Beautiful handmade 'mochilas' from Santa Marta, Colombia

Hello lovely and dedicated blogger and facebook peeps!   I've been really busy behind the scenes helping Padre Augusto following my return from Santa Marta, Colombia.  I've been going to some Catholic churches and making numerous calls to people to set up presentations in the coming months to talk about Padre's work and drum up some donations for his community.  I still have lots to share with you so please stay tuned!

For now I am partaking in my own research to find out if anyone would be interested in buying one of these lovely bags, called 'mochillas?'  See all my pics of the mochilas HERE.

Each mochila is hand-made by some women in Padre's community of Santa Marta and each bag is unique in design.  They take up to 40 hours of intensive labour usually up to one month to make one bag.  Please comment and let me know if you or anyone you know would buy one for $100-125 (depending on detail and size).

They also make smaller ones which will be priced $40-70 (depending on detail and size) and smaller ones made for iPhones and mobiles ($20-30 depending on detail and size).  The smaller girls learn how to make mochilas by starting out with the smaller ones  - iPhone and children's bags.  These bags originate from the indigenous tribes of the Sierra Nevada in Northern Colombia (where Santa Marta lies)   These colourful bags are designed and knitted by the Wayuu people in Padre's community.  Please post a comment here, on my FB or send me an individual email.

I'm not planning on making any money myself in these transactions - all profits will go to the Puentes Foundation Colombia Non-Profit which I am setting up.  All proceeds will help educate and feed people directly as well as creating sustainability in their community.

 Thanks and God bless

xxHeidi

Lost in the Lost City, Sierra Nevada, Colombia

Actually I wasn't lost but at times I felt a bit left behind on such an arduous trek.

Oh yeah, let me back up a bit as it's been weeks since I last blogged.  Time has been flying by here in Santa Marta working with Padre and his community.  English classes have now been scheduled to Saturday morning as school started for most people this week.  The summer holiday period here is December and January and schools are opening back up this week and next week.  Summer in Santa Marta is over (but thankfully not the hot weather!)

Weather has greatly improved here from when I first arrived.  It's now very hot and dry - no more torrential humid rain (thankfully for my laptop and cameras).  It's gorgeous and I can't believe I only have about two more weeks in Santa Marta.

Preparing for the Feria, January 29th.  When I first arrived here I asked Padre what artisan projects people made or knew how to make and he didn't know.  It was my idea to host a Feria de Artisanales where people could show us what they were good at making (for creating and selling items to sell to tourists).  The girls and boys have been working very hard at promoting the event throughout the barrios with homemade posters and flyers.  Padre has also made some good announcements at church on Sunday.  People here like to gamble so the first prize for the Artists Fair will be the money we collect from the entries (2000 pesos per entry).  We've had a few people enter already but I am hoping they will all come on the 29th.  I have heard people are busy making things and getting ready to enter.  Colombians don't work to a schedule nor are they very good at planning things so it's sometimes a bit of a challenge for this gringa.  

Back to getting lost in the Lost City.  After visiting the Santa Marta museum when I first arrived I learned about the Lost City through their small collection of artifacts.  I was mesmerized that there was a lost city located up in the Sierra Nevada mountains so close to where I was staying I suggested for Padre and I to go.  It is a very expensive and timely trip as it takes 2 days trekking up the mountain to view the lost city and then 2 days trekking back down.  It's a five day trip of mud, sweat, grueling uphill hikes under a blazing sun with mosquitoes everywhere.  I can't believe I put myself up for this challenge to see a lost civilization in the mountains of Colombia! 

You can read more about the lost city http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Perdida

I actually (and thankfully) did not get lost in the lost city nor on the way but at times I thought I was as the trekking guides don't really wait for you.  Everyone must keep up a strong pace at all times.  There were moments when I was walking by myself on the path in this jungly type of dense growth for 15-20 minutes just concentrating on my breath, not tripping over any rocks and not getting lost.  It was grueling for me as I'm not as in good of shape as I was a few years ago training for marathons.  This was certainly a good reminder for me to get back into shape!

We had some really good fruit breaks on the way up the mountain and my favorite was the first stop after 3 hours of serious hiking where we had fresh watermelon awaiting us.  I had never tasted such sweet and succulent watermelon as I did this day.  

I ate all kinds of colombian sugary snacks along the way that I would never think to eat during any other time but I was happily surprised that they were so good!  Guava sugar cubes that melted in my mouth and gave me quick energy spurts.

The toughest days were definitely the first two days on the way as you are almost hiking vertically up a mountain in serious mud.  You can not go on this trek expecting not to get muddy and wet.

Day three we finally reached our base camp to the Lost City.  We dropped off our over night items and crossed the river waist high to greet the famous stone stairway to take us up to the Lost City - all 1250 steps.  This was a serious stair master test.  The stones are very small (geez these indigenous people must of had very small feet!) and they are slippery from the moss and moisture of frequent rain.  

I can't tell you the sense of achievement of reaching atop of those 1250 stairs!  Padre was kind enough to carry my camera so he snapped of couple of photos of me gasping for air and water.

We spent a few hours at the Lost City viewing all the terraces and meeting the famous Colombian army who are based there 24/7.  These young soldiers spend 3 months at a time living there keeping tourists safe (and the Lost City remains).  They are more excited to see us then we are to see them and all of them certainly enjoy getting their pictures taken with all of us gringos.

You can view many of my photos on flickr.  I will have to apologize in advance for the many green and green pictures but hey that's what it was like trekking to the Lost City - very green!

I'm glad I made it and I'm glad I didn't break any bones on the way down.  It was one of the best experiences of my life and was it worth it?  You bet!

4 January

Wow!  Time is flying by here in Santa Marta.  I have been helping Augusto every day with various things but mainly looking at sustainability and tourism opportunities for his community.  There is so much work to be done here.  I am only here to scratch the surface and create a beginning.  It will be up to the people here in the community and other volunteers who come to Santa Marta to take on further work.

R2 D2 buseta

Sunday I rode in my first R2 D2 buseta.  All the busetas (mini-vans) here are very personalized by the owner/drivers.  They often have hanging toys or stickers that reflect the aspirations of the driver (e.g. more women, more booze or simply a better car)  My favorite thus far was this green buseta that we rode in when Mervy and I went to the beach on Sunday.  It had a picture of a ferrari above the picture of the buseta (obviously the driver thought of his car as the ferrari of Santa Marta) but the funniest thing was when he honked his horn to let cyclists or other busetas know that he was driving down the road.  The horn or sound that emitted from this green and white mini van sounded liked a broken down R2 D2 from Star Wars.  It was quite amusing for me and although i tried to capture the sound on video he never seemed to use the horn when I was filming.

New Year’s Eve in Colombia

I spent most of the day with Padre visiting a few people in the poor area of his neighborhood delivering some food parcels.  Padre will often buy or get donations of food from other people and then he passes it out to those most in need.   We drove on his motorcycle to visit a few people.  In particular I had the opportunity to meet Alberto and his family who Padre featured in one of his spanish videos on the community website:  www.puentesfoundation.org  Alberto was one of the farmers that was exploited and forced to move out of his home several years ago during the guerilla wars in the Sierra Madre.  He was allowed to leave alive with his family with just the clothes on his back and nothing else.  Alberto is a very humble and hardworking man who has been trying to rebuild his life in Santa Marta.  His family live in a very poor ram-shackled house built of left over wood and building materials.  He is trying to build himself a new home as well as build a small garden to sustain himself.  He is the first one growing aloe vera plants in his area and he hopes to make some kind of product out of the aloe vera.  They also grow Arnica trees so this is another product that Padre is looking into.  Anyone with good knowledge of products that can be derived from aloe vera or arnica are greatly in need. I have been googling products and recipes but I think the first step is to get some knowledgeable farmers (besides Alberto) in the community to help the rest of the village begin to plant sustaining gardens.

Lastly as we departed Alberto’s neighborhood I couldn’t help notice (and to want to take photos) of all the stuffed men lying about.  It is traditional here in Colombia that they burn last year’s man (2010) to welcome the new year.   They create a dummy filled with newspapers or bags and dress him up in some kind of theme.  It was fun seeing all these dummies lying about in front of shops and cars and posed in different positions (this one in particular was a bit naughty!)  There were many more but these were the ones where we stopped the motorcycle long enough for me to snap a quick photo.

Sustainability y inglés

I’ve been teaching English everyday and started this week to teach english to the Ninas and Ninos.  They are very cute and my class today grew from about 18 to 27!  So word is getting out.  I wanted to limit the class to 20 but it’s hard to say no to kids who want to learn.

The kids are very cute and are learning very basic english for starters like “hello” “how are you?” “Good morning”, etc.  Most of the little ones haven’t had any english experience at all and they are keen to learn a few words.  I have had Lady (one of the younger girls that’s very involved with the church and community) helping me translate when needed.  Her english is very good and she is also a very good teacher’s assistant.  I have already discussed with Padre that she should continue the English lessons after I leave.  Tourism in Santa Marta will be on the rise in the next few years as the government is planning on investing and developing more into this area for the future.  Santa Marta is a conservation hot spot in Colombia as well as being a lovely holiday destination for not only Colombians but also international visitors.  If these kids can understand that learning English (or another language) will be vital to their future employment opportunities later.  It’s a lot to teach but I do my best in simple lessons and many games that we play in the classroom.  I love to engage the kids by getting them to stand up and we do games using the English from today’s lesson.  I love to teach them about conservation and the environment so we talk about the playa (beach) and the beautiful areas that surround Santa Marta (the reasons to why tourists would come here).  

My afternoon English Club with the older girls has been going well and we are more into action of trying to create some ideas whilst I’m here.  I have given them the idea of making a simple bag (like a recyclable grocery or shopping bag) that tourists or people might want to buy.  They have the assignment this week of researching fabric, costs and to come up with some unique Santa Marta or Colombian designs.  It’s been really rewarding for me to get them thinking and add a bit of inspiration.  I only hope that they take this as a stepping stone and continue to make things happen after I leave - that’s the real challenge!

I do believe in the power of one and how much even one person can give or inspire to a community.  I take Padre Augusto as a wonderful example of how much one person can give and do for various people.  He is always busy and always helping people every day.  I can’t say the same for his cat though (Tiger el Gato).  Tiger and I have bonded but he is the laziest cat I have ever met.  He has now rightly earned his name “El Gato Flojo.”

So hope everyone that’s reading this is off to a good new year. 

More pictures soon but you can see all of them on my flickr account:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedogreporter/sets/

Gracias!

x

First day in Santa Marta day before christmas

24th December

Well no chance of sleeping in here in Santa Marta.  First of all, I have a shop directly across the street which enjoys playing “musica” ALL THE TIME and as loud as possible.  It’s like being at my mom’s house all the time except here they play a varied mix of Caribbean, Colombian ranchero and dance music.  Then around 7 or 7:30 am, I was awoken by various knocks on the door when Augusto’s friends started to arrive to begin organizing, wrapping and preparing gifts to be delivered to the needy children in the community.  Padre (Father Augusto) had parents get their children (if they could write if not the parents wrote on their behalf) to the “little child” (baby Jesus for my non-Catholic friends) and ask for one toy they wanted most for Christmas.  Over 200+ kids wrote letters which were passed along to Father Gus.  Augusto was like Santa trying to get all us elves to match up toys with letters the day before Christmas.  It was nonstop commotion in such a tiny little house.  Padre Gus realized that he was short on many toys so he said he would have to go back into town to buy some more in the Christmas rush hour.  I offered $100 towards buying the rest of the toys needed.   He was so grateful to buy some more toys to fulfill the letters (thank you to everyone who donated towards my trip!)   

The letters were so sweet and although I couldn't speak too much in Spanish, I could understand some of the writing in Spanish.  We had a lot of fun reading the letters and matching them with the toys.  We also had a steady stream of people coming by to donate toys - one guy even dropped off a small bag.   Later we discovered he made a set of chairs and table for one of the little ninas.  The sentiment was so sweet but we had to re-glue everything back together several times as they kept falling apart.

It was a lot of fun being with various new friends that didn’t know a word of English and me not knowing a word of Spanish (actually I know a few but not enough to string together competitive conservations like they were having)

The day progressed and as we finished wrapping presents everyone scurried home to get ready for Christmas eve celebrations with the kids at the school.  Padre was expecting 400 kids to arrive at the school for a special Christmas Evening of prayer and play.   I had no chance to feel any jet lag the day after I arrived as I was ushered in and out of various places around the village to help with everything including checking on the Christmas Eve pasteles (a sort of Colombian tamale made with rice).

The kids really enjoyed playing loads of games with everyone and I could see why Padre is so well loved here as he gets so involved - including playing football (soccer for the yanks) and cops and robbers with the kids.  He is also a very fast runner!

We finished the kids christmas eve by passing out “obleas” which are Colombian desserts made out of a light wafer biscuit with a honey/butter/sugary type of spread smeared in between the wafers.  The kids went crazy eating them!

Before christmas eve mass we had a get together with people at the school to eat the christmas tamales.  These are made of rice, three kinds of meat:  pork, chicken, beef, egg, potato and one slice of carrot (tradition that the carrot soaks up the fat)  It’s all wrapped into a cassava leave then cooked for three to four hours.  Colombians here also drink a lot of soda and I have already had my fair share of drinking a sweet syrupy pink concoction of a soda that they seem to enjoy having at almost every party or festive occasion since I’ve arrived.  I am doing my best to stick to augua from now on.

Christmas Eve was a nice get together of about 25 people before mass and I can see how family is so important to the Colombians.  They really like to sit around with each other and  laugh and talk (with a lot of pink soda I might add).

Christmas. Part uno.

December 25, 2010

Power went out a couple of times due to the heavy rains and bad weather that Colombia has been experiencing and I didn’t think once of complaining as it meant the shop music from across the road was out too.  Hooray some sleep!   It was the best Christmas present I received (well almost ...)

It was early morning and already people knocking on the door again by 7:00 am.  

After coffee and some fresh mango (I had told Padre that I was looking forward to eating a mango when I arrived in Santa Marta so he grabbed one from a friends yard) for breakfast it was time to get ready to start delivering some gifts!

Oh wait I forgot to tell you that I also discovered that Colombians here in Santa Marta are always late.  We waited for some people to come over to Padre’s house to join us for passing out gifts in the neighboring barrio.  And we waited.  Then we waited some more.

Padre suggested I take my small bags of numerous little gifts that my mom helped me wrapped for the ninas and ninos.  I had a very weighted down backpack full of small toys for girls and boys as well as some small gifts for some of the mothers and grandmothers.  I had no idea that we would be trekking up and down some muddy, treacherous and watery terrain for the next 3-4 hours looking for people who had no house addresses but just a name on their letter with their barrio address.  It was so hot, so humid and my bags were getting heavy in addition to carrying my camera bag but it was Christmas in Colombia!

All I can say is look at these pictures on my flickr.  You’ll see what it meant to me.  This was the best Christmas present!  It was a real blessing to see and experience handing out toys and presents to mothers and children who had nothing.  My favorite house (pictured here) was so humbly decorated.  The mother of two little girls was so gracious and overwhelmed to get toys for her children.  Padre explained to me that her husband passed away a couple of years ago and her mother (in this picture in the background) is blind.  I gave them some treats from my bag as well and the little girl ran over to her grandmother to tell her about it.  

Padre was like a real life Santa Claus - checking his long list of names to see who had received their present and who was left. 

Good news is that we were able to find almost all the children in the village even though there were no addresses on the clapboard shacks or dodgy brick type buildings.  I think next year Padre should ask parents to also write what kind of outdoor speakers they have as it might be easier to identify the houses.  Man the Colombians here love their musica!

Playing Santa Claus. Part Dos.  

So after trekking in the village all day it was time to prepare for some children visiting the school for more Christmas celebrations. And yes, it was still very hot, humid and rainy.

Around 4:30 pm we headed for the school to entertain the kids.  Padre said this was my opportunity to don the Santa Claus costume that I brought from the states.  It was actually saved from a 10k Santa run I did in London a few years ago which I had sent to my mom to use for her kindergarten class (and yes, sure enough my dad used it one year and stretched it out quite a bit!)  I also had to improvise a beard to go with it since the original was lost somewhere between the 10k and my dad delivering pizza to my mom’s Kindergarten class a few years ago.

You can see from the pictures that 

a.) The kids in Padre’s village had never seen someone dressed in a santa costume 

b.) no one cared if I was a woman dressed as Santa 

c.) even the adults liked Santa Clausine (see picture of Joseph the grounds keeper with his big smile)

Of course I am leaving the Santa costume here in its new home.  Next year I hope to see pictures of Father Augusto dressed as Papa Noel.

Playa y Jugos de Mango

December 26, 2010

My new friends Ladys, Mervin and Zuleima took me to the beach.  Even though we are very close (as the crow flys) to the playa we have to take two buses to get to one of the nice tourist-ca beaches.  We waited over an hour outside Garagoa but there were no buses direct to Taganga.  We had to take a bus into town and catch another bus to Taganga.

Anyone that enjoys a smooth and safe ride would probably not enjoy a ride in a busetta.  (mini vans fitted for 20-25 people)  No where else do you get the sense of community other than on a busetta.

Taganga is a sweet little  tourist town with many “jugos” and fruit stands dotted along the pedestrian walk way.  Apparently Taganga is known for being a bit of a gringo hippy beach spot as well as a destination for some Colombians. I was duly impressed by the first no motorcycle sign since arriving in Colombia.

I invited the girls if I could treat them to a jugos as I really wanted to try a mango jugos myself.  The drinks are made with fresh fruit and blended with either milk or ice water (I opted for ice water) and the strangest thing to me was the huge amount of sugar they added to the juice which isn’t really necessary as the fruits are so ripe and sweet. 

It was a deliciso treat before we ventured on our hike to Playa Grande - the main beach which is sandwiched between two massive hills.  You can take a boat to reach Playa Grande bay but we opted for the view and the exercise (and saving a few pesos) to hike 20 minutes on a cliff hanging hill to reach the beach.  I must admit that part of the hike was a bit nerve wracking for my fear of heights but the view was worth it.  It was also reassuring to know that the Colombian policia are keeping an eye on the gringos.   I had a personal bodyguard named Jamie who walking behind me 1/2 way to the beach.  He spoke incredibly good english.  

Just as we started our descent towards Playa Grande bay the girls spotted two lorros (wild parrots) sitting in a tree.  To see these beautiful birds in the wild with full tails was amazing!  

We arrived on a very full beach at mid day and there was barely an empty spot on the sand but we got lucky.  I opted for an immediate dip into the water to cool off as it was so hot and humid which I’m not used to.  Like a typical tourist beach there were numerous vendors walking up and down the playa selling everything from ceviche to beach clothing.

Next time I will kindly ask them no azucar.