Ibague
So, we finally arrive at our first volunteering opportunity. A children’s centre in a very poor area of the city of Ibague. The centre provides lunch to about a hundred kids and is a day centre, during term time it helps share the load with the local school – kids spend half the day there and half at the centre, and during holidays it provides somewhere for the kids to hang out and do stuff they can’t do at home. The centre also provides some structure for the kids and is strict on manners and respect for adults/each other. So on arrival all kids must come and say hello, ‘chao profe (hola profesor!)’ and kiss you on the cheek – or for the boys and Gio a handshake. Well, the hand ‘shake’ is more of a hand slide, knuckle bashing affair – bit tricky to describe but Gio got there in the end! I am just glad I am a girl – kisses are much nicer.
Anyway, our role is to help Nury in the kitchen preparing lunch, help serve lunch, then in the afternoon play with the kids. Gio and Lesa helping in a kitchen – with a lot of knives...mmmmm!
So, week one with knives: three minor cuts but all digits still intact. One minor accident where I went to stand up, hit my head, fell backwards and burnt myself on the giant soup pot – painful but mostly pretty funny. And now I have a very interesting triangular shape pattern on my back to show for it and have learnt a couple of new words from trying to explain to the kids why I was walking around with an ice pack on my hip - ‘quemarse’ to burn yourself and ‘que asco’ how disgusting!
The first day in the kitchen I spent very worried. When we were in Cartagena we met a South African who had eaten turtle in a restaurant there. So day one in the kitchen we are chopping lots of veggies and telling Nury that we eat everything not to worry about feeding us and then she gets out a tortoise and puts it in a bowl of water. Oh no. Is this going to be the next thing I have to chop up? I spend the morning figuring out how to say ‘please spare him’! Turns out having finally figured out how to say ‘is that for lunch’ – it was/is the centre’s pet. There was much hilarity at my expense.
All in all we are really enjoying our time, never in our lives have we chopped so many vegetables, fruit etc – especially challenging with such blunt knives (although that is probably why we still have ten fingers each). The kids are lovely and very entertaining, cute, grubby, some clearly very poor – with trousers done up with string.
Lunches at the centre are delicious, interesting and very filling. The menu is different every day and involves a soup, main course and dessert – each weekly menu and it’s ingredients are written up on a board which is great for our Spanish learning. However we might need to learn some portion control as by the end of serving lunch to 100 kids we are knackered and hoover giant portions! At this rate we are going to be gorda by the end of two weeks!!
Our first day involved everyone asking us questions – good Spanish practise. What is our favourite colour, sport, food, fruit, football team, song. Most embarrassing moment, and why aren’t we married. Gio was instructed he only has these two weeks to sort it out else one of the kids would step in and do the honourable thing! And then they all chanted ‘beso, beso, beso’ until we kissed at which point they all screamed!!
We will no doubt be ready to leave for a rest and some creature comforts (have had to adapt to bunk beds and cold showers) but being here feels good. Ibague is a lovely city, with amazing Christmas lights...
...the family who run the centre are great and keen to help us with our Spanish – as are the kids at the centre who are keen to chat. They are almost all missing father figures and love hanging off of Gio and asking him questions. All are very curious about just how hairy his legs are (and where the hair on mine has gone), and love hugs and kisses and any attention you can give. We have had some interesting afternoons – the teacher giving the kids glitter to make Christmas cards – and their delight at covering Gio and I head to toe in it – Gio still looks like he belongs in a carnival sporting rather a lot of green glitter. I can just say I am being festive! Wednesday was dance lessons, and the teacher taught everyone a zombie dance, at the end of the dance they all had to put a little bit of an alka seltzer in their mouths and create a vast amount of foam spit!!
Outside of the centre we’ve spent a day at the local swimming park which had a couple of huge water slides, we were impressed by the 70 something lady ahead of us in the queue! Unfortunately I managed to lose my bikini top on the way down – slightly embarrassing...but apparently not the first person.
There is a local Carrefour supermarket! Really it’s all you could ever need – they even had six motorbikes for sale in the shop!
Monday was ‘la noche de las velitas‘ ‘night of the candles’ or ‘la noche de la virgen ’night of the virgin’ (the candles represent a virgin for each house) which involved everyone lighting rows of candles outside their houses – and was beautiful.
Also involved lighting all the Christmas lights and crazy Christmas creations made from plastic cups. It was a fun night – a little bit random with fireworks and cows wondering up the road
This weekend we are resting, and trying to study so we have more to say to the kids next week!
