Through one of Maria's oldest friends in Colombia who does a lot of charitable work Maria visited a school founded and run by a nun in the worse area in Cali. The nun, Edith Palomo, started the school about 10 years ago in a barrio called El Retiro which is a district of the dreaded area of Cali called Agua Blanca. Agua Blanca lies to the east of the city of Cali toward the banks of the Cauca river and is actually below the river's water table. It is land deemed unsuitable for housing as it floods quickly when it rains and it is plagued by mosquitoes and other swamp-type bugs and animals.
Agua Blanca became populated by squatters several years ago who took over the land and built shacks and makeshift houses. These were and continue to be very poor people, many of whom have migrated to the city from the countryside due to the civil war the country has suffered. They don't have education or many skills - the women are either maids, cleaners or prostitutes. The men have manual labor jobs, with younger man being part of gangs who rob and kill and terrorize their own neighborhood and the citizens of Cali. It is said that narcos and gerrillas hire people from this area to fill their ranks.
Edith belongs to a group of Catholic nuns who are run from Spain. The group's purpose is to be missionaries helping those in need around the world. It is not required that they dress as nuns and one quickly forgets that Edith is a nun - she is so approachable that one forgets she is a nun. She is highly energetic, a very charged woman whose mission is very clear to her all the time: to help the kids in this area become people who can aspire to more than to kill, rob, be prostitutes or drug addicts. She is an amazing person and hearing her talk about her kids with such love, affection and hope gives one goose bumps.
The program she offers her kids is comprehensive. In the mornings kids are taught regular school. They receive breakfast, lunch and a snack in the afternoon as in their homes they are usually not fed. In the afternoon the kids get psychological help, a program no other school private, public or charitable offers. Edith believes that without this psychological help the kids cannot really be integrated into society. Edith talks about how most kids dread weekends or holidays because they have to stay in their homes for extended periods of time. Often at their homes there is no food and they are abused physically, emotionally and sexually. Many ask her to let them live with her in her Albergue which is a small house she rents about 2 blocks from the school. She lives in it and also lets the worse case kids to stay. Even some of the kids' parents tell her they want to give her their kids as gifts - they don't want them! However, she does not have enough room for these kids nor does she have enough helping hands and capacity to run an orphanage home. She tries to help these kids by finding places where they can live. Edith's days are long and stretched to the limit running the school of 130+ kids, building the new school, attending the school affairs and trying to get donations.
Maria has spent some time with Edith while in Cali, helping her build a website so that hopefully she can reach a larger audience to help her with her center. The center is currently building a new school next to the current school house they are renting. Edith relies solely on donations from well-intended individuals to maintain the school, pay salaries and now build the new school. She continues to work on trying the get the city's Education Department to help her with paying the teachers' salaries but they continue to tell her they don't have any funds. She is very adamant about not receiving donations from politicians whose purpose is not to help but to get her to convince the community that knows her to vote for them. She has also been offered donations from people whose motive is other than to help and she has declined those. Spending time with Edith and seeing how passionate she is about her work and what she does to help these unlucky kids makes one realize that there should be higher purpose in life than just those of our own.
You can view pictures of Fundación Chreme's school, including the kids, teachers and Edith in the album called "Fundación Chreme" in the blogs "Photo Gallery".
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We had heard about how good the Cali Zoo was but had never visited it in the many trips we have taken here to visit Maria's relatives. Hence, one pleasant Sunday we visited the Zoo and were very impressed by the grounds, the animals shown which looked well maintained and many of which were "the smallest" or "the largest" or "the most rare". Many of the animals were from Colombia which boasts one of the largest biodiversities in the world in animal life and vegetation. Though we don't like to see wild animals in captivity we realize how much people learn about their habitat, whether they are in danger of extinction and the importance of preserving nature for our own and the earth's sake.
Check out the pictures we took in our "Photo Gallery" in an album called "The Cali Zoo". An animal that caught our attention a lot was "El Titi León" which is the smallest primate in the Americas - it only weighs 140 grams! Can you translate to ounces?
Click on the "Photo Gallery" icon in the blog to find pictures in the album "The Cali Zoo"
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At the end of September, we took a 4 day-trip to Medellín which, after the capital city of Bogotá, is the second largest city in Colombia with a population of 2.4 million inhabitants. One of the northern most cities of the Andes in South America, Medellín is a thriving industrial city which after it was founded in 1616 grew fast due to its gold and later the coffee production. The Antioquia department where Medellín is located was fairly isolated from the rest of Colombia for many years because of the difficulty of the terrain to get there as it is nestled in the middle of the Cordillera Central, on the foothills of the high mountain range descending into the Aburrá Valley. It wasn't until the coffee production accelerated in the 20th century when the city grew very fast. Its tempered climate of nearly 70-75 F degrees throughout the year makes the city very attractive to live in.
Medellín was first in the country to start the Industrial revolution in the early 1900s becoming center in Colombia for commerce mainly in textiles and technology. It boasts the only metro system in the country which runs almost the entire length of the city, with metro cables running up the high hills where mostly very poor people live. They recently extended the metro toward the east part of the city, making the metro line into a "t" to cover a large portion of the city. The metro is fairly fast, very clean and runs very smoothly.
Paisas, as people from Antioquia are called, are very industrious and prosperous people. Their work ethic is unparalleled to people in the rest of the country. They are proud people and strive to keep their city very clean to the point that it is rather funny to encounter so many signs everywhere asking people not to throw garbage on the streets and to wash their hands. We saw these signs behind toilet doors, in art galleries, at the metro station, even in churches. We took a picture of one of these signs as they seemed to be an important icon around the city.
There are many attractions in the city. It is called the Flower Capital of Colombia with orchids being a mayor attraction and it hosts an international flower festival every year. It has been the birth of many famous artists such as Fernando Botero, made famous for his wide sculptures. He donated a large collection of his sculptures to the city which opened two of the 3 floors of the Antioquia museum for Botero's works and it dedicated the park in front of the museum for his statues. It is also a center of science and medicine with a well-known heart transplant hospital where doctors performed some of the first heart transplants in the world.
Unfortunately in the 1980s and early 1990s Medellín became the base of powerful drug trafficking organizations named by the Americans as the Medellín Cartel. Lead by the infamous Pablo Escobar, the Colombian civil conflict centered in Medellín with the guerrillas, the paramilitaries and the narcos trying to gain control of it.
However, by 2000 Medellín became a normal city, again due to the many changes brought about by President Uribe's government. Also, local government and its citizens in general have gone to great lengths to shake off its bad reputation and improve the image of the city, with tangible results.
We very much enjoyed our time in Medellín. One day we took a city tour bus which for $15,000 pesos (or about 7 dollars) took us on a 5-hour tour of the city stopping in places of interest. Another day we took the Metro and one of the cable rides for $1.5 US each way. We made several stops, visiting Botero's museum and the Botanical Gardens. We ate a very good restaurants but the one that stands out is Restaurante Mondogos in the El Poblado area, famous for its tripe soup. Yes, tripe! Maria thought she would never eat that again as she does not eat beef but we loved this soup.
In sum, if you want to see a great city in South America while enjoying gorgeous views and fantastic weather you should visit Medellin. We took several pictures of Medellín which you can find in the blog's "Photo Gallery" in the album called "Medellin". You can read more about Medellín in Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn
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