End of Training

As warned, we've been kept pretty busy throughout our two weeks of training.

We spent much of our time in a historic but unfortunately condemned Hotel Estambul. The hotel has two public areas on the ground floor. Our meeting room was a white walled, white tiled L shape with lots of open windows to the ocean that remained just out of site behind a mangrove swamp. There were no less than 6 fans running full tilt to keep the 80+ degree, humid air moving. They kept us supplied with hot coffee, snacks and water, all of which Ifound indespensible.

The second and most interesting room is a historic agglomeration of colorful walls, high tiled ceilings with fans, toilets used as planters with all manner of tropical flora, paintings and sculpture. Two guard dogs occuppied the north end of the room in a fenced area. It was a delight to have lunches here.

Sadly, the Hotel Estambul is about to be sacrificed to build a parking lot for a new grocery store, Puerto Colombias first Supermercado. The Supermercado is being constructed now at a terrific pace with about six modern checkout lines. To their great credit, even the big stores are buit by the sidewalk. If they provide parking at all it is located beneath or behind the building. People walking or arriving in buses are dropped right at the door without having to traverse a large, hot parking lot.

Friday 13 was a propitious date to hit the final check-point for training. As always it was hot, but a good milestone in the process. Two weeks of training went by quickly. My socio or counterpart Alvarro Mejia came in today and participated in the meetings. He's a very nice, soft-spoken man that is perhaps my age or a little younger. He has three sons aged about 26, 22 and 10. That's quite a span. He works for the mayor's office as a planner, though I think his primary interest has been agricultural development. We'll have more time to talk today during the bus trip to Aracataca.

We had our formal swearing-in ceremony in the afternoon. A few short speeches, signing a document, a few group photos and done.

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Tomorrow we'll take a taxi to Barranquilla, then a bus to Aracataca. There are a couple of options with buses ranging from local, very colorful buses that make lots of stops and carry all kinds of luggage, chickens, sacks of vegetables and people. We are required to ride the express, air-conditioned buses that are considered more secure from theft. The trip will take most of the day I think.

I've learned more about my host family too. I'll be living with a father (lawyer), mother (physical therapist), a daughter age 12, and sons ages 15 and 8. It sounds like I'll be quite a bit older than the parents, so perhaps like an uncle to the kids. That should be fun. I wasn't sure what gift would be appropriate, so I bought a soccer ball. I probably aimed a bit low on the age spectrum, but the 8 year old may enjoy it. I know that I will.

My socio is going to take me around the town to meet various officials when we get to town. It's a big town, so I don't think my arrival will generate any buzz. They get a steady trickle of foreigners visiting the Casa Museo de Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have to jump right into community asset mapping on day one. They want some results in less than a month, including a geographic map, a calendar of significant events and milestones, some variation of project and economic priorities and some variation of a map of social networks. I am hoping that Alvaro will have time to help. My experience with making unannounced visits to government offices has been mixed at best.

I'm pretty well packed and ready to go tomorrow, but there are always snags. In addition my to big back packs and my day pack I now have a large nylon sack containing a large water filter, mosquito net, medical kit and soccer ball. I can probably pick it all up and move slowly for a short distance.

On to the farewell dinner.