Update

Well,

Things have been happening. Though there would be many pictures, I don't have them with me right now. The kids have officialy opened their YCEM store. We all came together I think it was on the 15th December this year. about 10-15 kids gathered in front of the little mom and pop store by the side of the highway. I don't know how extremely well things are going. But I get the impression it isn't yet a commercial succes. I suppose this is good because otherwise the kids would just get it all for free, without putting a lot of effort into it in the beginning.

That night of the opening of the store there was a gathering in advance in front of the stoor while the kids stocked up the store with goods. After a couple of hours the night was beginning to set in and Laura (a leader of the smaller leaders) opened and Walter gave a speech, then Yenny and Yilbert and I think Laura herself too. We al had a little bit of home made cake and afterward the kids started to play some music. They actually asked me to dance to some of their music. I had been milling some grain earlier and now Juan Josey (a volunteer/visitor) was inviting me to use the milling motion to dance. So finally... after a couple of minutes I did and I started to dance to the music. Much to the enjoyment of all. Now it was not the most spiritual or the brightest music. But it felt acceptable to do so and made connection between me and the kids. If we are to make a change in the lives of the kids, having things in common with them that are enjoyable and fun is a great way to go.
Hugo, Juan Josey and Eider joined inthe dancing and festivities too and we continued until I think about 10PM. Many of the moms were there and one of them brought food.

One delightful thing that happened was that the kids were arguing over what kind of music to play. One wanted the regular cultural music and the other YCEM hymns. There needed not be any prompting from the YCEM leadership, and they were free to just play the regular music but still wanted YCEM hymns more!

A couple days earlier we had a leadership activity.  The mayor invited us to do things at the local park. We gathered there during the afternoon. Hundreds of people were invited. Personally. There were about 100 people there. I think about 2/5 were from YCEM and the rest visitors. There were many games played. The kids had prepared the games all themselves. They were quite creative too. The mayor had specified that he wanted some music to be played that I really abhorred. I was tired and not capable of resisting the music so i left early.

Thank you for reading and hopefully I will post some photos as soon as I get back!

Groceries and some small enterprises

Another day at the foundation… Many things going on… Let´s get my notebook, because I forgot much.

I was getting some fruits from the main city Roldanillo. It takes an hour to walk there, but I took the bus with Eider. Eider went to get some things in a nearby town and I went to get fruit and headed back by foot until I saw a small bus heading in my direction. The fair is $1.000 peso per person. Going back and forth costs $2.000 peso. $2.000 peso is about 1 dollar or 0.8 Euro. I bought $15,905 peso worth of things or about 7 Dollars. I think 2-3 Kilos of oranges, 2.4 Kilos of Granadillas (pronounce granadiyas), about 160 Grams of Almonds. 2 Kilos of Mangos (6 pìeces). I absolutely love fruit. Even though it doesn´t fill my stomach, so I eat some regular food too especially at the evening dinner.

Juan Josey was making spinach omelets with garlic for the evening dinner… and there were only men in the kitchen. Only men... it was quite a surprise to Eider, who was little involved in the evening dinner last night. Pipe, Christiaan and Nataliya (adoscelent kids) were here, in the main dining hall. Pipe was playing some Yo Creo En Mi hymns on the computer and Eider and me were dancing to it every now and then. Eider more then me, and she was the one who started the dancing. I had to balance helping Juan Josey with dancing. I was preparing the eggs for his omelets, which were quite complicated. Juan Josey also tried dancing halfway through. But he was very occupied with baking omelets. But he managed to dance quite well too even with the pan in hand, surprisingly well! Eider was often trying to goad Christiaan into dancing too, but he remained shy. I also tried encouraging Pipe and Nataliya a bit. Pipe danced a bit too, in his disco / robot style which I fervently did not want to dance to.

A couple of days ago Yilber, Laura and Yenny were at a charity fair, without Hugo or Walter. Walter did drop them off at the bus but not much more as far as I remember. Many charities showed up and were presenting their causes to all who would come to look and learn. Im not actually sure how successful it was.

They keep experimenting with making ice cream around here. One of the successful attempts is banana ice cream. Half a banana covered with some chocolate and some ground peanuts. It works quite well and the kids love it.

top picture is the result. Banana with chocolate and ground peanuts 

the below picture is with Andres Felipe, Felipe and Yenny making the banana ice creams.

Irusha just came here y-day. Already it seems like he has been here for 3 days because he is very active and has brought many things. Irusha seems to communicate very well, even with Spanish kids and people. Irusha his Spanish is already pretty good for someone who has only been in Colombia for 1 day. Irusha has been studying Spanish in advance. He doesn´t speak conversationally too well, but Eider and Juan Josey speak some English, Eider in particular and Juan Josey seems to be remembering a lot of it too. Still it is quite a relief to have another English speaker around. It is perhaps not too big a relief to Eider, who is the only woman of the volunteers and visitors that are here. We do have Vanesah (Walter´s wife), but she is not a volunteer.

At the evening meeting we usually hold with new visitors, I heard that Irusha has been given specific assignments. He is to make videos for the Television Station and Youtube. Walter wants there to be “Yo Creo En Mi News”. I suppose he means regular news bulletins about what is going on here. I suppose the blog may become a part of it. Irusha has studied Marketing, so it is a good fit. He was wondering what it would possibly be good for, but he has been realizing what it is good for when he started to think of being a volunteer at YCEM.

Irusha with Juliana and Lina (on the right)

Yesterday during the meeting for Irusha Walter & Hugo explained the vision and plans for Yo Creo En Mi. The objective is to empower the kids to become independent. The older kids will be working on the Tienda (store). From the looks of it it will be next to the highway. I think that’s a great location. This Saturday the kids have been told to invite everyone and everything for activities and games invented by the kids. Walter & Hugo are expecting about 400 people. Mostly kids and some of their parents. Im very curious to see how it will turn out and where exactly we will go to find the space for that amount of people… I wonder how many cakes will be made. It is a great leadership opportunity for the kids.

Sunday there will be an activity at the Tienda, to paint it. On Monday some of the kids will go to a seminar about public speaking. It was joked it would be death by PowerPoint, because that is seemingly all it will be. Mostly powerpoint for a total of 10 hours.

Walter wants the kids to be better at marketing, and to integrate the store in the marketing aspect. There will be many things happening.

Irusha asked where Walter wants YCEM to be in 5 months time. Walter wants there to be 4-5 new clubs, each with 30 kids. Another one in a marginalized neighbourhood of Roldanillo. One in Cali by Carlitos (also called Carlos) and Esperanza. One in a nearby village and a few others I don’t remember.  Perhaps in Bogota. In 5 months Walter also wants there to be 30 more kids in this club here. We have about 70 right now. Last month none of the kids left the club, which is an exception to the rule, additionally we got 20 new kids from what I heard and indeed I see lots of kids who I don’t remember. Yesterday evening here were also some kids here with 2 moms, Laura explained some things to them and then Walter talked to them. I think their kids will be joining too. We want this club and all other clubs to be led by the kids, for the kids. Walters vision is that each club is autonomous, led by the kids without requiring interaction from Walter.

Walter wants to satisfy the needs of the children everywhere according to the Mazlov pyramid. Physical needs (food, shelter, sleep), security (earning your own keep), social (friendships), self-esteem and self-realization. In that order, through leadership as taught by the 7 habits! Here in this marginalized community physical needs need to be satisfied, before we can focus on teaching them how to provide for their own security and living. Social needs are also met and afterwards self-esteem is boosted too. Physical needs are not completely met though, we don´t serve them breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only lunch, so there is incentive to grow and provide for yourself.

In Cali for example most kids will have their physical needs met. We still would have refreshments around, but not a whole communal dining program. There we would focus more on meeting social and self esteem needs.

I wish to end the post in a better way, but do not want to spend the time that I much need to do other things that are also important.

Blessings, Sander

More things happening.

Hey all,

Well… got to go…

Anyway… we went to go to Roldanillo. (Eider, Juan Josey & Me) Now Ive been left at an internet cafe and they will return later, hopefully exactly at the time when I run out of things to do on the internet. Internet here is cheap.

A situation occurred with one of the kids here. Hugo asked me to delete all modern music (disco music, rap, reagaton, heavy metal; the antithesis of harmony, classical and divine music) from the computers at YCEM. In the process I also deleted some videos and images of violence and violent cartoon characters.
I also made a few text documents with the new rule, that none of these songs, images or videos are allowed on the YCEM computers.

However… the kid I mentioned did not give up and the next day tried playing his music on his cellphone. It is allowed to do so, but only with ear plugs. Everyone could hear the music he was playing.  I tried to tell him that his music was prohibited. “Musica prohibida” “Parar tu Musica”… it didn´t give. He said "non entiende" at one point, but he did understand. He did actually stop his music for a bit, but walked away and continued it again as if nothing I said was understandable. A few half hours later I told Hugo what happened and he took it very seriously, a lot more then me. And he talked with him and it did become absolutely clear to me he did understand what I said. He lost like 15 points, or a whole days worth of good work. The points are an indication of how well you are doing and they help the leadership determine who gets raised in rank and who does not.

Hugo said this kid Josey and Pipe also would be running the club if they had not lost points through this. I´m not actually sure he was absolutely serious about that and now that I´m at an internet cafe, I can´t ask. I am at an internet cafe because I am downloading a file 189 MB´s big... and the computer at the foundation downloads at about 10KiloBytes a second when it decides to be stable. And the connection is not stable and last night there were half a second power outages that reset the computers and thus the download.

How loud and obnoxious the city seems. There is this moment a truck outside blasting commercials about blakberry with some terrible music, all very loudly. I´m glad it passes on, wait.. here it is again. Personally I´ve felt a bit frustrated because I was hoping to get some things happening that still have not. Like for example I want the rules for the kids to be hung on the walls and i mentioned it what seemed like a week ago. Altough, Hugo is always very busy... so I remain patient. Today he said a definitive date, Miercoles (Wednesday). If it isn´t up on the wall I´ll ask if I can try and get it up myself. Today one of the kids was playing prohibited music, and I had no rule to point to so that´s why this is bothering me. One little thing that also bothered me was that this music was played in front of one of the volunteers and that volunteer didn´t say anything... okay.. neither did. Not yet anyway.

About 15 of the older kids are involved in "Tienda YCEM" or "FLYCM". It is the little shop I will upload pictures of the instant it is opened. They seem to be discussing about it vigorously every day, but I haven´t been able to keep track of what it is all about.

I´m almost done downloading what i came for and Eider & Juan Josey are back.

¡Will type more later!

Bendiciones de Colombia, Sander

New Tidings

Hello everyone,

At risk of stating the obvious, many things have happened and will continue to happen.

Yesterday I taught some English with Eider using the 7 habits for one half of the class and simple conversational verses for the other half. Eider also taught with my help about sentence structure, and verbs, and descriptive words and all those technical things which I do not remember. This English class that I and Eider gave for Yilbert, Yenny and Giraldo (a policeman, who requested this class).

I will write more when more comes of it.

Last Monday we had Day of the Leader, which comes with an Ascension Ceremony. The ascension ceremonies performed on the Day of the Leader include a lot of marching and following commands, as a sort of show and sign of respect and deep meaning to the ranks that some of the kids are ascending to. It reminds me much of the military, where aspiring soldiers ascend up the ranks because of virtue and hard work.

I will write more about that later.

Some days ago we had a discussion about things. One thing was that the kids often come here to play and be entertained in some way. So for example the girls especially like to build the pyramids with the stacking cups and collapse them over and over and over... and usually they do it with a lot of screaming and without any apparant purpose. Other times the kids play monopoly or chess and usually just for entertainment without any end in mind, without any purpose. In a small move to more productive learning there is now a rule that no games are allowed before 2pm. I was also asked to remove all modern synthetic music from the computors to enforce the new rule that no bad music is allowed on the computers of Yo Creo En Mi (and also no images depicting violence). (bad music is the kind of stuff you can find on MTV and TMF and in Discos and often on the Radio). I put some of my favourite music in its place. The kids generally don´t like it... but still... the hymn of the "US military medley" seems to be appreciated by atleast a few of the kids. They voluntarily listened to it for atleast 5 minutes. But I have the feeling I or we may get some retaliation in some shape or form, for removing the kids music.

Regardless of this resistance, I feel the air has cleared a lot now that such terrible music is no longer on the premises. What a relief!

It also came up that we want to get the official permission from the parents, so the kids have been told they must convince their parents to sign a paper that gives us permission to have the kids here. This is to counteract  any idea that we are forcing the kids to come here against the parents will. We were a bit afraid that requiring this written permission from the parents would be hard, as some will simply not be motivated enough to come here for their kids. So instead we the volunteers go to many of the parents who dont come to us. In this process we also gather some contact details, so we can contact the parents if something happens to a kid while said kid is at the foundation.

This issue came up after it was mentioned that some of the kids try to get out of attending school by lying to the teachers that YCEM is forcing them to come. 

I´ll relate from a lot of notes I took about plans that Walter related. Great plans which are surprisingly and refreshingly realistic and hopeful.

Ill start with the fact that YCEM started just on Sundays inside a school. There was no rent to pay, there was no communal dining. There was very little. It started very cheap. Over time YCEM emigrated to a much more expensive model which seemingly isnt getting proportionally better results. Walter wants to expand the Club, and Carlos & Esperanza will try in Cali. They go to schools and show videos about the 7 habits and try to see if they can convince the teachers to teach the kids the 7 habits.
Another important point of new clubs is fun.

Also, some of the kids have learned enough to be able to do some of the things that Walter is presently doing. It is Walters dream that the kids run and manage the clubs for the most part.

Many mistakes have been made that have been grown out of. YCEM used to give caps out for free, and because of that the kids would be careless with them and lose them. Now they will have to earn the caps and so because they earn the caps they take care of them. The main YCEM club will be the example for all clubs across Colombia and the world. The 7 habits and the teachings of YCEM are univeral and must remain that way. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Confucionists and Atheists alike can accept the 7 habits and apply them and transform their lives with them.

YCEM gets no more money then we need in order to grow. And now it appears to normal people we have no money left over and that is true. We don't need more money to grow. We have the kids and they have unlocked much of their power, we can use them to expand. The kids who are on fire for the cause of I Believe In Me are that which makes the whole club so valuable! New clubs will start humbly, by showing videos to teachers. It will be especially excellent if the kids do this and make presentations with their own voice too, because it shows the theory in the practice in the lives of 13 year old kids who are teaching leadership. 

Even if the kids come and go, so long as their hearts are touched they will remember and may years later as adults think back... and seek... and want to start a club too.

Will write more later

A fresh new day

Today was quite interesting, 


Yesterday afternoon Wan Josey (I´m not sure if that is how you spell his name) came. He is a visitor from spain and stays here until the end of January. Im not sure exactly what he will be doing. But it seems he will be working in the garden, since he related that is what he was in his heart.

Later on some things happened that caused me some turmoil, so finally hoping to get some relief elsewhere (from a situation that became stressful to me) I wandered away and found Josey (a volunteer here I trust very much) playing chess with a few kids. So far the score is 1 win for me and 3 wins for him, in our chess history. But leaving this place with a positive win/ratio vs Josey is not so much a concern to me. Josey is the only guy who has a positive win record in chess against me. So far I´ve only played it on being invited, but today I´ve simply declined to play it and probably will either for the next few days or my full duration of staying here. I intend to try and play the local Disney version of monopoly with the kids in its place and hopefuly try to teach and learn the 7 habits through it. The way they play it seems so scattered and shortsighted without applying the 7 habits. For example they dont try to make trades with other kids so they can set up a monopoly and possibly win.  Yesterday they also stood up and left in the middle of the game and went to play soccer. As far as I remember few games of monopoly are ever finished and it is only being played as a distraction. I´ve been feeling uncomfortable about chess because whatever way I start playing it I get mentally focused at one point or another along the way like yesterday. Yesterday I played chess so much I couldnt stop thinking about the game and several geometrical patterns that can be formed using the rules for movement of the chess pieces. So far I justified playing chess on the basis that I would only play it when invited, but even that is too much.

I think his name is Josey Migel (I may be mistaken) is here building a tower. I was standing to the right here, giving him cups to stack on and on with.

On a side note they also have stacking cups here about which I am glad to say that I´ve managed to inspire one of them how to build a tower with them that is stable enough to stand on its own, and be taller then myself and Walter, even so much that it reached the ceiling. This came about after I felt irrirated to see they didn´t try to reach the ceiling and were just building and collapsing the same horizontal structure over and over. So after a bit I started to make a vertical tower based on 3 cups. 3 cups next to eachother, 3 more cups on top in an interlacing pattern. And on and on and on. One of the kids gladly replicated it thereby reaching the ceiling and what seemed like twice his height - without any real help from me.

In that regard, we had a talk about this the same evening. We had a sangha of the buddha meeting about many things and Walter shared a lot about his vision for Yo Creo En Mi worth several pages of notes. But firstly I wanted to mention something that seemed to mostly bother Walter and has not been on the minds of everyone else. Many kids come here simply to play and many parents are glad about this, simply to be rid of their kids. But this is not what YCEM is about it, we are not a creche where you can put your children so you are not occupied with them. Some of the result of just letting them play here is that they are just distracting themselves and are scattered in no productive pursuit of any kind. Any the kids just playing around also makes housekeeping harder. Many times a room is not cleaned because the kids are all over it.


This scattered way of living seemed particularily apparant to me in the way in which the local version of monopoly is played. It is played without purpose or an end in mind and hardly any game of monopoly is ever finished. Kids dont try to make trades with eachother for streets to obtain a monopoly. They just thoughtlesly and aimlesly throw the dice and when they stop they throw everything back into the box very much out of order. Juliana one of the kids some times takes the monopoly games and re-orders everything again. But still slowly some game pieces are being lost, particularily of the chess boards. One set of chance cards of one out of three of the monopoly games is completely lost.


There is also a rule that the equipment at the foundation should only be used for the purposes of the Leadership programs of YCEM and not for entertainment. But it is not enforced all the time, or has not been. So sometimes some of the kids use the computer for entertainment or playing music, and so far they only music which is prohibited to be played loudly. They play the music on headphones though, but even still sometimes so loud you can hear it elsewhere. Most of the time most of the kids do productive things though. But the day stands out in my memory because the kids played a lot of games.

Overdue Update

Hey All,

It feels like so incredibly long since I last wrote and so I forgot many things. Perhaps because internally in me a lot has changed.

Dies y ocho (18) Noviembre, Hueves,

During one part of the day, Hugo I and some others went out for a walk... to... some... place... but what I remember is that we returned and saw Eider leading an activity, of creating book inserts or page markers.

Do you know what is said on each one? From top left to right. My español is still quite bad. I think the 1st says something like "I want to be a positive influence to all the beings on the Earth". The second I think says "I want to grow old and to help serve good causes". 3rd: "Begin with an end in mind - I want to be a great leader and to help the foundation forward" 4th: "Have clear goals and objectives" 5th: "This is too vague." 6th: "Begin with an end in mind - I want to be a great leader and to achieve rank Alef before I turn 18" 7th: "Live life with an end at heart" 8th: "Be Proactive ... ¿Do I take responsibility? ¿Do I control my reactions?" 9th: "Be Proactive" 10th: "Be Proactive, take responsibility for my relations and initiative"

Not the best translations, and there are some mistakes.

The kids working on it. There were what seemed like 20 to 30 kids working on this.

The kids borrowed her camera and took some pictures, also of Eider in the middle of this picture.

Diez y nueve (19) Noviembre, Viernes:
It was a busy day and supposed to be that. It was the closing of a leadership course. We went to the playground of the local school. There the kids played a game where you answer questions about the 7 habits. Along the playground are stone benches that many of us sat on. In the beginning it rained some.
Walter Yenny Eider I and a few other kids drew a numbered path on the playground floor. I was invited to draw a part of it after I chose to be a bit proactive by drawing a part of the game. .

Hugo, Eider, Christian (the little infant) with some of the kids

Laura and another young lady yelling to answer the questions

I think this young lady is Marly. Playing a game somehow related to the question answering game being played earlier on.

Marly & Christian. Marly is not Christians girlfriend. They were a team during the friday game.

And here we see the bigger scheme of things. The playground itself with the drawing of the playing board. 

At some point during the weekend after Hugo was done jogging he found a horse in our backyard. Once Hugo found a stick the horse got the hint that it should get off the property under the guidance of Hugo (and Eider) I saw it happen from a distance under a little roof (it was a little bit rainy).

It has been a long time since I last posted a blog post. Many things have happened. Not many that stand out in memory. Or for that matter so many at all. The first that comes to mind is a situation with the mothers and Me and also a few others.

I personally have decided again to be vegetarian and although I might still eat an egg at some point or another generally I will be eating a lot more fruit. Hugo has decided similarly to stop eating meat. I think Walter is still eating meat. Eider is not eating meat either and I think, neither anything which comes from animals (such as eggs and milk and their related products).

So why did this come up? During the Sangha of the Buddha on Monday, two days ago we were discussing things and it came up that one day I left the breakfast that was served to me on the table which confused the mothers. Now before I go anywhere else I think I need to give some background first. Around here many kids go to bed on empty stomachs and the mothers have to look at this situation, and have looked at it probably for their whole lives with their children and their brothers and sisters in a similar situation. I personally have no background or experience like this. Anyway a few days previous I was taking a nap in the early beginnings of the evening and while waking up I was feeling irritated in my intestines. After a couple of minutes I decided that I was only going to eat fruit for a couple of days (to flush our most of the food I felt was irritating my intestines), instead of the 3 generous warm meals which I had been obediently eating every day (for the last 3-4 weeks). After deciding this I walked to the kitchen where Hugo and someone else (I forgot) was preparing dinner and I broke down in emotions and the only thing I could figure out what the emotions were about was the irritation in my intestines, so I told him I only wanted to eat fruit for a couple of days. (Another reason that occurred to me later, was that I was being challenged by the Guru of Theosophia is the Way about pretty bad things I had written to the English Theosophian community earlier) I was expecting Hugo to tell the moms not to serve me breakfast, but I wasn´t clear in my communication. The unvoiced assumption led the moms the following morning to prepare a breakfast meal for me. When I woke up I did my things and left the plate, feeling too guilty to bring it back and thereby rejecting it even though I still ended up rejecting it by leaving it. I went to make fruits for myself and had that for breakfast (and also lunch and dinner). What made things so bad was that the moms felt rejected by me, as they didn’t know wether or not I was going to still eat my breakfast, even as flies started to descend on it. Keeping in mind that they are hurt by going to bed on empty stomachs and feeling the pain of seeing their brothers and sisters and children also go to bed on empty stomachs. I think it was very hurting to them. I was in friendly manner told I can eat what I think is best for me, but to bring back any food to the kitchen that I don´t eat.

But anyway, that night Walter received a dictation about food and related things. The masters through him said that animals are more sexual then us and that when we eat their meat we also take their drive to have sex into our bodies, which is detrimental to our wellbeing. Also the state of their emotions when the animals are killed is trapped in the meat, and so we also take that into our bodies when we eat meat. The animal farming practices in Colombia are very inhumane and artificial so I think it is very good not to eat the meat from here. Still, most moms here believe very much that meat is the epitome of food, so they want to serve meat (and eggs) a lot. Hugo said to me that some of the mothers will consider us crazy for not eating meat.

They also shared that honey is the concentrated loving sweetness of God, but that it is more important to experience this sweetness directly from the saints or the most high God (El Elyon) directly. It was also shared that Stevia (a popular sweetener around here) is detrimental to your wellbeing.

USaid and another entity in all likelyhood will be sponsoring a small store that will be run by the kids for the kids. The profits from the store will go to all the kids involved in it.

In the picture is one people of the two who are involved in this little project, teaching the kids.

Hugo wants them to be personally involved in it so that they are not just arbitrarily giving a sum of money. It is not in the spirit of proactivity and club Yo Creo En Mi to just accept money and have no other involvement with donors. In the picture the good man is teaching the kids about monetary concepts in small businesses.
What are the expenses of a store? Electricity, fuel for transport, water, rent, cost of the goods you sell and taxes. What is income? The money you receive from selling goods. What do you want to sell? The kids answer cake, vegetables, fruits like bananas, rice. It was suggested that the kids don’t just sell what they like themselves, but also what the customers in the area want. If I am going to set up shop, I can really use this advice of considdering consumer demands very well. It was also asked if they were going to sell cigarettes and alcohol. I assume they won´t.
Where do you set up the shop? On the side of a desolate mountain? No, too few customers. In the middle of the city? Many more customers there. Personally I suspect competition will be very strong there too. How much do the kids work? 7 days per month.

Some of the hierarchy had already been decided on. Afterward it will be switched around a bit. Yilber will be at the top of FLYCM, below Hugo & Walter who will not have pivotal roles in the project once it is started.  The kids will be running the purchase, sales, inventory and administration departments and the leaders of each department will report to Yilber. FLYCM is the name of the project (I don’t know what it means).

In the first days of December a group of the kids will go out to on a trip to the local mountains. It´s going to be a long overnight stay I suspect, depending on the weather. What are we going to do be doing exactly? I don’t know.

There is a lot of bussy-ness around it. The kids will be led in small groups led by leaders and above those I assume there will be more leaders.

Yesterday afternoon we (many of the kids) spent a while discussing who would lead who. The pre juvenile group had a hard time agreeing on one single thing and got a bit distracted while discussing.

Yesterday evening Eider and I also started to prepare a little English class we will try to give to the pre-juvenile group. We will be using lots of games. The juvenile group is a lot less likely to enjoy games and besides that they are busy setting up their little store which is more important right now.

Chritmas is approaching, and there have a few decorations made already. Epecially on the door of Walter & Vanesahs room.

Blessings to all. Hope to post a lot more later.

Hello All,

Things seem to be going slow right now, especially in my mind.

November 14: There was no-one home during the day, except me & Hugo. I got bored as Hugo was occupying the internet with Hoyos (the ever smiling and kind police man). So I wondered a bit and decided to try and make the gifted microscope we had received, work.

The thing didnt work that well, and was much less in quality then the quality I am used to, compared to what I am used at the analyst school I attended.

I concluded that we need a stronger lightsource then the mirror. We cant depend on the sun around here either. So I asked Hugo find a strong table light and tinfoil to try and focus the light from the lamp. We also need some sample glasses to put samples on and I've got to find and prepare a way to find some good samples to look at.

Before I explored the microscope I used some clay and paper to make a miniature earth (took me several hours of fidling around before I was satisfied). It took a lot of fidling around. The previous day Eider had made a paper thing with clay, which inspired me to do something similar. I think we will make it into a project to do with the kids. We will need to set some clear goal, too.

November 15: During the day Daniel & Yilbert wanted to extensively teach Eider about the first 3 habits of the 7 habits of highly effective people. I decided to join too. They would have taught me too a long time ago if I would have spoken Español by then. It took like an hour or two. I didn´t know it could take that long.
Ill give you some of my notes:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Reactive people think "I have things to do", proactive people do things right away.
Reactive people think "don´t even try", proactive people think "I have a solution" and they act on it
Proactive people take responsibility for their lives.

Then we came to paradigms. Explained in various ways. In this image we see... this...
What do you see? An Eskimo or an Indian?

Well I disappointed them because I knew this illusion and said an indian and an eskimo.
But their point was, depending on your paradigms you see one thing or the other (or both, I add)
We can have paradigms about life like for example: Life is Unjust , the world is a tough place,
A negative person has negative paradigms. Your paradigms influence what you observe, which influence your actions which influence your results which you observe and the cycle goes round and round until it is broken.

For example a lot of people here receive money from the governmente every month and they blow it on alcohol and junk food for a week or few days and then starve the rest of the month. They are afraid they loose their money quick so by a twist of logic they spent it all before the end of the first week, it maintains the cycle of thinking you will be poor, acting like you will be poor, the result is you are poor, you see you are poor, you think you are poor, you act like you will always be poor...

Should you center your life on friends? Friends come and go. On your partner? They are not absolutely reliable either. On things? They come and go also and never satisfy for long. What then? Focus life on principles. Never failing, never dying, never going away, never disapparing, becoming powerless or meaningless.

Habit 2, begin with an end in mind (empezar con un fin en mente.

Before you get something, must imagine it in the mind. Write down your goals in life and express and pronounce them to others to stat making it manifest.
The president of General Electric said: Create your own destiny, don´t let someone else create it for you.
Think about someone that was a positive influence in your life and focus on one of his or her positive qualities you want to develop.
If 5 years from now there is an article about you from an interview with your mom dad and a good friend of yours, what do you want it to say?

Pronouncing your mission:
Step1: Choose 3 verbs that describe your mission. (I chose duty, family and Terra)
Examples: Teaching, Leading, Inspiring, Communicating, Creating, Giving, Motivation, Educating, Writing, Organizing, Directing, Maintaining, Translating, Defending, Evaluation, Protecting.

Step2: Chose your purpose (I chose Justice)
Creativity, Service, Justice, Liberty, Family, Equality, Power, Abundance, Harmny, Love, Order, Unity,. Coherence.

Step3: Chose in what sphere of life (I chose court of law)
People: Poor people, drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, stray animals, protected animals, wildlife preservation, adoscelent, etc.
Causes: Child protection, animal rights, spirituality, politics, womans rights, mens rights, invalids.
Causes: Economic, Finance, Law, Business, Political, Diplmacy, Agriculture, Technology, etc.

Eider also made something like this: But I dont remember what she put.

Habit 3: First Things First (Primero lo Primero)
Ingredient of lazyness:
"you can do tomorrow what you could do today"
Ingredient of leadership:
"Do today what you could do tomorrow."

I was to get up from my chair and be part of an example. They had two huge buckets Daniel could barely carry, one almost completely filled with tiny rocks. The tiny rocks represent things like goofing around, watching tv, playing computer games, dancing and all the other useless things. The rocks represent things like friends, studying, family, learning, school and the like). They wanted me to put the big rocks on top of the little rocks, but they wouldnt find... However if I put in the big rocks in the (now) empty bucket I could then poor the little rocks over them and fit everything in a single bucket. They were a little disappointed I already knew the tricks for this example as I also knew the Indian optical illusion.

Part of the presentation was also the Emotional Bank Account. I´m not sure what this had to do with habit 3, but alas...
The emotional bank account. If you put value in a persons emotional bank account they will feel grateful to you and want to help you and accept you as a leader. If you are indebted to them they will not be your friend or want to be led by you.

The way to deposit into a Emotional Bank Account is by being humble, generous, by fullfilling your promises, by generous acts, by being loyal, by listening, apologizing and setting clear goals.
You take out of the Emotional Bank Account is being being arrogant, selfish, forgeting your promises, bad actions, gossiping, not apologizing and being vague about your goals.

At this point it seemed the presentation was done and were 1-2 hours later at lunch time. We applauded smiling very much :)

A South American Thesophian let Hugo and Walter know that there is a family of 6 kids and a father I think at Cali who are in danger of losing their house to a river that is flooding because of the many rains.So yesterday Hugo I Eider and random townsfolk walked around everywhere to find out if we could find a place for them at Roldanillo. We walked from home to home and said hi to atleast 50 people. The foundation seems to be quite well known around here, by now. And also well liked by most of the people.
The home we did find had free rent (and personally I thought I would pay money for someone to live there). It is basicly a small collection of rooms and a tiny courtyard and a kitchen. No hardware, no furniture. But it is a roof and a place with a door and a lock. They needed something with a rent of 20$ usd (40.000 Colombian Peso) or less.
Toward the end of our search it was becoming night, and the mosquitos were abounding, especially around my feet and lower legs, which have little hair.



Yesterday seemed like a rather uneventfull day, and it was usually somewhat moist outside. I think the evening on the previous day I Eider and Hugo talked. Or rather, Hugo related a lot and we related a few thing too. Hugo has been in prison, locked up with murderers and thieves. And he was relating how that helped him to understand the problems the country faces. Because for example, the criminals get worse in prison and when they get out again they have no future, they didnt learn any skills and the fact they just got out of jail basically bars them from a real job. On top, they usually have no money. So when you get out if you have no friends or family you are homeless and a long history of learning bad things from your cellmates. Then they have nothing to do except that which got them into jail, to survive.
By teaching the kids valuable skills they aspire now not to be drug lords (or the wives of Drug Lords), but like Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein or Hellen Keller, Saint Therese and other good role models. Many kids who came used to want to be the top dogs in crime, but now not any more!

Another thing that came up was food and how a few times Hugo noticed a lot of darkness entering him through some foods, sometimes without knowing what caused it before he asked about the ingredients. One time he was on a market and he bought some type of fish and ate it and the instant he swallowed he noticed the darkness entering him almost tangibly. He wondered why that was, surely fish is good right? He asked Walter and Walter told him, haven´t you red the bible? The bible says don´t eat any fish that doesnt have scales. It turns out Hugo probably ate some squid or crab.
We both had the same experience with Pork at one or another point.

This sensitivity to darkness in food did not grow over night, it took years before Hugo started noticing things like it.

We (Hugo & Me) being men cooked together with Eider several times now especially in the evening and the weekend. We discovered the godly combination of mango/papaya this way. Oh, what good (and bad) things can happen when you leave men in the kitchen!

Yesterday... hmm... what did we do yesterday...
Not much that I remember. The most noteable thing was the Sangha of the Buddha in the evening. I had been pushing Hugo a little bit to talk to Walter about inviting Vanesah into the weekly discussion about the goings on at the foundation, since she is a big part of it. Anyway, I have the impression Hugo thought it would be much harder for Walter to invite her in that it actually was. It was an hour before the meeting and Hugo had still not talked to Walter about it.

But when the meeting started, Vanesah walked in and sat down and as it turned out Hugo had talked to Walter and Walter said yes we can do that. It was quite nice to have Vanesah with us (Me, Hugo, Walter, Josey) at the Sangha. Josey had come back from doing things in Cali. Carlos is still out of Roldanillo (has been for half a week now) and we expect him back today. I´m not sure if I mentioned it but Esperanza is out in cali taking care of things with her son and I´m not sure if or when she will come back because of a situation I´ve been asked not to post too much about it.

I wasnt privy to everything but we talked among other things about men / woman roles and what they are in the new age to come. Men can do womans work and woman can do mens work. But still, some men should better not cook... atleast not Josey according to everyone here. He cooked once and it was so terrible he will probably never cook again.

Many stories were related about attracting unbalanced mothers. They were praying here for mothers to bring the place into balance and they attracted some very strange ones. One was extremely mothering, feeding food very often, way too often. It was too much absolutely.

Once a lady was giving a speech to other woman (and some men) and she was at first talking about how woman shouldnt allow some types of sex but then continued to go on about her sex life with her husband and some embarassing things I dont think her husband would want her to talk about it. That was not the funniest part, the funniest part was when she wanted to teach Vanesah what she did and Vanesah simply wanted to run away... I can´t blame her...

Josey mentioned that many colombian woman go to spain to be cared for spanish men and in exchange the men can demand any type of sex they want from the woman, which spanish woman would want.

Some of the mothers are very sensitive to the comments we can make about the food so we have to be careful not to hurt them in that way. The Mothers cook for the kids mostly.

In one instance some kids were making drinks to sell, and Carlos said dont add any sugar. But without sugar it tasted way too bad. We concluded that we shouldn´t try and force other people to eat like we do.
Some of us like me Hugo and Eider try to eat without sugar.

None except Walter should tell moms what is needed, otherwise it can become very confusing and discouraging for moms. I hope I will see cooking dads around here, some time, too.

It was a refreshingly lighthearted Sangha of the Buddha

Before the meeting I and Vanesah played 4 matches of chess. I always play my usual agressive style,. sprinting king or queen pawn 3 squares ahead if I can and trying to sprint another pawn 3 squares away also 3 squares ahead and going on from there.
I won all 4 matches against Vanesah.  Then Josey returned and we had a quite nice match. I lost it in the end. At one point I lost my queen to an absent minded mistake... but I maintained my inner sense of peace and eventually managed to even the score by taking his queen. But now I grew overconfident and made mistake that eventually led to my loss. I was trying pretty hard to remain in my heart and equelibrium. Humming a mantra and singing a little bit sometimes. Josey also hummed quite a bit, and Vanesah was watching and distracting me a bit too.

I was playing black. Hosey (opposite of me) white. There is a wall of pawns to the right.

that will be all for now. Vanesah invited me to play some chess and Eider wants to check her email.

Have a blessed and fruitful day!

Men and Mothers

a todo buenos día,

Yesterday evening a subject came up that is quite important. It relates to men and woman and the roles we take on. ¿How can I best start to reveal the subject?

Well, right now basically we have a lot of mother and woman volunteers and who cook for us, wash our plates, wash our clothes and keep the house clean. Eider was growing a bit annoyed by this fact, that woman were basically only in "woman's" roles and the men in "men's" roles.

She got the impression Vanesah was being surpressed. Well, hmm. She did ask her and she was indeed thinking to herself ¿why should I always be the one doing the cooking? (We know this because Eider asked and related this to us) Eider also noticed that I didnt always go to the kitchen to atleast wash my own dishes.

I also related in this discussio with Hugo, Eider, Josey (a volunteer) and myself that once I asked Esperanza to repair my pants because there was a hole in them and that after the trip the caves it had a hole in them again and this time I was growing weary of having to ask for help with this so I wanted to ask her to teach me how to fix my pants this time. I suspect Hugo translated it simply that I wanted to ask Esperanza to fix my pants twice without wanting to learn how to do it, because Eider took that as an example of a male dominated attitude toward woman.

And as I type this Vanesah is mopping the floor in the room that I am typing this in which makes typing about this all the more awkward. For me my mind is focused on this this morning. I was hoping to cook some breakfast but by the time I got to the kitchen Vanesah was already busy. So I need to wake up much earlier and not sleep in as much as I do. But I also need to learn some key phrases, because the language barrier is still hard. Hugo & Eider are not handheld translation tools for me. I did wash my own dishes this morning and a few other things that were lying around to be washed.

Whereas most woman feel like fish in water I feel like a fish in the afternoon desert for as far as the kitchen and household things are concerned, especially when it is not expected of me that I do these things and I dont feel confident to try and express my self in español.

This time also I saw Christian (a young 1-2  year old infant boy that Walter adopted) running around and I took some time to play with him and I smelled he soiled his diapers and I got afraid again because I would almost invariably embarass myself to no end if I´d try to ask if I could change his diapers. Even typing this sentence out is a hard task... so I move on the subject without further adoo.

This morning I remarked to Hugo "¿So, we're going to learn how to cook?". He replied laughing, affirming that we don't have much experience with that. He suggested we could make some fried potatoes with avocado :).

Another very embarassing thing that was mentioned was that the moms basically adopted me as their foster child (and I didn´t realize it until 2 weeks after I came here)

Tomorrow evening there is a group meeting. Now before I say anything else I want to mention that in 3 years time, Vanesah herself has never been invited to the group meeting where we talk about issues that we want to bring up. If we had an issue we would talk to Walter and Walter to Vanesah. And I suppose this also has the air of chauvinism. She is not a member of a spiritual teaching and is somewhat into "worldly" ways. I put "worldly" in quotes because I still think much of her and worldly seems like a deragatory word. Eider thinks and we agree that she needs to have a voice in the goings on around here and I personally think not indirectly through Walter.

I was so surprised to hear she had never been invited to this weekly group meeting where issues are discussed, not for a month or half a year but even 3 full years. She is very much a part of the group, even if she is not in the spiritual teachings we are in and even though she is not directly involved in the programs of YCEM. I feel she should have been given the opportunity to be a part of it a long time ago. So the next meeting I really hope she will be invited, I´ll try and see to it.

One barrier to her participation in the goings on was suggested is that she is not in the teachings. I also have a faint suspicion that we suspect she wont be able to understand our language because *I think* we tend to use too much ascended master language in these meetings which "outsiders" probably wont understand!
Muchas bendiciones a todos en El Elyons su Libro de vida!

Troubles and Visions

¡Hola amado y amada familia, amigos y amigas!

Eider, a visitor who may soon turn out to become a volunteer has been with us for several days now. Recently she lost 100.000$ peso, which is about a 60$ and around here is a considerable amount of money. With it you can sponsor a kids communal dining and leadership program for a month.

It was discussed yesterday evening and before that on Tuesday. On tuesday it was brought up officially. 100.000$ Peso was stolen. We want to know who it was but most remain focused on the fact that we can not just accuse anyone at random, we need evidence without doubt about who it is.

That tuesday we decreed and prayed for the good outcome of this situation and at the end of it I got a name very strongly in my head. I didnt tell anyone for a day. Wednesday we talked again and this time I mentioned that I got a name very strong. It was after one of the volunteers suggested we go to a phychic. I had strong reservations about that, because this person is very dark and used the threat of cursing someone to gain personal benefits. For example, she threatened to curse a policeman unless he would marry her. Because of her reputation as being a true witch, the policeman did marry her. I felt strongly that whatever would come asking for her help would get us into trouble.

It that point, I thought "well if you want a psychic revelation, I got a name tuesday after we prayed and decreed". But I felt very bothered the fact I got a name, because I only have a name and no evidence, no proof! I cant just accuse anyone, this conflict tore me up inside until I told the group I got a name. We agreed that I shouldn´t tell anyone, but that there is a reason I got a name or this name. That feels right in my heart, but I keep wondering why I got a name.

It was mentioned so many times we cant just randomly accuse anyone of things until we are certain based on evidence that they are true facts. And many times some of the kids did something wrong like stealing some money, or intending to and they were given new chances and the explanation that what they did was wrong. In this culture it is generally accepted that stealing is normal and acceptable. Also, almost everyone here did at one or another point in their lives steal one or another thing. On top of that there is a strong tendency to keep silent about things, or lie and avoid issues. Personally I dont remember stealing anything, I do remember lying and trying to hide things to avoid issues.

Some of the kids have seen their parents do bad things so they considder it normal. So if one of those kids then steals and you are harsh on that kid expecting that the kid should have known it was wrong, then you do a lot of harm. Many bad things here are deeply ingrained in the culture. We can not expect everything bad to go up in a puff of smoke and good things to descend just because of our presence. At the end of the day we do our best to have discernment and good judgment, but also compassion and mercy.

Another issue is that sometimes a project gains a lot of momentum, like for example Project Patchwork. When Esperanza came here she intended to stay for just 1 month, but she started Project Patchwork which is a project of making cushions with pretty pictures sewn onto them. Then we sell them at a local small farmers cooperative market. Several kids liked it, even some of the boys. But because it was feminine and because we seem to have taken on that bias against the feminine things in life, it was ignored until the momentum and motivation of the kids had far fallen from its high. So we missed an opportunity to tap into some good talent there.

a while ago a young lady came to the foundation. She was very strong in many areas and weak in another. She was taught and her weak area become her strongest point. She grew a lot, but outside the foundation she liked to dance to regaton and other sexual music. She has the reputation of being promiscuous. Hugo and Walter told her many times that she had to learn the disciplines and so not do these things. If the foundation continued to teach her, she could become a great power for the worse of the planet. So eventually it was decided they have to let her go. It was particularily required of her to leave a friend of hers who was involved in child prostitution but she did not leave him. A while after she was disallowed from coming she came back and wanted to attend the fun activities of Yo Creo En Mi but it was not allowed because even when she was asking this she refused to accept the discipline side of Yo Creo En Mi. You cant just accept the fun side of YCEM alone, but also the more bitter and meaty parts. Later she also asked for some money from both Hugo and Walter because she is in trouble and wants to move to another place because her Grandmother is throwing her out the house. Hugo and Walter did not give her any money, only good advice. She was given the opportunity to choose a better way, but has not shown that she is changing for the better in this regard. Recently we found out that she was known as being promiscuous and that she smokes pot.

I do want to note that 95% of the kids here have principles, they have so much good at heart!

About half of the group that went to the swimming pool yesterday. Eider on the yellow/blue dress. I dont remember everyones names.

In the above photo we are on a walk back from the swimming pool. We went there yesterday. about 15 of us, a lot of the kids with leadership over other kids. There we had a lot of fun and after lunch Walter talked about the vision of the organization. He gave advice about dealing with problems. Like for example if you have a problem with a kid then go to the kids leader and if that leader cant solve the problem, go to that leaders leader and so forth until you find someone who really help solve the problem.

I think if I heard Eider translate Walter accurately then Walter also asked the kids who have iniative to take iniative by creating new activities. Walter also talked about how he has the vision to put more foundations like these in foreign countries and other places in general and I get the feeling he wants very it soon rather then tomorrow and he wants the young leaders to help. That really impressed me, because these kids are young. ¡He truly has a lot of faith in the kids capacity to lead!

Walter while talking about his vision of the foundations mission

15 December the foundation closes for a month. It is sharpening the foundation its soul time then. There will be planning for a month and I will depart before it is over. So 15 December is probably the last time I see many of the kids here. Some of the kids do want to attend the upcoming conference in some way and Hugo requires them to put up some sort of effort, because attendees to the conference are also paying for their stay. Personally I was scared at the prospect of the foundation closing for a month, there wont even be communal dining. This agreement was made with the moms in the neighbourhood. What will I do without activities going on? At any rate, 15 December is about 32-33 days away.

Today the a man of the red cross came and taught the kids and a few volunteers while I was writing blog posts and reading emails. Like how to put a broken leg into a caste and other things which I did not hear. The good man is still teaching at the moment that I type this.

If I am given 10 more sets of hands, I am still not capable of typing about everything fast enough.

Even then, have a good and blessed life!

Peaceful and steady paces forward

Hey All,

Like 3 days ago Hugo, Me, Eder Walter, Yilbert, Daniel and a few others walked over to a house of a friendly family to shoot some shots for Yennies expedition to a police fair I hope I mentioned a lot. A took a few picture, one of them is directly below.

Yilber talked a lot about the 7 habits with E(i)der, a new quest who may turn out to be a volunteer (she doesn´t know how long she wants to stay) and very useful, because she doubled the amount of people that can speak and understand English at the foundation, on top of that she is not constantly occupied with doing things like Hugo is. She doesnt speak English better then me, but she understands and speaks very well. Yilber was talking her ears off in the photo below.

The day afterward the Juvenile group went out with me Walter and Eider for a small excursion to a cave. It was a grand fun time. It was a bit warm weather but very pleasent all together. We walked and walked up hill, to a hole in a fence to the little hiking trail which required a knotted rope to walk. It had rained quite a bit so we had to cross a river with a lot of flowing water. Walter carried a few kids across and the rest used their own two feet and hands.

On the other side we met Monica & I think the other one was also called Monica. They are two lovelady young ladies who went along to the cave. Once at the cave we went. It didnt seem like we were taking huge leaps. We are going steady and safely at this point in what seems like a very relaxed motion.

Recently Hugo was busy talking with one of the Kids called Laura. What it was about I dont know. Josey (pronounced Hosey) came and also asked something of Hugo and hugo replied sit down Hosey I will talk to you after I´m done talking with Laura. So Josey sat down. But in the meantime I interrupted him and he answered me, then after he was done with Laura other kids came and Hugo talked with them. So Hugo forget Josey in that moment, and that was a pretty sore experience for Josey and Hugo as well when he realized it. Why?

Josey felt he was being forgotten and perhaps also that there was a double standard, because he was not allowed to interrupt but others were. When Hugo was done talking with the other kids he got to Josey but by this time Josey got annoyed and said he didnt want to talk about anything and he went away.

Hugo felt pretty guilty. Hugo tried to apologize to Josey. Hugo tried to keep his inner peace but it showed that he was not.

So what is important to notice in this situation, did Hugo neglect Josey? He probably did and it was sore but mistakes like this will be made more times, and we have to deal with them and not destroy ourselves by feeling any more guilty then is useful.

Before Hugo related this, I, Hugo and kids went for a walk (lasting an hour) to Roldanillo during a period we did not have internet acces, we were headed for an internet cafe and a grocery store. I was using a stick to aid me in walking, because my right upper leg or right lower back is a little painful while walking. I also couldnt help but feel like some sort of patriarch and his brother like Moses & Aaron because of the stick. Beside the main road we walked alongside of I notice and ask what the various crops are that are being grown in the area.

Hugo related that some of them are sugarcane crops. Sugarcane has replaced many of the crops that were grown here. It is a crop which can be mechanized so that little labor is required. So with the advent of this crop, there less work for the people to earn their living with. On top of that, sugar cane is used to create food that takes the place of true natural and nourishing food. I pointed out that many of the people at the foundation were using sugar, and that it is hard to make the sugar cane go away for more productive things, but Hugo replied that it is hard to take it out because without sugar many things taste badly. If we dont serve tasty food, the kids wont eat or eat worse things instead. : below is a picture of some sugar cane.

Another issue is meat and chicken particularily. When we were shooting the videos for Yennys presentation at the police fair, I noticed a horrible smell coming from a tiny chicken farm (a few hen houses). I was surprised that the hen houses were dark inside and probably filled with a lot of chickens. I was so surprised to see the factory farming approach in the backyard of local people here. The hen house was shut off from sun light and the open spaces which would allow air to blow through were largely covered with plastic. Ugh.

The subject was brought up yesterday in a meeting, and Hugo I and I think Eider wanted to stop eating meat because of the practices. But we also need a good replacement, because we can´t just arbitrarily stop eating meat. We need some real food in its place. Just rice and bread every day is very stale but it is served at almost every meal. On the other hand, there are some very tasty soups here too! Altough I get the impression a lot of that taste comes from refined salt.

It is then I reiterated my enthusiasm about fruit. We need that fruit so much! Fruit orchards provide labor, require few to no pesticides or chemical fertilizers. "mega crops" like rice, sugar cane and grains in general have a strong tendency to be fueled by chemical fertilizers which destroy the vitality of the soil and the vitality and nutrients in the plant which we need for our nourishment. We notice the lack of it when food tastes stale. Back here the oranges are super tasty, even more then the oranges I am used to in the Netherlands.

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Esperanza is the kind lady, Josey on the right, Pipe in blue shirt, Filipe to his left and Christian in green to the left. They were eating mango at the internet cafe.

I do know a lot of things about food and I think I can cause a little revolution here considdering food and how to change to a more natural and healthy diet that nourishes. I have put a presentation about nourishment on my to-do list. That to-do list is growing by the day. Sometimes also shrinking, God-bless.

Have a good day in Spirit and Truth made expedient and a blessing to all!

Sander

Backyard Camping

Hello dear all,

Esperanza is the lady who helped the kids sew little pictures onto cushions (I mistakingly called her Sonja 2 blog posts ago). She is very good at things that are done with thread and needle and she cooks very well. My pants had started to grow a hole on the left knee and she repaired it very well at my request. I don´t wish to speak ill of her though but sometimes she serves drinks that just aren’t tasty without adding sugar to it. (in my opinion adding artificial/refined sugar to anything is unhealthy.) But some times the drinks are quite tasty too, I especially like the rice flavored drinks. She embodies motherly qualities excellently. She is very patient and disciplined. I just noticed she prays over the food here. I do delight so much to see anyone pray.

I want to pick up where I left off at the last blog post. Esperanza had embraced me as a true mother would a crying child, which I appreciate so oh so much. She went to make dinner. The sadness and crying I´d felt went away and I felt much brighter, lighter and happier then I felt just moments before my head hit the ground hard the same day.

The night had fallen on the area, which happens quite abruptly because of the mountains. Kids were gathering because we were having a slumber party in the back yard (which is quite a big backyard). But before then we watched a movie about an elephant and a particle in which many tiny beings were housed. The elephant talked to the particle and eventually one of its inhabitants started replying. It was like God talking to creation and a creation talking back. Are you real? Can you really make it day or night? The elephant used his shadow over the particle to show he did truly have control in that way. For a long time they communicated and communicated. In the meantime many things happened. The creation in the particle was asking the elephant if he could put the particle somewhere where it would be forever safe… so the elephant set out on the adventure to make it so. The elephant was in the jungle where everything was growing and eating and being eaten and constantly changing, not a safe enviroment for a particle. Along the way to the mountain with a cave containing a sunflower our elephant hero meets opposition from apes, a kangaroo mother with her son and a vulture the kangaroo mother convinces to help her to talk this crazy idea out of the elephants head. But regardless, the elephant gets closer and closer to the mountain. The vulture finds him and takes the rose-pink flower with the particle and after a long chase dumps it in a massive field of pink flowers, making the one flower with the particle extremely hard to find. But the elephant (I think represents God) keeps looking and looking, making huge stacks of plucked particle-less flowers. Eventually he collapses from exhaustion, the wind picks up and blows the plucked flowers all over the place. Our elephant friend starts to panic for a moment but then recognizes the flower with the particle floating around in the wind. He chases after it and with so much delight catches it again!

There he continues his path back to the mountain to give it a safe place. Back home the Kangaroo gets the news that the vulture she tried to get to help her failed her; and by some strange way and oratorical display manages to convince the whole jungle to run after the elephant to stop him from taking the particle to the sanctuary at the top of the mountain.

The jungle army overtakes our elephant friend and ties him down, drags him into a cage and takes his so dearly loved flower with the particle. He had been talking and talking to the particle and its inhabitants and the one hero on the other side was on the inside of the particle trying to convince everyone else that the world of the particle is not everything there is, but that there is much more, or in this case our elephant hero! Finally the particle insider friend convinces everyone that if the elephant can perform what a miracle to them that they will believe, but It turns out our elephant friend can not because by this time an ape was holding the flower with the particle and could not perform any miracles. The jungle army did not believe that the particle had any life. Finally In desperation the elephant begs and pleads to the particle to express its being and make a lot loud and beautiful music so everyone can hear and believe that the particle is not just an empty useless something. The particle inhabitants did not realize the danger they were in, but they did carry with the idea and made so much music, so much music that at the point that the flower with the particle that they lived on was falling down into a boiling pot that would destroy it. But, the son of the kangaroo mother was inspired to jump out and chase the flower! Mom called to her on but he did not obey. The son catches the flower with particle and all just in time, hears the music and lets the others hear. Everyone is convinced. Our elephant friend is rejoiced that the particle who was so much in danger did surive and now even mother Kangaroo (who started all the persecution of our elephant friend) is finally convinced of her error of not believing in life on that little particula.

Personally, I have seen such movies with grand displays of technological cunning, but to these kids here at Yo Creo En Mi I think its something that expands their horizon, especially with movies like these which I think was good. We (about 15 of us) were watching together and Esperanza prepared some popcorn for all.

Afterwards we went outside. Walter took his laptop outside and tried to use a program to show the constellations to the kids while others wandered elsewhere. I discovered Walter was doing this about 5 minutes after he started. I joined and tried to look as well but the sky was mostly covered in clouds.

We had prepared some firewood earlier In the day. So some time later Walter piled it up with some plastic at the bottom, poured some gasoline over it and Vanesah set fire to it. To me it seemed it would not burn. I got the impression Walter did not know how to start a fire, even with the help of gasoline. After contemplating for 15 minutes and seeing that nobody was trying to save the fire I start messing around with it (it had reduced to a small smoldering fire) and started to collect small firewood and branches around the core of the fire. I put one of the bigger pieces of wood over it so it would eventually catch fire. I was a bit doubtful it would work, but felt It important to try to make the fire work, because camping without a bonfire just isn’t camping, ¿am I not right? It was a good thing there was a Fiery Salamander around.

Some of the kids and adoscelent, myself taking the picture.

The fire after it got going very nicely

So we get going and chatting on a bench (elevated beam of wood) nearby. The kids try to get me to say "I love you" to a few of the girls and "you are crazy to some of the young men". Eventually some of us start trying to play hide and seek, mostly the younger people. At first I have no clue how to play and stand around and turn out to become a hiding place in the hide and seek game, as Yenny was using me to hide behind. I was beginning to realize I might as well unconspiciously walk forward to help Yenny get closer and closer to the place she needs to be to win the game, heheheh. Eventually they goad me into joining. I suspect Corra Corra, means Hide Hide. Colombian language is still hard. I went the first round with Yenny and she awkwardly tries to explain her directions to me in Spanish. I try to do what she suggests but absolutely fail horribly as I do whatever shouldn’t be done in Colombian hide and seek. But we had all in all a great time! One of the rounds I was the one to ferret everyone out from hiding, but I didn’t realize I needed to call peoples names to cause them to be counted out! And to boot and I still don’t having everyones names in memory.

They also convinced me to sleep in one of the backyard tents. Finally I manage to pick one after Hugo came out from his slumber to see the bonfire and the goings on. We were sitting around chatting or trying to chat and I get sleepy and get my blanket to sleep inside one of the tents. My will to stay awake was already strongly fading. I lay down after reading the fire English fire warning to (I suspect) Filipe. Now this wasn’t comfortable, there wasn’t an airbed or mattress. But finally I manage to find a position under my blanket I can sleep in. Less then an hour later it starts to rain and decides the tents should be moved to the hall of the foundation building. So I wake up again, realizing its going to be a long morning to sleep in. Slow and dazed I take a zombie walk over to my actual bed at the foundation.

To some it may not look like much that there are these things going on with the kids, but without it they would have no fellowship and little hope for a future. Where I come from activities and kids playing is quite normal but here it is a rather grand exception and very much needed refreshment and nourishment to the souls of these children.

What I feel in my heart Is that these kinds of things are very healing for the kids, to have fellowship with their own kin and good teachers in good activities with people who love them. They are taught responsibility and iniative, to put truly spiritual and important things first, to hold a vision for their future, to think in terms of winning not just for their own salvation but the salvation of their brothers and sisters, to understand others before demanding sympathy and understanding themselves, to synergize in cooperation (and not destruction In competition) and to nourish their bodies, emotions, souls and the spirit which gave us life.

Live well and charitous, Sander Fiery Salamander