Colombia Weeks 1-6 from Maddie!

Peace Corps Training

Hey friends!

Greetings from Colombia!

My host dad and a neighbor’s kid peeling frijoles (beans) for 5 hours yesterday.

Man, it takes a village. I sent this to just over 70 people, and it’s only my first email. Each and every one of you has helped me in more ways than I could ever begin to explain. From talking me through leaving, lending me “professional clothes", gifting me journals, seeing me up until the second I left for the airport, for checking in on me- thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so lucky to have the most amazing people around me.

I am really excited to have a way to tell everyone in detail what’s going on - because honestly, life here is pretty damn overwhelming. Living here has been a rollercoaster of emotions. I am so incredibly content, but it's really hard to be the center of attention and have all eyes on you. Walking down the street, I’ll get a cacophony of different “polopos” (cat calls). They range from “Gringa” (white person) to “Gringa hermosa” (Beautiful white person) to “ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5” ( people just shouting random English words). At first I was extremely uncomfortable - I would find an hour at 5:30pm where I could run, as the heat would be down to 93 degrees, and I would immediately be hit with attention (and heat) just trying to go a mile. Back in Hawaii, Colorado, Korea, my runs were a time I could zone out, throw on my music, and coast without having to talk to anyone. Now, I have to be ultra aware of my surroundings and what people are saying. I can’t take my phone because 1. My host dad won’t let me and 2. I don’t want to get it stolen, even though I don’t imagine that would happen in my small town, but you never know. Although it’s gotten easier to be the center of attention, it is still hard to know all eyes are on you. Every day it gets easier, and I’m starting to see the beauty in people being so interested in the present moment and what is going on around them. In the states, people won’t stop to look you in the eye. Here everyone is interested in the happenings.

It’s funny - because if you ask me on a good day, I’m beaming. I’m so happy and everything is great. You get me on a hard day - when we haven't had water for 2 days, I’m hot, I don’t understand anything that’s happening in my house, everyone is staring at me…. then I’m struggling. Every day I don’t know what day I’m going to get.

Everything is harder - and I’ll use the example of the buses. Coming from the US, there is a schedule online, printed, everywhere. You know when to expect the bus. Here, it is all word of mouth. I know when the bus is “supposed to come” because that’s what my host parents tell me. If I didn’t have them, I would have no way of knowing when they would come. There's no bus schedule, not a real place to get the bus. There is also no real bus stops - which if I’m being honest, is kind of nice. If you are anywhere along their route, they will stop. They will also stop anywhere you need, in the specific spot. It makes the journey a lot longer, but it is sort of convenient. The buses are also PACKED to the brim. Like, the subways in Korea packed. But like with chickens.

 Everything is out of my control. It’s humbling to be thrown into a rhythm where you have to accept you know absolutely nothing. You have to give up every thought you thought was certain, and reframe your mind.

Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past two weeks!

• I’ve been taking classes de baile. We are learning salsa and bachata. Our dance instructor is amazing, and goes very slow for us “gringos.” I’m not, nor ever have been, a good dancer, but it’s the only time I can really work out because it is so hot here. The hour and a half of moving my body has been a godsend, and keeping me sane. I’ve had to throw out my daily running and hiking habit, but it’s nice to not have access to your usual routine - this, is where there is growth and room for learning new skills!

• Our cohort went to a finca (farm) this past week. The finca is owned by “SENA” SENA is a national nonprofit which helps people that don’t have the fund to get certain technical degrees. There are classes in tourism, gastronomy, aviation, agriculture, coding, english, and more. This Finca is where students learn how to grow their own food, and learn agriculture practices, like with cows and goats.

☀️ Stories of the week

• For training, we have had to interview different entrepreneurs in our community. Luckily, my host sister has her own business. She sells earrings, bracelets, and hair pieces for little girls. It is really cool to talk to her, and it’s made me realize really how easy it is to have a business. Here, most of the businesses are informal, and they exist on the informal market. Because of this, this income is not in their GDP or documented anywhere.60% of employment is in the informal economy. I find that a lot of women have these jobs, because it is easier to raise kids when you have an informal job. 

• I also talked to another woman who was super crafty. In the town where I am training, there is a huge ceramic community. These people make things like vases, places, and bowls. But, what was lacking was people to paint these pieces once they went in the oven. She created a business based on this need, and sold her first piece to a woman in Cartagena. After this, her business grew super fast. 

• I’ve been eating a lot of “corrientes.” Like in a lot of countries, lunch is the biggest meal. Here, the standard lunch is: Rice, some type of meat, some beans, a bit of lettuce with maybe a tomato, and SOUP. Thank god. You also usually get some sort of fruit juice.

  

   Corriente with my host dad in my pueblo

☮️ Peace Corps Update

So far, I’m pretty impressed with Peace Corps. 

For context, I am still in training - and will be for another month. I’ll be in my current host family for another month, then we are whisked away to a town either in the Andes or on the coast, to live with another family for 2 years. During training, all 21 members of our cohort live in 4 different towns- pueblos- which are relatively small and rural, each with about 20,000 people in a very small area. They are all 20-60 minutes apart from each other, which will not be the case when we are in our “permanent sites.” During training, we have language classes every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, in the midst of the heat of the day in 100 degree 100% humidity weather. In jeans. Outside. AC is very incommon here. That has been really hard, as even after living in Hawaii, I am not used to this at all. Not even the people from here are used to it - the heat is usually the conversation of the day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we are with the “big group” of all 21 of us. The first half of training we learned what everyone does in the Peace corps groups - medical training, safety and security training, sexual assault training, dating and relationshops, and general courses. Now that we are getting into technical  training, we are now learning about development and different “tools'' we can use to identify what a community may need. The Peace Corps is infamous for being controversial in the way they have done development in the past. They have now completely changed the way they look at development and implement community led approaches. What this means is that for the first 3 months in our site, we can’t do any work at all. Our job at this time is to simply talk to people and get to know our community. From here, we identify people who want to start projects, and we co-facilitate. We only help with projects that can continue after we leave. In training, we learned a story, which I want to share with you, mostly because I think it’s funny. It’s a Ted Talk, and I urge you to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM

Here is the premise, from a man who works at an an Italian NGO. Basically, he was tasked with going to Africa and bringing new vegetables to a hungry village. 

Our first project, the one that has inspired my first book, “Ripples from the Zambezi,” was a project where we Italians decided to teach Zambian people how to grow food. So we arrived there with Italian seeds in southern Zambia in this absolutely magnificent valley going down to the Zambezi River, and we taught the local people how to grow Italian tomatoes and zucchini and … And of course the local people had absolutely no interest in doing that, so we paid them to come and work, and sometimes they would show up. And we were amazed that the local people, in such a fertile valley, would not have any agriculture. But instead of asking them how come they were not growing anything, we simply said, “Thank God we’re here.” “Just in the nick of time to save the Zambian people from starvation.”

And of course, everything in Africa grew beautifully. We had these magnificent tomatoes. In Italy, a tomato would grow to this size. In Zambia, to this size. And we could not believe, and we were telling the Zambians,“Look how easy agriculture is.”When the tomatoes were nice and ripe and red, overnight, some 200 hippos came out from the river and they ate everything.

And we said to the Zambians, “My God, the hippos!”

And the Zambians said, “Yes, that’s why we have no agriculture here.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You never asked.”

I thought it was only us Italians blundering around Africa, but then I saw what the Americans were doing, what the English were doing, what the French were doing, and after seeing what they were doing, I became quite proud of our project in Zambia.

Because, you see, at least we fed the hippos.

Basically,  Peace Corps is trying to refrain from us having a white savior complex, because a lot of “development” is people thinking they know better than others. Which, in this story, the Italians helping the Zambians never asked if they even wanted help, or what they would need help with. That’s why we only help with projects that can carry on without us, and are brought to us by locals. We don't have any predestined ideas or projects. 

📖Reading

Harry Potter in Spanish. I’m on page 66. I've been “reading” this for 5 months now. 

🎬 Watching

Queer eye! New season out. This makes me so happy. 

This is water- this is a speech my best friend who I met here, showed me. It’s about enjoying the everyday mundane-ness of life. 

🎧Listening

Been jamming out to Taylor Swift, for some reason she is very grounding. My friend Victoria who lives in my training town and I will play her songs on her guitar, and it’s a very good way to chill out for a bit. 

🔍A new word I like using

Vaina: This word means anything. “Hay mucha vaina!” (There’s so many things!”)

“Este vaina!” (This thing!) Basically it's just a word that can replace any word you want. 

🌟Quote to inspire

“Wherever you go, there you are”

This has been one of my favorite quotes for a while now. We went to a group of 11th graders at the school to interview them, and the volunteer who works there uses a weekly quote in English to help get their wheels spinning. We put this up. “Donde quiere que vayas, ah estas ” We asked them what they thought of it, and they did really good:

-No matter where you go, you have to be happy with who you are

-Your environment doesn’t change your character

-Being completely present on where you are in that exact moment

😂Funny thing of the week 

It’s freaking hot here. Like, hot hot. It’s more than 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity, but the real feel gets up to 110. I really didn’t know it ever got this hot anywhere. This is a whole new ball game. The crazy thing is that everyone wears jeans and long shirts. Even crazier are the “campesinos" that go and harvest fruit and vegetables in the heat, with their hands and barely any equipment. Anyway, for some odd reason, the people here think if you open the freezer when it’s really hot that it will change your face shape. I don’t really understand, but every time I open the freezer, my host mom yells and says my face will be like this “enter a face that looks like a zombie.” In Korea, they also thought that if you closed the window and door and had a fan on in your room, you would suffocate. So I don’t really know where these things come from, but everyone believes them because no one wants to try. Ha. 

📸Photos of the Week

🙏Shoutouts

• To Dillon and Anna-(for those you don't know, are two of my friends in Hawaii) - Dillon gave me a “5 year journal” where you answer a question every day on the same day for 5 years. If you know me, you know I don't sit still for 5 minutes. This journal has helped me make an actual effort to think and reflect. Anna also gave me a reflection journal - with prompts- that has given me an outlet to reflect and think deeper as well.

• Dillon again- he has helped me tremendously - and I honestly don’t think I would have left for the Peace Corps if I didn’t meet him.He did Peace Corps in Nepal, and his stories of loneliness, self love, sadness, happiness, and every emotion in between motivated me to take on this challenge. The first time I ever met him formally, he wrote me a Pro and Con list, and went through the whole tings with me. He was brutally honest, and the honesty is what motivated me to continue down this path. He told me the story of the alchemist- a sheep farmer who meets a genie, and the genie says you can come with me to find gold in Egypt ot stay a sheep farmer. The alchemist has to decide whether it’s a good idea to leave everything he has built - he has worked for years to create his sheep farm. Eventually he leaves to find gold. I don't remember if he found it, but I don’t think that’s the point.Dillon explained that you can always come back to what you know, but you won’t always have the opportunity to find gold in Egypt. You don't always have the opportunity for the journey. 

• Taylor- my friend from Colorado - Taylor did Peace Corps in Peru, and had to evacuate at the same time as DIllon. His experience was way different than Dillons, but his pro and cons seemed to be wildly similar- loneliness, sickness, depression, but also notes the peace corps has been the best thing he will never do again.

• Jen- for helping me write these emails, gifting me this outline, and being so supportive!

• Barney and Leah - for being the best bosses, laughing at my stories, and making sure I was staying busy in my month of unemployment.

• To Hannah, Smay, Nic, Taylor, Spitts, the Burrell’s, Jon, Jake, Mom, The Freemans, the Walkos, Lisa Jenkins, and everyone who gave me a great Colorado send off, thank you!!! 

• Maddie, Rudy, Felicia, Anna, Stefan, who spent every last moment with me before I left Hawaii. I love you guys.

• To my Hawaii friends for giving me the best Hawaiian good bye as well- Jenna, Hunter, Rebecca, Andrew, you know who you all are! I miss beaching and hiking with you guys so much. I can’t wait to see you guys soon. Thank you for being the best friends ever!

• Hannah- for making sure I had enough professional attire for Colombia, and making sure I was emotionally sane leading up to my move. I love you so much - and congrats on graduating!!! 

• Everyone who has texted and called, thank you. I miss you so much.To my friends who I miss dearly from all around the world: Hawaii, Colorado, Washington, New York, California, Michigan, Georgia, Canada, Mexico, Florida, Spain, Korea, Italy, wherever you all are, I miss you and really hope to see you all soon - come visit!

• My new cohort friends- namely Page- who has made this experience so easy to do with having such an open heart next to me. Thank you for being so great and letting me have some breakdowns

———I appreciate you reading this!

If ideas resonated, I’d love you to leave a comment, reply to this email, or send me a message on Facebook. 

Yours truly,

Maddie

All views are the views of Maddie alone and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps, her employer or anyone else.