the boulevard is not that bad

This might be exhaustive. Consider yourself forewarned.

This long week began with a 5am wake up call from my otherwise useless cell phone. Jorge and I left at sunrise to pick up Eliana for our 5-day adventure to the mountain town of Medellin. Eliana is the 17-year-old intern at Jorge and Ginny's church, and is a-dore-able. Seriously, if I packed her in my suitcase for the States she would get an immediate vocation as Target's model for all Mossimo clothing. Her English is a chunk better than my Spanish, and so with our 10 hour bus ride, we spoke little except to explicate the absolute beauty of the Colombia's green, mountainous frontier. It was starkingly similar to long bus rides throughout Nepal; however, since Nepal's rainy season is isolated to a few months in the summer time, Colombia's year-long dampness makes it that much more luscious this time of year. And to calm any nerves early on in this post, there was not one sign of danger our entire journey to and fro. Sure, the military men with machine guns were regular on the sides of roads, but the two nuns that were our neighbors on that first leg of the ride were a sign from God that no one would mess with us.

Arriving in the early evening, Jon, our contact and a friend of G and J's, along with the entire staff of JUCUM (Jovenes Con un Mision...Youth With a Mission) welcomed us to Medellin and their work there. That night, Jon gave us a look at Colombia through his literal lens, as he went through hundreds of photos of outreaches and cute kids. Similar to Ginny, Jon was raised in Colombia as a missionary kid and after a stint in the US came back to Colombia to work with street kids and displaced families. He was in Bogota for the better part of three years, and is going on his second year in Medellin. He has a grand vision, a desire for conflict resolution within the church and the country of Colombia, and reads Henri Nouwen and Dostoyevsky...solid individual.

Besides Jon, my only other English translator was Luz. She is Colombian by birth, Dutch by adoption, and just 9 months ago moved to Colombia to do ministry, learn Spanish, and spend time with the family she has here. She was overwhelmingly hospitable, and took Eliana and I under her wing. And so it was that the following morning, we arose early to spend the day at the boys' home with Luz and another woman on staff. JUCUM's main focus in Medellin is with displaced kids. When I say displaced, it is meant to differentiate from street. The majority of street children, depending on the location, of course, means that they may be homeless and orphaned, or they're shelter is a mere cover from weather and their parents are either prostitutes, addicts, in jail, or a combination of the three. I am generalizing here, as one generally has to do when discussing such oppressive, non-objective, and complicated situations. So when I say displaced, I refer more to those who have known existing family (whether it be parent, grandparent, aunt/uncle, or cousin) but who are unable to support the life of a child either physically, educationally, emotionally, or a combination of the three. JUCUM has been a constant presence in the city for fifteen years, and has a boys' home with 18 fellas from age 6-18, and a girls home with 16 ladies from a similar age range where they provide those resources the children would otherwise not have.

Eduardo, Jonatan y Felipe

So for a full day on Tuesday, we played 'Va Pescado' better known to us gringo chillun' as 'Go Fish',

Luz to the left

Eliana and Felipe

a memory game that put all us adults to shame (it is phenomenal how a six-year-old can embarass you in the realms of memory), practiced our shooting form with a form of basketball (really, it was a mop bucket placed against the wall and the ball is several socks wadded up...resourceful and creative mark the child devoid of video games), and helped with all the childrens' homework.

Eduardo

Alex

Every boy minus one goes to school at various times (either the morning shift or the afternoon), and the majority of the afternoon is spent keeping the child who prefers play-doh over mathematics accountable to his immense school responsibilities. But don't go thinking that the one boy who is too young to go to school just gets out of the same routine. Filipe, the six-year-old mixture of Secil and Ashish (a reference for whomever kept up with the children at Harka Orphan Home in Nepal) who is entirely too cute for his own good, spent over an hour with me that afternoon doing his 'homework'. He has a notebook which contains his daily homework of repetitive symbols. For instance, the day before he had to draw 80 triangles. This is more for him to get used to such a discipline more than to be particularly cruel and pointless, but the afternoon he was with me he had to draw 80 cats...yes, cats, gatos...however you say it, that is too many.

So after he finished his first two lines we started playing a game. Filipe would look at me with those knowing-how-cute-i-am eyes, charming smile and say, "Yo catorce, tu cuatro." (Me fourteen, you four). I caved in and helped him draw his cats while the other tutors weren't looking (I know, my potential influence was used solely to encourage cutting corners), and he continued his business guile by getting me down to a "Yo ocho (8), tu cinco (5)." That's as bad as it got, but by that time we were basically done with his homework. Filipe 1, Rebecca 0. But you look at this kid and tell me you wouldn't do the same.

It was 6pm, and as they sat down to enjoy their good behavior reward of Scooby Doo, we gave them all hugs and kisses and said good night after one long day of loving and being loved. What joy.

The following day Eliana and I went to her grandmother's home to enjoy a traditional Colombian lunch. Her cousin, cousin's precious two-year-old daughter, and uncle joined us for the occasion. I was in the dark for the majority of conversations but made out that her grandmother wanted me to come back and marry a Colombian (sounds good to me, I replied). I caught a glimpse of bead work on a desk next to our table and exclaimed how beautiful the bracelets were. Turns out her grandmother made them, and in typical, over-hospitable character, she gave me the most beautiful one as a gift. After such a generous meeting, Eliana, her cousin, Sandra, and I went to the pride and joy of Medellin, the Metro. Never have I been to a city where the metro is the number one tourist attraction (that and a singer and artist I'll get to in a bit). But considering the fact that it is the only metro system in Colombia, spreads throughout the entire city above ground, and connects to a cable car system that allows public transportation to the poorest of the poor (even though they most likely can't afford the ticket), it is rather impressive. Our destination was the aforementioned Metro Cable that is identical to a ski gondola but without the snow, skis, boards, steaming goggles, or nylon-shelled pants. It proved to be an enjoyable mini-roller coaster that gave beautiful, rainy views of the city, a glimpse into the levels of economic classes in Colombia, and time for two cousins to catch up who hadn't seen each other in over a year.

Later that evening we departed on what would be quite the adventurous night. In addition to the full-time responsibilities of both boys' and girls' homes, Rosita, a woman on staff with JUCUM in her forties is in charge of their weekly visits to street children and the homeless. Though their more focused efforts are toward the displaced children as I explained before, the need is still overwhelming to love the homeless and destitute in Colombia (as it is everywhere). Therefore, every Wednesday night, Rosita, a few other staff members, and a couple of the older boys pile two 10-gallon Igloo water coolers filled with hot chocolate, garbage bags filled with loaves of bread, squeezable jam, and bags of suckers into a couple of taxis and go to what is known as the Hotel. In the heart of downtown lies an abandoned hotel that now houses (the mere shelter from weather kind of house) over fifty children, mostly mothers, and a few fathers. The majority of women are prostitutes and their preteen daughters dress as if they will follow suit. It is with a consistent schedule that Rosita and crew show up around 8:30pm, play with the absolute over-energized children, listen to the women, sing songs, tell a story, and pass out the pan y chocolate. That many kids with such little structure leaves one exhausted after a few hours stay, but just before we left, Mauricio (32-year-old long-haired Colombian hippy on staff with a longing to go to India), Luz, Eliana and I took one of the cuter little boys up to his room. There his mother, his five siblings all under the age of seven, and aunt live in a space no bigger than 15ft x 15ft. Their skin and eyes prove their beautiful Colombian Indian race, and as the mother held Mauricio's hand she asked him to pray for her family as her husband is in jail and they are just trying to survive. So there we grabbed the hands of each child, mother, aunt, and prayed that God would give this family grace and peace, remind them that they are not forgotten, and that he loves them with a mighty love.

With one Igloo cooler drained, the other went on the shoulder of Andres, a Swiss staff member who has been in Colombia for more than two years and more recently brought back with him his new bride, Sarah, who together desire to begin a school for the street kids through JUCUM in Medellin. I was handed the squeezable package of orange marmalade that looked entirely unappetizing and filled with 99% preservatives, and my job was to partner with Sarah as she handed me the bread to be decorated. From 10pm to 1am we walked the streets surrounding the 'Hotel' where the vast majority of homeless were men that ranged the ages of fifteen to sixty-five. Apparently, they have a few other boundaries that they rotate serving, one with mostly working prostitutes and the other with elderly men. It is very difficult for me to describe the three-hour tour. Never once did I feel uncomfortable or fearful, and this is not without grand awareness of where I was and what we were doing. I mean, this was similar to skydiving--you don't tell your mama you're doing it until after you haven't been splatted on the ground. However, the company I was in with both gringo and native alike, had spent a long, committed time building trust amongst such a crowd. That, coupled with the fact that there is a human heart that longs for belonging beating inside every teenager huffing glue and calloused-foot man living under the stars gave me a quiet, observant confidence in why God calls his followers to love the least of social standards. I watched Mauricio walk in the Spirit of Peace as he comforted the addict so violently shaking he couldn't eat his own food, Luz's smile bring smiles to others, and Rosita's confident tap on the blankets of sleeping men making sure no empty stomach missed out. It is in nights like tonight that the usual whispers of God's love and presence become grand bellows of assurance.

The exhaustion that comes with such events made us sleep a little too soundly as we awoke to our last day in Medellin with much to do. Besides the Metro, the other two claims to fame Medellin possesses are the pop sensation Juanes and the modern artist Fernando Botero. To all Colombian women's dismay, I had to admit that I had never heard of Juanes (this is a man who Eliana would most likely give her firstborn child to in order to just gaze into his eyes), and even Botero sounded unrecognizable until I saw some of his paintings. It is to Botero that we dedicated our last afternoon (to the disappointment of Eliana, naturally) as we found our way to two different parks with his fat statues (obesity is his signature in the realms of art)

and the Medillin art museum that celebrated an entire floor to his work. Thanks to a suggestion by Jon, the second park we hiked to was by far my favorite. Botero was quite incensed by the amount of power and violence the Medellin drug-traffiking cartel brought to his hometown, and in efforts of peace donated a beautiful dove statue to the downtown park. In June of 1995, a guerrilla group who claimed Botero's sculpture as a symbol of oppression, planted a bomb at its base killing twenty-five civilians. In a rather powerful statement, Botero kept the maimed sculpture as it was in honor of those killed, and created a new dove to stand beside it.

After being filled with local art, we spent the rest of our afternoon/early evening with the girls. Since they were just finishing up their homework, and the rain decided to hold itself off for a few hours, we took a basketball and headed to a local court. The younger girls enjoyed the jungle gym, but I was with seven girls with the average age of twelve and together we played the most disorganized game of basketball I have ever witnessed. It was more a mix of American football and futbol with a goal and net thrown in just for kicks. Oh, but we had fun. A handful of the boys joined in later and we switched to the more local sport of choice, futbol. We ran around freely until darkness settled over the mountains and headed our separate ways.

That night we packed in preparation for another early morning departure, Jon and I talked about our common love for The Mission and its oboe-led soundtrack, and we were left to three full days of images and moments that were new, poignant, and difficult to forget. That next morning we left Medellin, the city whose taxi's horn sounded similar to the Sesame Street Honker (you squeezed his nose, of course) horn I had on my tricycle and whose bus made the noise of a dying walrus. It was ten hours back to a welcoming Ginny and Jorge and an "hasta luego" to my partner-in-crime Target of a model, Eliana.

It is now Sunday, and it has been certainly a day of rest, but first came yesterday that, well, wasn't. It was Esteban's birthday, one of the boys in the neighborhood, and with that came a traditional neighborhood party that Ginny and Jorge have created with their kiddos. However, since this blog has turned into a gypsy's small dissertation, I will save such a highlight for another post in the next few days.

But, before we depart one another's company, I will make it known that I went salsa dancing with G and J and several of their friends last night. Please keep in mind that I had received salsa dancing instruction only once before by Kirk Stephens in downtown Memphis two Septembers ago; therefore, I was in no shape to keep up with the hip-moving DNA Colombians possess. Thankfully, my two instructors this go around, Johnny and Jorge, were very patient and encouraging. And so it was that at a downtown Bogota bar with a small stage and pop-culture posters plastering the walls (from the Beatles to Taxi Driver), we danced to spectacular salsa music via DJ and later heard the music of a local Colombian band that used 3 1/2 ft long flutes, all kinds of handdrums, maracas and a clarinet to entertain the crowds. I have a new appreciation and attraction for any man who can shake the maracas with such unprecedented rhythym (: