Swim Camp

I woke up early Monday to cut huge sheets of styrofoam into little rectangles.  I was attempting to make kick boards for the campers, but with my lack of fine motor skills and a dull machete they came out looking more like pentagons.  However, I now had bigger problems as I was late to meet the campers in front of the elementary school.  So I left the house in a brisk power walk, sweat running down my neck, with all of those annoying little styrofoam scraps and balls still on the ground to clean later.

I ended up arriving at the school only 5 or so minutes late, but much to my surprise there were already seven students waiting.  So for the first time in my Peace Corps service and maybe the history of Peace Corps Colombia, students turned up to an event before the volunteer!!!  Once at the beach we split up into groups:  tiburónes (sharks), estrellas del mar (sea stars), cabballitos del mar (sea horses), and delfínes (dolphins) and hit the waves with our pentagonal floating devices.

Rule # one: Never put your head under the water.  Yah, that lasted about 5 minutes.  The majority of the campers were fearless and were flailing about, most definitely terms to get disqualified in any given stroke, before we spoke about floating on ones back.  It was obvious the kids loved it and I was astonished by the high retention rate.

“Great sucess”

-Borat     

Kick, Kick, Kick

Again, "Don't put your head under water"

MVP of the week! 

Una Hora Sin Basura

After going through the VERY long and sometimes tedious process of writing my first grant, I have finally received the money--YAY!  Months ago when I first started discussing project ideas with my counterpart (local High School art teacher, Environmentalist, Neighbor, and amateur donkey whisperer) we both agreed that getting the community involved in the ‘good fight‘ was vital to the project's success.  Thus hatched the idea, one hour without garbage (Una hora sin basura)

I barley slept on Friday night because I was so nervous no one would show up.  Now this is a legitimate fear of mine because there is so much pena in this community that when asked a question about attendance, “no” doesn’t exist.  That means “yes” is a maybe and a “possibly” means sorry compa‘ but I have other things to do or novelas to watch.  Luckily, all of those phone calls to remind the group members of the event paid off because nearly  50 participants (and a few fellow Peace Corps Cartagena Volunteers) showed up ready to do some serious garbage pickup.  

Dressed in our brand new, now sweated through, matching shirts we hit two major plazas and cleaned those suckers up real nice.  Simultaneously the megaphone man, not sure he has another name, drove around the town asking everyone not to litter from the hour of 10:00-11:00am; Much like he had the previous two days.  As the noon sun crept overhead, we decided to finish the activity up by walking around town and asking store owners if we could hang up environmentally themed posters outside for the public to see.  

Getting help from all ages

This kid thought it was BYOB (Bring your own bird).

The signs going up.

The Clean up Crew.

  

Winter is Only a State of Mind

My alarm sounded at 8:30 this morning and I woke up feeling guilty, like I needed to be somewhere.  It took me a minute to remember that school was out and all of the students are now on vacation until early February.  For me this means I need to change my mindset and start using a “winter” break state of mind.  For us Peace Corps english teachers this can mean a few different things.  One thing is for sure though, almost everyone will somehow be involved in a camp.  Over past breaks volunteers have held tons of camps involving numerous sports, team building exercises, and gender issues.  

Form the week of December 9th through the 13th I am going to be teaching one of my 3rd grade classes how to swim, with the help of a few good PC friends.  The idea all started in class, about a month ago, when my counterpart and I were teaching I like and I don’t like with sports.  One student said, “I lie eh-swiming.”  Than another admitted that she didn’t know how to eh-swim so I took a quick poll and to my surprise more than 90% of the class, including Gerledis who just said he lied eh-swiming, didn’t know how to eh-swim.  So after handing out a permission slip, we are ready for 5 days of eh-swiming lessons.  I am currently in the process of making kickboards out of styrofoam. 

For the rest of break I will be hard at work on the grant supported Mi Boquilla Florece project.  The goal is to finish the tree nursery before school starts up again.  Also we now have a symbol and a big event this Sunday so I will be back with more updates soon!

The design a 10th grade student made for the Mi Boquilla Florece environmental group