I arrived in Medellín a week and a half ago, on Thursday. I am volunteering with Open Arms Foundation and working as an English teacher online with Open English to support myself. At the moment, I'm not sure how long I will be here, just trying to stay open about it for now. I will be back in the States for a bit in October to visit.
The past week and a half I have been spending time with another team from the States that got in the day before I did. We painted, spent some time with the pregnant & parenting teen girls at the Foundation's house in Buenos Aires (a part of Medellín more or less downtown), and spent some time up with the boys in the program up at the organization's farm in San Pedro. Many of these kids have lived on the streets at some point, had bad home lives, been victims of abuse, and/or been involved with drugs, etc. As of now, it looks like I will spend most of my time with the pregnant & parenting girls at the center in Buenos Aires, but I'm trying to be flexible and figure out in which capacities I can serve best. The kids are so precious. Several come across as fairly rough, which can be expected from all of the hard experiences in their pasts.
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| san pedro |
The city of Medellín is in an oblong bowl, extending from a flat area up the mountain sides of the Sierra Nevada. Looking out over the city at night is like looking at a sea of twinkling white, blue, and yellow stars. Despite the beauty of the city, it's been quite a change getting used to living in a city of 3.6 million people. Spending the day on the farm two days ago was so refreshing. The air was so crisp, the sky so blue, and the view of the surrounding hills/mountains was breathtaking. Yesterday I went with the team to an artisanal fair, where we got to buy some fun handmade items.
I had been staying at Casa Helena, the foundation's house in Robledo La Pola (about a 20 min drive from downtown, up on a steep hill/mountain side), while the team was here. Today, I moved my stuff over to the apartment down the road where Kathleen (an American who has been coming to help out with the organization every year for the past six) has been staying. I'll be here at least until she leaves, which is in about a week or so. In September, the plan is for me to move into one of the rooms of an apartment in Buenos Aires, a couple of blocks from the girls' home. Various people working with the foundation live there, but a room will not be available until September. In between this apartment and that one, I don't yet know where I will be, but's it's okay. Everything in its time.
