Santa Marta: Volunteering and exploring the Caribbean Coast

Taganga, a fishing town and traveler's hangout near Santa Marta.

Hello All!

We’ve arrived in what feels like a completely different world in Colombia – the city of Santa Marta in the region known as La Costa on the Caribbean coast. In contrast to Bogota, which is at a higher altitude and therefore cooler, here we really feel like we’re in the tropics. The weather is much warmer and people are out in the streets in their shorts and tank-tops to stroll about, chat and hang out.

Kids we got to spend time with.

This week we started two weeks of volunteering at a children’s centre called Mariposas Amarillas. The centre consists of 3 rooms of about 9 square meters each, with a couple of tables and a few chairs, and that’s it. It was started about 5 years ago by a Colombian guy with a big heart and lots of ideas. He had grown up on the streets of Cali, and wanted to do something to help children here in Santa Marta.

Strings games are a hit anywhere!

The general feel of Mariposas Amarillas is very chaotic – verging on being out of control. Emilia, Philip-Maynard and I had arrived with our supplies and all sorts of plans for art projects.  But getting those projects underway has been both kind of crazy and fun at the same time. The first couple of days we just spent time reading with the kids.  Another time, when things were so crazy that an art project was out of the question, we pulled out string games, which were predictably very popular. As with all such ventures, we’ve had to go with the flow.

The calm before the storm!

Noise levels in the centre reach a point that make it hard to think. This is aggravated by neighbours, whose response to having a group of noisy kids next door is to bring out their massive boom-boxes (with speakers the size of small bar fridges) and set them up right beside us with the volume turned up full blast.  Yesterday we did our best to do an art project with a group of 3 to 8 year-olds.  But with the walls shaking, sweat pouring down my face, paint everywhere, and kids yelling Seño! Profe! (short for señora and profesora), I was left wondering if this painting idea wasn’t pure madness.

Proudly putting his art work up on the wall!

Later, as the paint dried, the kids proudly held up their works of art to be taped onto the wall. At that point it seemed that we had achieved what we had hoped for; to provide these children with the chance to share their world through art, and to give them the pleasure of working with some new materials. Emilia and Philip-Maynard both agree that even though it’s a wild and crazy place, every day they want to go back.

Matriarch of the neighbourhood; supporter of Maripoasas Amarillas

The neighbourhood around Mariposas Amarillas started about 20  years ago as an Invasión, which means people simply took over the land and started putting up shelters. They now have electricity and running water (sometimes), but no title to their land.

Two taxi services!

For most, owning a car is out of the question, so people get around by walking, on bikes, or by bus or taxi. The streets are filled with little yellow taxis and the even more affordable (50 cents instead of 2 dollars) motorcycle taxis.  On these Moto-Taxis, the driver carries the extra helmet on his arm and wears a reflective vest to identify himself as a taxi driver. Given the frenetic chaos of traffic here, it would feel too much like flirting with danger to get on to one of them, so we stick to walking, buses and four-wheeled taxis!