I
have been quietly beavering away on the volunteering front since I arrived back in Bogotà a month ago. Apart
from one morning causing an argument over the size of brocolli at the homeless
shelter, and one day out at the school in Soacha being filmed as part
of an upcoming CARACOL (a national Colombian television and radio company) piece on volunteer work in Colombia, most of my
time has been spent up on Calle 105 at the Asociacion Hogar
Niños Por Un Nuevo Planeta orphanage.
I've helped one of the older girls translate and learn an English carol for her school Christmas concert. I've helped some of the younger girls write goodbye letters to a school teacher Jeimy who is leaving shortly. I've helped one of the boys make a poster for his maths class, and draft scale drawings of a basketball court, a baseball park and a football pitch. And of course, I've drawn robots, Winnie the Poohs and many, many Garfields.
Last week I discovered that a drawing that I had done for one of the girls got her a 5 out of 5 top mark, when all she basically did was go over my original pencil drawing with a felt tip pen, which made me start to question whether I am perhaps helping a little too much with the niños homework. Deep down I know that that a lot of the English homework that I get involved in ends up being a lot more fluent than the child´s actual proficiency in the English language.
I can only hope the niños grades do not suffer too much this week, as I head to Medellin tomorrow to be a tourist for a few days.
