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
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