En Barranquilla No Me Quedo

I found out on Thanksgiving Day that I will be spending the next two years here in SANTA MARTA! I feel so lucky, and it certainly gave me a lot to be thankful for on such a wonderful day. In addition to finding out our posts, we celebrated with a traditional Thanksgiving feast complete with turkey, stuffing, "American Pie" as the grocery store put it, and plenty of veggies. Although I was far from home and missing our annual Thanksgiving celebration (Puerto Rican-style) it felt great to be with the whole Peace Corps family to give thanks for all our blessings.


Touring the Metropolitan Stadium in Barranquilla


Costal slang wall at the Caribbean Museum


Tomorrow, I'm traveling to Santa Marta to visit my school and to get to know my counterparts. It'll be my first time outside of Barranquilla and I'm really excited to get to see more of the coast. Classes have already let out for Christmas break, but the teachers are still working, finishing up administrative tasks before they take off for vacation as well. I met my main counterpart, Alfredo, today and he is delightful. His English is perfect, and he seems to have a great outlook on teaching. I've already written a little bit about Santa Marta but in case you missed it, it's beautiful. Santa Marta is known for it's gorgeous beaches surrounded by a mountain range called Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. It's the world's highest coastal mountain range. There are a number of national parks surrounding the area that provide excellent opportunities to hike, climb, dive, and bird watch. I can't express how happy I am that I get to call such a paradise home for the next two years. Hopefully I can take some pics of my own soon to add to this bunch.


Santa Marta


The experience of a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia is very different to the experiences of most other volunteers around the world. Due to the fact that we are just starting up and security concerns, Peace Corps currently only operates in three cities along the Caribbean coast: Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Santa Marta. We work and live in urban areas. This means, water, electricity, washing machines, fridges, and most of the "luxuries" you would find in a house in the United States. This differs greatly from the rural experience that many Peace Corps volunteers have. Barranquilla is a city that has Zara, fancy clubs, trendy restaurants and Carrefour, none of which we can afford. And this is exactly what will make our experience challenging. While we are living in a place where we could replicate lives similar to ours at home, our humble living allowance prevents us from doing so. I've heard various staff refer to it as "urban temptation" and boy is it tempting. But I must stay, I don't mind having running water and wifi one bit.

On a slightly different note, I recently discovered the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy and it is officially on top of my list of places to visit in Colombia. Who's coming with me?


Sierra Nevada del Cocuy

Arroyo Peligroso

This past weekend in Barranquilla was awesome. If it was any indication as to what the next two years here will be like then I'm very happy. I made it to "el centro" on Saturday for the first time, which is where all the markets are, selling everything from meet and fish to radios and batteries. I was in awe of all the fruit and vegetable stands and how cheap they all were. You can get 10 bananas for 1000 pesos, which is roughly 50 cents. You'll probably find me there every weekend buying my fill fruits and veggies for the rest of the time I'm in Barranquilla. Now would probably be a good time to introduce to you the wondrous "arroyos" that occur here. When it rains in Barranquilla there are no storm sewers for the rainwater to drain into. Instead, the rainwater rushes down the streets creating river-like rapids called arroyos, which completely paralyze the city. I'm yet to see a really big one but I've seen pictures of arroyos that wash away cars and busses, and they say if you get caught in one you'll wash straight to the Rio Magdalena to die…in other words, if it's raining and you approach an arroyo, you best stay put and wait the storm out. I guess right before we arrived at el centro it had rained because when we got there there were still some small arroyos. As they taper off, the water is still a few inches deep, safe to cross, but nasty. In order to cross the street without having to step in the icky water, some clever folks have made a business out of placing wooden steps in the street that you can use to cross for a nominal fee. This really amused me, and kept me from fearing I would contract giardia from the dirty water.

We had planned on going to a music festival Saturday afternoon but it was so hot that standing in the sun listening to blasting reggaeton was not on top of my list. On Saturday night we went to a culture landmark in Barranquilla, if you will. "La Troja" is a salsa club in town where people GET. DOWN. People I spoke to about it had talked it up, telling us how it was the best place to learn to dance salsa quickly. I had envisioned a place reminiscent of a scene out of West Side Story; dark, red lights, live music, the works. No. La Troja is nothing more than a large open corner tienda with an awning, tons of people dancing in between the tables and a row of street vendors selling "mondongo" (read: cow intestine) across the street ready to receive late night revelers. It was so much fun and it certainly lived up to its reputation. The place was so crowded that the masses spilled onto the street, so it essentially became a giant street party with lots of Aguila, salsa music and dancing. After begging the street vendors to sell me a plate of potatoes WITHOUT the mondongo with no success, we went to another salsa club call "Mi Barrio" down the street and danced our little hearts out until 4am.

Carlos, the iguana

A picture of an arroyo in Barranquilla I got off google images

A few member of our group at La Troja

Prado Mar

On Sunday we got a super late start but managed to make it to the beach by around 3pm. We went to a beach called Prado Mar, about 30 minutes outside of Barranquilla. I thought it was perfect. Such a wonderful escape from the crazy city and perfect place to catch some rays. The beach is unlike any I've ever been to. It was lined with cabanas made of palm leaves where you can grab beer or hang out in the chairs. It was so nice to wind down after a long week of training (and night of salsa). I definitely want to try and make it out every weekend as long as I'm in Barranquilla. There are 5 or 6 beaches along the coast that are pretty close so I look forward to exploring all the different ones and finding my favorite.

This week we're doing our field practicum, where we spend all day observing and planning lessons with teachers and then teach a few lessons by the end of the week. Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.

We're teaching English...for Livelihood

Since last time I wrote training has gotten a lot more interesting. We've started getting out of the classroom and visiting schools. It's been great to break up the monotony of sitting in one classroom all day at the Centro Cultural Colombo Americano, where the most exciting thing we experience all day are iguana sitings. Actually, I really like seeing the iguanas. I don't think I'll ever get bored of that.

Last week was Bilingualism Week here in Barranquilla and we visited a couple schools for a cultural exchange. Maybe I should start by giving you some background as to why Peace Corps is here in Colombia. The former President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, passed a law called "Plan Nacional de Biliguismo", which sets the goal of converting all public schools in Colombia to be fully bilingual in instruction by 2019. Considering that the vast majority of English teachers struggle with English themselves, this is an ambitious goal. Nevertheless, the fact that Colombia recognizes the need to teach its youth the global language is a step in the right direction. By the request of the Colombian government, Peace Corps has returned after a 20 year absence to help with this initiative. All the volunteers in Colombia, including myself, are "TEL" (Teaching English for Livelihood) volunteers and will train teachers in public schools in lesson planning, TEFL techniques, and helping them with their language skills as well. The Department of Education put on its 3rd (??) Bilingualism Week to promote bilingualism and 'reward' schools that were taking steps towards bilingual education. A few schools were selected to receive volunteers and take part in a cultural exchange. We prepared a short presentation, answered questions, and they showed us typical Colombian dances, food, and told us all about their famous carnival. For those of you who don't know, Barranquilla's carnival is considered the best carnival in the world after Rio's, of course. It was an amazing experience and I was so happy to finally be able to visit a school and witness the steps being taken to improving foreign language instruction in Colombia.


"Girls dancing cumbia at Javier Sanchez"

"Halls at Pies Descalzos"

"Shakira mural. Note: all the lip stick marks on her neck."
This week all the volunteers were paired up with a response volunteer so we could shadow them for a day and get a taste of what out lives will be like for the next two years. Volunteers are placed in Cartagena, Santa Marta and here in Barranquilla. Most everyone wants to be placed in Santa Marta with its pristine beaches or Cartagena, known for it's romantic colonial Spanish town. Barranquilla is an industrial port, not very attractive, and far from the beach. We played a fun little game similar to deal or no deal to reveal where we'd be sent this week (except for there was no deal to be made…). I was lucky enough to be chosen to… stay here in BARRANQUILLA! At first I was really disappointed, but so far it's been great. I was assigned to Pies Descalzos, which is a public school built by Shakira and it is incredible. It's a beautiful school located in La Playa, which is a town outside of Barranquilla that is very poor. It's amazing to see such a state of the art facility with so many resources built for children who would have otherwise been given very little opportunity. I'm glad I was able to stay in Barranquilla because I'm getting over a cold and was able to acquaint myself more with the city. I feel like I have a better lay of the land and was able to explore the crazy bus system. I also found out from one of the response volunteers here in BAQ that there are indoor pools here in Barranquilla -- something my host family insisted did not exist -- so that pretty much made my week.

Pretty excited for the weekend because we are going to a music festival (from what I understand) and then heading to a salsa club. Pray I don't make a fool of myself like I did last time. At least I'll have other gringos on hand to share the humiliation with this time around.

Miss you!

Carla