 10:30, the real celebration begins. School that day ends at 12:30, so for two hours all of the students come together for somewhat of a spirit assembly/dance contest. Before the talent portion, there is a game in which the grades compete against each other. The game this year was an obstacle course-type game with other various twists and turns. After the game comes the dance contest. Each grade (6-11) creates a themed dance routine with a variety of songs, costumes, and sometimes a little acting at the beginning and end of the dance. Watching the girls dance made me wish I were born with some Latin rhythm. The groups only practiced 2-3 days and they came up with amazing routines. Each year there is a winner of dance contest. Ninth grade won this year and they were extremely excited because they always lose to the girls who are currently in 10th grade. In actuality, I thought the 10th graders’ dance was better, but the 9th graders performance was better. The 9th graders had one girl dressed as a cowgirl, another dressed as a donkey, and the rest were dressed as the cutest cows I have ever seen; they had on black and white dresses with cows spots. Before they all started dancing, the donkey and the cowgirl had a cute little interaction while “You’ve got a Friend in Me” played. Then the cows came out of the circle they were in on the ground and started dancing. After the music ended, the cowgirl jumped on the donkey and rode away. Super duper cute!

One small negative was when I sat in a freshly chewed piece of gum. I was sitting on the ground enjoying the performances and I shifted to get more comfortable and felt a tug on my jeans. I felt my bottom and sure enough, I had a big wad of pink bubblegum stuck to the pocket of my jeans. I stood up to try and decide what to do when a nice 11th grader walked over to inform me that I had gum on my booty. Fortunately, I was next to the cafeteria, so I asked for a small bag of ice (in Spanish no less). I then stood watching the performances holding a bag of ice to my posterior. Gustavo was fascinated with the gum on my pants and my removal process, so we spent several minutes talking about and looking at my bottom. Each time I froze a portion of the gum, I removed it. Finally, with a frozen and wet bottom, I removed the final traces of the gum. Exito!!

Once the performances ended and the winners were announced, the DJ started playing dance music. Imagine some 400-500 girls dancing together and going crazy - that is the picture I saw. Somehow I got pulled onto the mayhem and found myself dancing like I was 15. Everyone who has seen me dancing knows it wasn’t pretty.
The English teachers also decided to “play” the secret friend game for Love and Friendship Day. I chose Kelly De La Hoz’s name. When we were talking about whether we wanted a gift theme, she said she wanted socks. Shockingly, I bought her socks. I got a cute black v-neck t-shirt from Lina (the new 7th grade teacher).
Because everyone had explained to me how important Love and Friendship day is to Colombians, I decided I better get something for the nuns. I know how much they love sweets, and especially Colombian sweets, so on Thursday Virna accompanied me to the city center where I could by some cheap authentic sweets. I went once before with Virna and Kelly, but this time I realized how much it is like Canal Street, Santee Alley, and the market in Chang Mai in Thailand. The difference, however, is that that this one is not as clean or organized. Virna’s brother was nice enough to drive us, but because it was raining and there were arroyos on the roads, he could only take us so far. We got out of the car and found a bicycle-taxi to take us to the stores. In Huntington Beach, it’s kind of cool to take a ride in a bicycle taxi. Here, it is the cheapest form of transportation. No one is taking it for any other reason than to get from one place to another. Once we got to the store, I chose what I wanted and paid for it. I was expecting to pay at least $5.00 for each nun, but I was able to get a container of candy for each nun (6 of them), a container for Virna, and an extra bag of candy. The grand total: $13.00. Colombia is awesome!!!! After making the purchases, we left to find a taxi. Because it had been raining, no taxis were available, so we took the bus. There are several bus companies that provide city service. It’s quite interesting. I don’t know exactly how anyone can tell which bus to take, but Virna knows and she got us on the right bus and we made it home safely. Whew!!!!

I must report that the nuns were all very surprised and pleased with their gifts. I am sad to report, however, that I totally forgot to get something for Amira (the wonderful cook) and Sely (the woman who mops my floor and cleans my bathroom every day). I will make amends at Christmas.





On Friday evening, I went to Mayra’s house where I joined her, Romina and Lili for pizza and lots of talking and laughing. We had a great time. Mayra is chatty, funny, and little crazy. Romina and Lili are perfect friends because they balance her with their calmness. In the pictures, Mayra is the one with the black ears, Romina has the devil ears, and Lili has the halo.

On Saturday, the actual Love and Friendship day, I hung out with Virna and Jose. It was nice.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

Just in case anyone is worried about whether I am having any fun, I thought I'd post about some of the diversionary activities I have enjoyed.

A couple Saturdays ago, I went to Gustavo's office to talk to him about something. Clearly it was such a pressing matter, I don't remember what it was. While I was there, he told me a friend of his named Isabela was visiting from Medellin and she and her friends were going to take him to lunch. He asked if I wanted to go, and I, of course, accepted. I probably shouldn't have because I was wearing a totally ghetto outfit, but I did. We went to a delicious Arab restaurant. Alex and his wife Veronica, the friends of Gustavo's friend Isabela, live in Barranquilla so they knew the restaurant and they knew what to order. My mom will be happy to know that one of the dishes they ordered was raw hamburger with spices. It was divine, and it totally reminded me of growing up. Sorry, tangential story here: Growing up, my mom would buy ground sirloin and eat it raw with plenty of salt. Because it was a special treat, most of my siblings and I loved to share it with her. It's been a while since I had it, but it still tasted as good as I remember. Along with the lunch being yummy, the company was great. Alex speaks the best English I've heard here. He told me he prefers speaking English to Spanish because it rolls off his tongue more easily. His wife agreed; she said he often gets tongue-tied when speaking Spanish. Funny! Isabela, the one from Medellin, works at the Company of Mary school there and Gustavo met her when he went to the meeting Srs. Cecilia and Elvira went to. She is a super nice girl. She taught Spanish in the US for one year, so she speaks English, too. When she speaks Spanish, she speaks extremely quickly, so quickly that they say she speaks in cursive. What an awesome saying. I know a few LP students who speak in cursive :). While we were eating, they started talking about how many Colombians love things from the US. One of the ways they show this is by giving their children a name of something from the US. A few examples include the children named Michael Jackson, Usnavy, Undollar, Rubbermaid, and Winstonsalem. Nice, huh! One other awesome thing they told me is that they call Alheimers The German Visitor.

Another fun thing I have done is get to know some friends of Gustavo. I believe I already wrote about his friend Jerianne and her husband Alex. He is a restauranteur who owns two restaurants. The first night I was here I ate in his casual restaurant. Since I have been here, he's invited me to his fancy restaurant 3-4 few times. His fancy restaurant is one of the nicest (if not the nicest) in the city. A couple Saturdays ago, there was a special Taste of Arab night at one of the snooty country clubs. Alex was cooking a dish for the evening, and he invited me. The evening was great fun and they food was fabulous. I truly believe Alex is a gifted chef. He knows how to combine foods and flavors in an amazing way. I went with Gustavo, and a couple of Alex's friends named ?? and ?? came too. Along with more food than I could eat, the evening included belly dancers and a live band.


I had my first outing with students last Friday night. I went to dinner and a movie with Luisa, Gina, and Paula. It was fab! Luisa's cute brother picked me up on the corner by the school and dropped the four of us off at Buenavista mall. We watched a movie there that didn't start until after 9:00 p.m. After the movie, we went to eat. Considering I am usually in bed between 9:00 and 9:30, it was a late night for me. At the restuarant, I ate a traditional costeno dish called chuzo de granado (I think). It was extremely tasty and unlike anything I have ever eaten before. It had chicken, beef, and chorizo with bollo limpia (a white corn roll that is kind of like the corn part of a tamale), french fried onions, and finely grated cheese. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it. I also neglected to take a picture of the girls I was with, so I included a picture of them from the retreat. They really are a lot of fun, although they laugh at every single word I say in Spanish. The two in the one picture, Luisa and Gina, have really taken me under their wing. They are not afraid of me at all, and they don't think I am breakable.


All of the English teachers in secondary school teach English classes on Saturdays at either a language learning center or a local university. Kelly and Virna teach at the local university and they asked me to come and talk to their students last Saturday. I agreed, of course, because I was curious about the program they are part of. I first went to Kelly's class, where I was greeted by 20 students from age 18-30ish. Kelly had had them write down questions for me before I arrived, so for 30 minutes the students asked me about me, CA, the US, English, my family, etc. It was great! They were extremely nice and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. I then went to Virna's class, which was downstairs one level. The students were cute and nice, but they seemed afraid to talk to me. About 3-4 asked me questions, but most of the questions came from Virna. The picture is of Virna's group.

Since Kellys also teaches there, we decided to go to lunch afterwards. Kellys husband Hans and Jose also joined us. We went to a Sancocho restaurant, which means it specializes in costena soups. Before we entered the restaurant, Kellys bought an avocado that we put in our soup. I had a super yummy soup, and I drank agua de panela for the first time. Agua de panela is a very popular drink here. It's basically water and brown sugar. It wasn't bad, but it tasted like water with brown sugar. It started raining while we were eating, and we stayed at the restaurant until it stopped raining because Kellys and Hans ride a motorcycle. Our lunch ended up lasting almost 3 hours, but it was great fun.




This past weekend was a student weekend, or so it played out to be. On Friday night I went with a group of nine ninth graders to a Mexican restaurant. I ordered a chicken and beef burrito. It was delicious, but it did not taste Mexican at all. The ingredients were rolled in a tortilla like a burrito should be, but the combination of ingredients gave no impression of Mexican food. I think it may have been because there was no tomato salsa and nothing to make it picante. The night was a lot of fun. The girls were very funny and we talked about many things. I am so impressed with the English of the girls here. They told the restaurant it was my birthday, so the waiters sang to me very loudly and brought flan and a scoop of ice cream with a candle. And to top it all off, the girls treated me to dinner.


On Saturday, I was supposed to go with Ana Elisa, Gustavo, and Jairo to Playa Mendoza where a family at the school has a beach house. In the morning I woke up to commotion in the hallway at the convent and I opened my door to find that the nuns were talking to Juana Maria through her door. They seemed to be pleading with her, so I got concerned. It turned out that Juana Maria had locked herself in her bedroom and she was refusing to come out. She didn't go out for morning prayer and she didn't go out for breakfast. Unfortunately, the convent only has one key per room, so they couldn't just open her door. When I asked Ana Elisa what was going on, she told me Juana Maria was acting crazy, probably because her medication was off. Because of the issue with Juana Maria, when the family arrived to take us to the beach Ana Elisa didn't feel like she could go. Gustavo and I, therefore, headed to the beach with Hector (Dad) and Maria Fernanda (Mafe) (10th grader). Along the way, we met up with Jairo who was in a car with a couple friends. When we got to the beach house, I was so impressed. The property is beautiful! It's a nice house with a pool, a patio, and a play yard. After a few minutes there, Gustavo told me that one of the guys who Jairo had come with was actually a friend of his and this friend had come from Bogota to spend time with him. He then asked me if I wanted to go with him, Jairo and the other two men to a different beach or if I wanted to stay with Mafe. After I wiped the surprised look off my face, as I thought we were all spending the day at the family's beach house, I said I would like to hang out with Mafe. I told her, though, that she could say no since I am her teacher and she didn't really invite me. Fortunately for me, she said it would be fine for me to hang out with her. We had a wonderful day together. After only having been at the beach house for about 30 minutes, we headed back to the city. We went to Mafe's beautiful home in the city where I got a tour of her house and met her nice bulldog name Juana. Yes, the bulldog was actually sweet and cute, if a bulldog can be cute. Hector had to go to work, so he dropped us off at a Cuban restaurant. He suggested I try the seafood plate, so I did. Wow! It was excellent. I have never thought of myself as a seafood lover, but this was amazingly fresh and light and yummy. After lunch we went back to Mafe's house and watched a recording of the stage version of Rent. (Yes, I actually found a student who likes musicals.) When her dad got home from work, Mafe's friend Gina (also a 10th grader from school) came over and we went to Buenavista Mall. We had some time before the movie started, so we went to City Park, an arcade. We played a couple games and rode on the bumper cars. It was actually fun. We decided to eat before the movie, so we went the food court where we ate KFC. The order came with plastic gloves to wear while eating the chicken. Brilliant! I had never seen that before, so I had to take a picture. After the movie, the escalators were really crowded, so we decided to walk down the stairs. Somehow, Gina slipped on a stair and she went sliding down the stairs on her bottom. I know I should have been concerned about her welfare but it was so funny to watch, I found myself on the ground laughing hysterically. I was laughing so hard, I had tears streaming down my face. Gustavo, Jairo, and their two friends walked up while I was laughing, and I am sure I looked horrific. I then felt bad about laughing, but Gina assured me she was fine. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!




The next day, I went with Luisa, Gina, and Stephany to a restaurant on the Magdalena River to eat a typical fish meal. I ordered an entire deep fried fish with coconut rice and patacon (something made from plantains). It was delicious and fresh, and not fishy at all. Luisa insisted on popping the eyeballs out of the fish, so I insisted on putting a slice of cucumber over the empty eye sockets. The girls generously paid for my lunch, and it wasn't a cheap lunch. After lunch, we decided to go to El Museo del Caribe. What an amazing museum! I don't even know how to describe the museum other than to say it is high-tech and totally interactive. The museum is all about the Caribbean land, people, culture, music, and food. I will definitely being going back again. The one picture from inside the museum is in a teepee of one of the native indigenous peoples. I was so fascinated by the museum that I bought myself a t-shirt. It is a t-shirt that is covered in Caribbean words. I figure once I know what all the words mean, I'll actually speak English. It was still early when we left the museum, so we went to Luisa's house (which is another beautiful home) and watched a movie and then played X-Box. I, of course, didn't want to play because I am so bad at video games. I ended up playing two rounds of a car racing game. I won one round, but I am sure that is because Luisa let me win. It really had an amazing day with some fabulous girls.

Then, on Monday of this week, I accompanied the primary English teachers to an ice cream parlor. We hadn't had a chance to get to know each other outside of school, so we decided to have an afternoon snack. Libia, the 4th and 5th grade English teacher, was planning on having her baby Wednesday, so we went to eat ice cream on Monday. Kelly and Norah are the other two teachers in the picture. They teach 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade English. Maria Claudia, the other English teacher was unable to join us. I really enjoyed spending time with the teachers outside of school. They are all wonderful women.

Vamos a la Playa

Does anyone remember that song from many years ago in which the group sang, "Vamos a la playa, oh oh oh oh oh"? For some reason, that song and La Bamba are the only two songs in Spanish I can ever remember. The reason I bring that up is because there is an extremely poor community on the outskirts of Barranquilla called La Playa that I visited last week.

In an earlier post when I talked about Shakira's school, I mentioned that the girls at La Ensenanza do service hours in the community. I didn't realize until a couple days ago what that really meant. Most, if not all, of the girls in grades 6-11 participate in something called Companeras de Santa Maria. Every other Friday afternoon, alternating groups get on buses and go to the poorest communities in the city and work with people. On the weeks they do not go to a neighborhood, they meet and discuss social issues and what they can do to make a difference. When they actually leave campus, some groups help children with school work, some groups play with the children, and some groups work with the elderly. Last Friday, I accompanied a group of 10th graders who work with about 30-40 elderly people at La Playa. Usually, the girls will bring crafts for the people to do, or activites that will keep their minds active. Friday, though, the girls decided they wanted to throw a party for the elderly. It was awesome! The girls all chipped in money and paid for the cafeteria to make a chicken with rice and vergetable dish and pasteries filled with a cheese and spices mix. They also brought Coke to drink. Before the food was served, the girls had the people play charades. It was so cute. The girls then served the food, and while the people ate the girls turned on music and gave out prizes. They would say things like, "Name an aquatic animal," and whoever guessed the animal got a prize. Then the party really started...The girls pulled out party hats, sombreros, masks, and whistles and passed them out. They pulled out two drums and a long metal can filled with beads and began playing. The elderly heard the music and came alive. It was incredible! I took several pictures from a porch next to where they were dancing, but then I was pulled into the mix. Next thing I knew, I was dancing a cumbia (Let's be honest here. I wasn't really dancing because I don't do that so well, but I was smiling and pretending to do what they were doing.) with a man who is probably 80+ years old. He was a terrific dancer. The girls told me I also did another traditional Colombian dance, but that's debatable. Either way, I had a fabulous time. By the time I was finished dancing, I way drenched with sweat. We then jumped back on the bus to return to school. There were about 20 more people on the bus than there should have been, so I shared a seat with two girls, and some of the teachers sat on the ground. Kellys, one of the awesome English teachers, stood right next to the bus driver. The final picture is of her.

I think the most impressive thing of all to me was the joy in the eyes of the girls as they interacted with the elderly. I did not see one girl without a smile on her face or a willingness to participate. What an amazing opportunity for the girls to open their minds and hearts to people who not as fortunate as them.