Here I am with my counterpart accepting our certificates of participation in the workshop.

Two weeks ago, I recorded a podcast episode about my thoughts regarding this topic and also wanted to share them with you on my blog. You can find my podcast episode on www.ChanceDorland.com or at http://www.spreaker.com/user/peacecorpspodcast/praying_at_a_peace_corps_workshop

I want to point out right off the bat that these are my own memories of what happened. I wasn’t able to immediately jot down what happened, meaning the following is only my personal recollection of the events that occurred. But, what I want to stress in this blog entry is how astonished I am that I’m even writing about this event now. After attending an American public school, studying in Germany through a government-sponsored exchange program, and now being a Volunteer in the United States Peace Corps, I’ve always been aware of the line between government programs and religion. While this incident could have been an honest mistake by the parties involved, because I experienced that line most for most of my life, I was immediately aware when it was crossed, and for lack of a better explanation, simply couldn’t believe what I was seeing with my own eyes.

In July, my fellow Colombian Peace Corps Volunteers and I attended what we were originally told was a mandatory “Project Leadership Management” workshop on the campus of UniNorte, a private university in northern Barranquilla. We each had a Colombian counterpart we worked with during the week on different training sessions that revolved around the central topic. On the final day, we all gathered to receive our certificates of participation. As you can see above, most of us got our pictures taken with our counterpart and staff members from the Peace Corps Colombia office.

After all the certificates had been handed out, one of the Colombian counterparts came to the front of the room to address the group. My understanding of spoken coastal Colombian Spanish is not as high as most of my peers, so immediately I wasn’t able to understand most of what she was saying. However, I could tell that her tone was different than I would have expected for the occasion. After she spoke for a few moments, it became apparent that she was going to lead us in a prayer. At this time, I looked over to the corner of the room where our Country Director and other Peace Corps staff had congregated. They all watched and listened respectfully as the woman continued to talk and fold her hands in anticipation of prayer.

At that point, I spoke quickly with the Volunteer standing next to me to confirm what was going on. I then grabbed my few belongings on the table in front of me and walked out of the room. As I left, I could see and feel the stares of those around me as it was pretty obvious why I had chosen to leave at that time. When I entered the adjoining hallway, I discovered another Volunteer had also decided to leave the room, but because her Spanish was so much better than mine, she had made a much earlier exit at a time that was less embarrassing. We shared our mutual inability to understand how we could have been put into such a situation, and more importantly, how none of the Peace Corps staff members had intervened on our behalf.

And that’s really what I’m talking about when I mention a line being crossed. As someone who is not religious, I still recognize the rights of those to chose to be, and if they want to pray, that’s great. But I don’t think a workshop, organized by the Peace Corps for its Volunteers, is the place for this to happen. When the only choice I have to avoid prayer is to leave a room that only seconds before had been used for a Peace Corps training, I think that line I talked about earlier no longer exists. And that’s what was so shocking about that moment. The Peace Corps all of a sudden became religious.

While it might have been an awkward moment, I would have been so fricking happy if my Country Director or another staff member had stood up and said something when they figured out what was going on. That didn’t happen. Yet, in all fairness, the staff could have been just as surprised as I was. From what I remember, the Colombian counterpart just got up and started speaking to the group. As one of the more outgoing and friendly Colombians in attendance that week, this in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary for her. But, as even I could tell something was up, when it became obvious what the purpose of her speech was, the line of separation that has been ingrained in me since kindergarten should have taken precedent. Someone running the show could have stood up and said something.

Instead, I quietly left the room along with another volunteer. Maybe I should have just bowed my head and thought about baseball. I guess I’m just a stickler for what I believe in.

A photomontage from the moment of injury until now.

I haven’t had the greatest luck as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. But until now, my woes have not involved physical contact with a Colombian’s shin. That all changed the night of  August 3rd, at a school built by the pop-star Shakira, that just happens to have one hell of a soccer field.

[Check out my injury and trip to the hospital in this video I took with my GoPro HD2 headcam. I also recorded podcasts (part I and part II) featuring audio from the accident and my time in the hospital, as well as a recent update about how I'm dong now. Here's a photo album of my injury-related pics. And of course the blog post below!]

I was playing goalie, just as I always do. I’m a rather heavy fellow, so running has never been my thing. Standing around the goal not only saves my breath but I actually rather enjoy jumping and diving to stop someone from kicking (what can be a very painful) soccer ball into my team’s goal. Growing up in rural Iowa in a town of roughly 1,200 people, I never played a real soccer game or had the opportunity to play on a team while growing up. (In contrast, pretty much everyone I knew played baseball, football, or even wrestled at one point of another.) But, since moving to Colombia, I have discovered a passion within myself for a game I used to consider (pardon the French) “retarded.” Unfortunately, soccer seems to hate my ass like no other. Torn cartilage just days after returning from my med-evac and now this.

Here I am covering my eye with a dudes shirt to stop the bleeding while another player gets a photo for his cell phone.

After playing for maybe an hour, around 9:15 pm a fellow Volunteer kicked the ball towards me while her teammate ran to catch up with it (kind of like an alley-oop in basketball where you lead the player with the ball). I dove for the ball, her Colombian teammate tried to kick the ball away from me (not to score a goal but to prevent me from getting it), and we had an epic, epic collision. His knee landed squarely in between my right eye and nose. My glasses and GoPro HD2 headcam (a sports camera I used to record this video that details the collision and subsequent trip to the hospital) immediately shot off, my head sprung backward, and I hit the grown hard. I remember the feeling as if someone had bunched me in the nose and then realizing how warm a puddle of blood feels when you’re holding it in your hands. I had immediately reached up to check the damage only to find a waterfall coming out of my forehead (while quickly realizing there’s no point in trying to cup your hands to save blood as it pours out of you; it’s not like it’s going to go back in), and after inspecting the damage, called out to whoever was listening that we needed to call the PCMO and get me to a hospital. I say “to whoever was listening” because right off the bat, I couldn’t see. Blood had covered my eye enough to block any chance of seeing, which really, really freaked me out. Getting kicked in the head and then finding you can’t see is a pretty scary thing to go through. (But as you can see in photo montage above, I don’t appear to have any eye damage.)

Long story short, we couldn’t get a taxi once the group had walked me outside the school’s gates. With waiting and the eventual car trip, plus time in the hospital waiting room, I probably didn’t see a medical person for an hour or more. During the taxi ride, I recorded some more video on my headcam noting that my mouth, nose and lip (on the right side of my face) had started to go numb. (This was the beginning of nerve issues that I’m still dealing with now and will detail towards the end of this tale.) When I eventually got to a medical bed and had someone check out the damage, I was told they were sending for a plastic surgeon. I thought this would mean actual surgery, but apparently the stitches he eventually gave me were some kind of special type that are reserved for injuries like mine. They seemed to be pretty straightforward stitches, so I’m still not sure exactly why that was done.

I'm lying on the hospital bed waiting for the plastic surgeon to numb me up and seal the whole in my head.

I spent that night in the hospital. They originally put me in a room in the emergency room, but after an hour or so someone decided I would be better off (and what a correct decision it was) in the more traditional area of the hospital. I was wheeled up to the 2nd or 3rd floor where I was delighted to see a comfy bed, a couch, and a giant tv with satellite television. During the course of that night, I got pretty loopy (as you’ll hear in audio I recorded on my cell phone and posted to my podcast here) and discovered that the hospital room was complete with not only dozens of Colombian channels, but also a few channels from the United States, Great Britain, and even a channel that played PORN. Talk about a full-service hospital.

Throughout the night, a nurse or doctor would come in to check on me and give me new ice. My face had gotten pretty swollen, so much so that the nurses started taping the ice to my head so it wouldn’t fall off when I got tired and fell asleep. I had been told I would see my plastic surgeon the next morning and get discharged after he checked out my progress. In reality, I wouldn’t see him until 3 pm the that afternoon. In the meantime, I slept, watched some more tv, got served some pretty good hospital food, and got bored as hell in my hospital room. When I woke up, I called my Peace Corps Medical Officer and told her about the situation: none of the nurses knew what was going to happen with me today, I didn’t have any clothes (my blood-soaked clothes were in a bag on the floor as I had to beg an emergency room nurse to give me a gown so I didn’t have to sleep in them all night) and my cell phone was about to run out of battery (with no way to recharge). I also told her that I couldn’t feel a huge portion of the ride side of my face (to which she said was caused by the ice and medicine I had been given, which I politely accepted while at the same time began thinking there might be a bigger problem lurking in the shadows).

Here I am one of the times the need to go to the bathroom outweighed the effort and pain to get up.

This monotony of cable tv and deciding whether or not I had to go to the bathroom bad enough to outweigh the pain of walking around lasted until about the 4th or 5th time I pressed the “help me” button and spoke with a nurse who either came to my room or spoke to me via an intercom built into the wall. By this time, they had called my plastic surgeon who then miraculously appeared around 3 pm. He took a look at me, asked me how I was, and was pretty surprised to hear that the feeling in the right side of my face and mouth was more or less “missing.” He set me up with some new x-ray/CAT scan/MRI type of tests, and an hour or two later gave me the lowdown: I hadn’t broken any part of my skull but the impact was so strong that it had damaged the nerves that carried the signal for the eye, right side of my nose, cheek, lips, and teeth. He assured me everything would probably be fine, but after his initial shock to hear that so much of the area had gone completely numb, it’s safe to say I was less than convinced about his diagnosis of “wait a month and let’s see.”

My plastic surgeon really likes his iPhone 4 and sent me this photo he took.

I still didn’t have clothes and my cell phone had died, but some really cool nurses found a plug that fit my Peace Corps phone which allowed to call my guest mother and arrange for her to bring me some stuff and take me home. The next week was spent taking it easy and revisiting the hospital every 3-5 days to get my wounds cleaned and covered with some sort of tape. If memory serves, I got my stitches out a week from the day the went in. At first, the cuts below and above my eye seemed to have healed quite nicely, but at this point they’ve become a little red and there appears to be more scarring. I had asked if I needed to use some kind of healing antibacterial cream, but I got a resounding no from my Peace Corps Medical Officer as well as the nurses at the hospital. A little more than a week after the accident, I was also told that the scans of my head revealed I had a sinus infection, but it took another two days after I was told to get the medicine I needed sent to my house, so I ended up getting pretty sick. I didn’t miss any school but it hasn’t been a fun time rocking the head wound and sinus infection simultaneously.

I lied in bed with a giant coke bottle full of ice to dull the pain.

And that’s sort of where I am now. I sometimes get headaches when I walk too much or take a bus and my eye hurts from time to time or when I’m out in full sunlight. But more or less, I’d say I’m surprised out at the situation considering what my head looked like by the time I got to the hospital. I’ve pretty much given up on playing soccer anytime soon (or ever again while I’m here) but I sometimes attend our weekly Volunteer soccer games to take photos and shoot the shit with the people I used to face off against every week. Some of the students at my school give me crap and say a Colombian “punched me in the face” which has been pretty funny to joke about from time to time. I’ve also had some Colombians exclaim “que feo” when they see my eye, which means “how ugly.” But all in all, maybe not a terribly horrible situation, but one that has and will continue to improve.

I have red spots on my right eye and the scars have turned red since the stitches came out. You can clearly see the outline of my glass that I was wearing (the Peace Corps does not recommend using contact lenses during our service in Colombia).

I invite you to check out my Photos + Videos + PodCasts about my injury and all the other stuff I’m in doing in Colombia at www.ChanceDorland.com

To supply my new addictive hobby, I walk just a block down the street to a local tienda / vegetable store. I’ve been doing this for about the last month, using my broken Spanish to say hello and ask a question or two if I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for. I got strange looks when, at first, I would put each group of vegetables into its own bag and search through a whole bin of tomatoes or onions for the day’s best batch. I’ve adapted to the local culture (people here often buy somewhat rotting vegetables and just b0il the hell out of them) since those first days of veggie shopping.

But last week, I was somewhat embarrassed when the woman at the counter asked me if I wanted lettuce instead of cabbage. I, actually, did want lettuce (the lettuce at this tienda is always pretty bad so I just don’t buy it) but I hadn’t chosen cabbage by mistake. After living in Seoul, South Korea, before moving to Colombia for the Peace Corps, I fell in love with Kimchi (a spiced and aged cabbage that is served with EVERYTHING and at all times of the day). I don’t make Kimchi or anything close to it, but I do fry cabbage in a wok, which happens to agree with my taste buds immensely.

Cabbage Or Lettuce?

I didn’t think I would be able to explain this whole situation to the woman in front of me, and after a quick look at the rest of vegetables I was buying - tomatoes, onions, carrots, cucumbers, garlic - I realized how she could have thought I had made a mistake. I said that yes, I did want the cabbage I had handed her, that in fact  it was one of my favorite vegetables. She gave me a look that didn’t seem to believe what she was hearing, put the cabbage and the rest of my vegetables in a bag, and I went home feeling somewhat embarrassed.

What this moment made me realize - somewhat to my own surprise - is that Colombians have (in certain circumstances) very predetermined opinions of what kinds of things people should buy. This isn’t a great description of what I’m trying to convey, so remember this cabbage story while I introduce to other situations that demonstrate my point.

My friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Tyler lives and works in Barranquilla (the same town as me but in a much poorer neighborhood). Some months back, Tyler traveled to the most upscale mall our city has to offer in order to visit the music store I frequent for guitar supplies. He was looking for an accordion, but after he saw the prices for the full-size model, he settled on a relatively inexpensive children’s version. After playing my guitar with him, I totally get the choice; while smaller, the range of sounds are enough for our weekend jamming purposes.

But, when Tyler tried to buy his children’s accordion, the people at the cash register thought he was crazy.

Children's Or Full-Sized Accordion?

“Yes,” he told them. “I understand it’s a children’s accordion. It’s a lot cheaper than the normal one.” And this was all in Spanish, mind you. Yet, the way Tyler explained it to me, the store’s staff didn’t seem to understand his motives, and continued to try to convince him not to buy it. He’s emphasized this point so many times that when he came to my house one day to jam, and my Colombian guest mother saw his accordion, I nearly wet myself when she exclaimed, “Ahh, an accordion. Oh, it’s a children’s accordion?” She, also, couldn’t understand.

Even at this point, before being accused of not knowing what cabbage is at my local tienda, but after hearing Tyler explain his story a couple dozen times, I wasn’t quit aware of the phenomena I’m now trying to document. It took another friend and Barranquilla Volunteer, Emily, to give me a first hand experience.

Tyler, another Volunteer named Jessica, and I had been practicing guitar together and Emily wanted to join our jam sessions. She’d never played guitar before, but as any Peace Corps Volunteer will tell you, free time is never in short supply, so we encouraged her to go buy one. So, Emily and I went to the center of the city one day (reminds me a lot of markets I saw in South Korea but a lot dirtier and somewhat dangerous) to see what options and prices were available. After settling on our fourth music store we’d hit that day, I was helping Emily with a full-sized acoustic when she decided instead to go with a children’s guitar (not only a little cheaper but also fitting Emily’s smaller body size).

Emily with her children's guitar. Photo Credit: Jessica Hom

However,  just a moment later, the two of us fond ourselves in the same situation as Tyler; the guys at the music shop were refusing to let us see the smaller guitars. Those guitars were only “for children.” Emily speaks great Spanish, telling them that yes, she understood that those guitars were not for adults, but she was interested in buying one for herself. Now, at this point I would have figured the desire to make money would have taken over, but the guitar guys told her a second time it wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t until Emily literally showed them her small hands that they finally gave up and allowed us to take a look at what we wanted to buy.

I’ve never quite encountered this type of thing while living in Germany or South Korea, so I wanted to throw it out there and see if I got any interesting comments. Is this a result of Colombians trying to help out foreigners because they think we don’t realize what we’re doing, or is it their inability to understand someone’s counterintuitive motives?

I brought more tech with me to Colombia than South Korea.

I like technology. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Barranquilla, Colombia, I think my life is very different than most of my peers. My public school has two computer labs, wireless internet (that usually works, too!), countless computers (some of which are still sitting in their boxes), microphones, speakers, etc. The second story apartment I call home is also equipped with wi-fi, which I use on my MacBook, iPhone and Kindle Fire. I am one well-connected dude.When I see photos of Peace Corps Volunteers in African huts or on beautiful tropical islands, I do get jealous. In the back of my mind, I know that the amenities that come with such accommodations would not allow me to live the lifestyle I have in Colombia, but there still remains a sense of adventure in me that looks at a hut or beach shack with awe. Maybe Volunteers living in those situations wish they could switch places with me? I guess it depends on the person.

My room my not be an African hut, but it does have the finest in lawn furniture.

This overabundance of technology in my everyday life has allowed for its use in the classroom. At least once a week I teach an English class using a video projector to play videos with fun songs that will stick in my students’ heads. Or, I use Netflix to show short English cartoons that the students and I discuss afterwards. These relatively simple tools (as seen from back home in the States) have allowed me to engage students that otherwise have shown to have behavior or attention problems.

However, like any new advancement, there comes a price. It’s easy (and fun for both students and teachers) to overuse tech in the classroom, bypassing rigorous lessons and homework for videos or media projects that concentrate more on technology than language. With that being the case, why don’t we just show videos in language classes?  It’s always easier to show a class of 40 students a video of their favorite English cartoon than teach the same 40 kids a lesson on grammar, but we don’t because videos and technology ALONE aren’t effective.

There, of course, needs to be a balance. But, while still a dude who “likes technology,” I think, overall, ESL teachers need to rely LESS on video projectors, movies, and the like to affectively teach their students. The example that sparked this blog topic came from a teacher I know who was having students perform short English sketches for a video project. Once again, on paper, this sounds great. But, as the students came to the front of class to perform, it was clear that none of them had completely memorized their lines. A few students came close, but the mistakes they made told me they had memorized sounds, not MEANINGS, which prevented them from reciting their lines correctly.

At first, I was rather critical of the assignment, thinking how this wouldn’t be the norm at my public school back home in Iowa. But, the more I thought about it, the more I remembered of my own Spanish education, where a group of buddies and I routinely dodged important homework assignments by creating videos. We’d go to someone’s house on a saturday, spend all our time setting up a shot or preparing the props, only to haphazardly write down Spanish dialogue before filming. In fact, for my American History class, I was allowed to do a final project on the Civil War by creating a video of the battle of Gettysburg with my paintball friends. It was a really fun project, one that involved a couple dozen kids and a lot of managing and directing. But, I really don’t think it helped me understand or memorize anything about the Civil War (other than I apparently wasn’t the first to come up with the idea … see below).

I hope the paintballs were Union blue and Confederacy gray. Talk about an attractive mask.

Realizing that the teaching technique I was criticizing was actually a large part of my past schooling came as quite a shock. It seems teachers on both American continents have become fond of using or creating videos for the classroom. But, is this change really that beneficial? As a former student / current teacher, one that has internet at his school, his home, and multiple portable devices … I’d say no.

Either way, the students sure do enjoy making videos, especially when food is involved. Check out a few of the videos I have made with my students below:

6th graders explaining how to make Colombian-style hot dogs - http://youtu.be/OISjVQM7qUE

3rd graders performing short English sketches about what they like to do - http://youtu.be/t7p91LGGgnM

My Colombian co-teachers and fellow adventurers.

I remember getting a call from the Peace Corps for my final interview. I had been teaching English at a private, after-school academy in Seoul, South Korea, for eight months while I played in two folk / rock bands and searched for new work opportunities to consider. I really liked Korea (loved, actually), but I was excited about the possibility to leave the country and join the Peace Corps. (It’s funny, as a current Peace Corps Volunteer, I’m now searching for ways to get back to Seoul after I’m finished).

During the phone interview, I was asked about something that got me on the subject of what I didn’t like about my current position. I described how some of my Korean students were really intelligent and great English speakers, but I never had enough time to sit down and have a conversation with them. The books we were forced to use by our employer usually included too many activities for the amount of time we had, and unless I chose to stop caring about whether or not my students actually understood the material we went over in class, I never had enough time to just speak with my students outside of the book.

This was the big bummer of my job. Aside from the kids who just didn’t care or couldn’t sit still (which every country seems to have plenty of), this was the only real problem with my job. (That and we weren’t paid for all the hours we worked, and my company routinely skipped out on the things they’d guaranteed to give me in my contract, but those two things seemed to happen to all the English teaching foreigners in Seoul.) I remember feeling really stupid when the woman on the phone told me how in the Peace Corps, I would be teaching classes with 40 to 50 kids, about triple that of my biggest Korean class of about 15. I thought if there was a reason to fail that interview, complaining about teaching even a third of the amount of students I would have in the Peace Corps would be it.

But, I obviously got through that moment, and now I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. After about a month of solid English teaching under my belt (3 months training, one month observing, one month medical evac to the United States, one month co-teaching at my Colombian public school), I’ve identified some intriguing differences between schools here and those back in America and Korea. I want to point out that while I find them to be true, these are my own observations; I hope to educate some people back home about how a public school in Colombia can operate and how that can make it easy / difficult for a foreigner to adjust.

I Am Like A Super Hero

Everywhere I walk, I am greeted by the sounds of children yelling profe, gringo, Chan, Chansay, Chancee, teacher, etc. I am like a rock star to the elementary kids, a shiny new toy for the middle schoolers, and a source of information and jokes for the high schoolers. Of course, a lot of kids are generally interested in me as a person and want to speak English with me, but there are always those students who just want to ask me if I have a Colombian girlfriend, what this or that words means, and whether I like soccer. Unfortunately, from time to time I also hear a heavily accented “F* you,” but I’ve done my best to discipline those students (who are usually just trying to look cool for their friends).

This stardom is multiplied times a thousand if I have a video camera, as seen in my video here - http://youtu.be/oqmHBnMnQj0

As I usually carry a guitar around with me (and give percussion lessons every Saturday morning where I jam with a high schooler who brings in his electric guitar), run an English radio group for students (www.EnglishTimeRadio.com), and also like giving high-fives and telling jokes to students, I may have added to the already present “gringo” powers that any white guy from Iowa would get from the Colombian sun (along with skin cancer if we’re not careful). Either way, I’m interested in how my celebrity will increase or decrease as time passes.

"Super Gringo" would definitely be the lamest and least effective crime fighter. Photo Credit Fabian Padilla.

All The Students Wear Uniforms

Even during physical education classes, which involve calisthenics and running around the cement basketball / soccer court (a few students do end up changing into lighter clothes, but not many), all students wear a very strict uniform. Boys wear blue dress pants and a white polo shirt, girls wear blue sports pants (plastic) or a checkered skirt with a white top / polo shirt. A few days ago, one of my better English speaking students was sitting outside the main door. He told me they wouldn’t let him into the school because he wasn’t wearing any socks.

Here students with birthdays that month are announced during a typical "community" meeting held every few weeks.

Adults Addressed As “Profe,” Not By Their Last Names

I now have my older students calling me “Mr. Chance,” a compromise between Colombian and American culture in the classroom. Up until very recently, all the students at my public school had simply called me “profe,” short for professor. Some of them would say “teacher” when they wanted to impress me with their English.

I had to explain to each class that teachers in America are Mr., Ms., or Mrs. plus their last name. Growing up in rural Iowa, my friends and I would never have dreamed of ever calling a teacher by his or her first name, or anything really other than Mr. / Mrs. So-and-so. Here, teachers are addressed in spanish as “professor” and all the kids know their teachers’ first names.

Here some of my Colombian co-teachers are getting down at a party.

Colombian Kids Are Great Musicians But Can’t Play Rock Music

During my Saturday morning music classes, I’ve discovered that pretty much every one of my students is a better percussion player than I’ll ever be. Their level of play for congas, bass drums, and a ton of other hand instruments is almost to high for me to even just count along to. And this high level doesn’t seem to have been gained through classes or private lessons, just something they picked up from those around them. Just like the way the dance. It’s such a large part of their culture that it transcends the classroom.

That being said, they can’t play a simple rock beat. It’s just not something they hear enough to be able to replicate. However, their previously discussed awesomeness at percussion allows them to pick things up very quickly.

Here’s an example of my students’ awesomeness for playing latin music - http://youtu.be/RyhKCjRszeE

And here’s a few of the younger kids learning how to play a simple rock beat - http://youtu.be/sP_Y3UK-H5E

This is a video of the first time I brought a snare drum and hi-hat to my school. The kids were stunned - http://youtu.be/j14ayHNTd-U

Me dressed up as Travis Barker (Blink 182) for Carnaval at my school. Photo Credit Elena Cardales.

Classroom Management Is A LOT More Relaxed

The biggest difference I’ve seen between school children in Germany, South Korea, America and Colombia is how they are disciplined / managed in a classroom setting. I’ve seen classes that range from somewhat less controlled than I’m used to to something out of a scene of “Kindergarten Cop” before Arnold learns how to successful motivate and manage his kids. The schools I’ve scene tend to allow students to have loud conversations with each other while the teacher is speaking, kids routinely get out of their seats to go talk to other students, and the amount of noise often goes unchecked until it becomes too much to bear. However, at the same time, students must adhere to a strict dress code, and as I recently saw at my school, when students act out they may have to apologize to the whole school during an assembly (something I could not imagine taking place back home in Iowa). As a result, public schools here have a lot of range when it comes to discipline. A LOT of range.

Students easily get distracted and hop out of their desks if you don't keep your eyes on them.

Bathrooms Don’t Ever Seem To Be Clean

The bathrooms I’ve seen at schools here have been pretty scary. I’m lucky being a boy (as all dudes understand we got it easy when it comes to public restrooms) but I can only imagine what it must be like for a girl to have to use some of these places. Sometimes you can smell the bathroom from pretty far away, other times I just try to look the other way when I walk by. The restrooms used by teachers are a lot better, but still below the standards of a school back home in Iowa. I have yet to find a school bathroom that has soap and paper towels. I’ve found a few that have soap. At my school, teachers bring their own soap and towel to use in the restroom.

A bathroom at a school in Barranquilla. This is a big difference from what I'm used to.

Classes Are Sometimes Left Alone For An Hour Or More

I’ve heard a fellow volunteer tell a story about how she got left in a classroom by herself (co-teachers are never supposed to leave a volunteer alone with a class, but I’ve heard of everything from leaving the room for a few minutes to coming late or not at all) and her co-teacher actually locked the door, locking her inside the class with her students.

But, sometimes this is not the fault of the co-teachers. Every once and a while, teachers have meetings that are scheduled at the same time as their classes. This could be during one period or the entire day. Other teachers try to cover, but sometimes the students are just left alone in their classes unsupervised.

Here I am in a typical Colombian classroom. There are open holes in the walls rather than windows. It keeps the room cool.

Colombian Schools Like Locks. On Everything.

When I first got to see the school that would be my Monday-Friday job (and currently most of Saturday), I was immediately surprised that I couldn’t just walk in. The door is always locked.

As a former public elementary, middle and high school student from the Midwestern state of Iowa, this really shocked me. Unless it was a Saturday (and even then the front doors were usually open for sports or other weekend activities), my school always had multiple doors that were not locked. Granted, after a certain time, those doors would get sealed until the next morning, but that happened after the sun went down. That’s not the case here.

Each classroom has a black metal door (and usually) a large metal gate that are used when the room is not in use.

My school has 3 ways in or out, and each one, 99% of the time, is locked. This means you can’t get in, but you also can’t leave. In the morning, the doorman unlocks the door to let me in, In the afternoon, he unlocks the door to let me out. If I want to go buy lunch in the street or a fruit stand behind the school, he has to lock / unlock the doors to let me come and go. During the hours of 11 am - 2 pm, our front door is sealed shut, and everyone in or out has to use the back door at the very end of the complex. (I’ve been told this is for safety reasons, but I think it’s also just a way of creating a “bouncer” to keep people out that stand in line at the front door until someone lets them in.) This rule is very strict, so strict that when I first came to school with my crutches after tearing the cartilage in my left knee during a soccer game, I was told I would need to walk the entirety of the complex in order to go outside to get lunch. I tried speaking with my principal, but she held firm that no exceptions would be made for my disability (though unofficially the doorman let me go through a few times when no one was looking).

Simple key padlocks are used to lock most of the doors.

Doors inside the school are also locked. This appears to be a way of keeping older students in their part and younger students where they’re supposed to be. It seems to serve that purpose quite well, but it also means that teachers and anyone else that needs to move from one end to the other have to wait until the one person with a key comes to let you in. The first time I saw this being done, I was really shocked. I’d never seen this done before, and I was also worried about what would happen if there was a fire. A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer recently had an electrical fire at her school, and if a similar situation happened at mine, a padlocked door could prevent people from getting out.

All of us after the game. NOT a coincidence that I'm on the ground.

I seem to have had a string of bad luck concerning my health. After spending 3 weeks in Iowa to see specialists regarding headaches and rashes I was having for 2 months, I was sent back to Colombia to resume my duties as a Teaching English for Livelihoods Volunteer at a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia. However, my joy of returning was short lived and replaced by sleepless nights and limping. It all started with a game of soccer. An EPIC game of soccer.

I asked all the Colombian Volunteers what they wanted me to bring back from America. The unanimous answer? Twizzlers. Photo credit Monica McNichols.

It just so happened that my arrival coincided with our 3 month reconnect seminar. I arrived at my Colombian home on Sunday and reported to a hotel on Tuesday morning. It was a perfect way to return as I shared stories with my fellow 20 or so Volunteers and also got to hear about what they had been up to at their sites. We, of course, had our typical training sessions (which as PCVs and RPCVs know can be rather uneventful), but each night was an hour or two at a restaurant swopping jokes and sampling everyone’s food. I had also been collecting my Volunteer pay while I was med evac’d to the U.S., while still collecting $32 a day for expenses in America. This allowed me to enjoy myself and not worry about saving money. (I had been rather stingy before leaving Colombia and it felt pretty good to splurge a little on food.)

Much smaller than a real soccer field, places like this combine the feel of the game with the skillset of those who are out of shape to play soccer.

Wednesday’s afternoon activities were shrouded in secrecy. We had all been informed to bring “comfortable” clothes and shoes for an event that afternoon, with speculation ranging from a physical activity like rock climbing to some sort of field trip. If I remember correctly, we all knew by Tuesday evening that the “comfortable” attire would be used in an EPIC soccer match between the first Peace Corps Volunteers to return to Colombia in 30 years and the staff that supports them. This was unexpected news to receive, which made everyone, especially the male volunteers, very excited for the next day. A few of my female Volunteer friends were also realizing the “comfortable” clothes and shoes they had brought with them were not what would have chosen if they’d known soccer would be on their plates. But, some sort of clothing exchange was figured out which gave everyone that wanted to participate what they needed for the game.

Talk about a goalie that's ready for soccer.

As I’m sure is the case with a lot of staff related activities, our budget didn’t allow for an EPIC soccer match, so the staff split the cost of renting an indoor soccer field just steps away from our Barranquilla offices and a quick van ride from the our hotel. I had never been inside one of these rentable soccer fields before, and the one the staff had chosen was definitely top of the line. As I wrote about earlier this month for PeaceCorpsWorldWide.org, I had just brought back quite a few items from America, including an HD helmet-mounted camera and a flash kit for my Canon SLR camera. All the media you see here is a result of those two, excellently conceived purchases. They may be the two most useful items I have.

One volunteer after the slaughter that was the office staff.

For a more detailed account of the game itself, it’s best to check out my YouTube videos, but I will note here how much of a slaughter the game turned out to be. When I first heard that the mostly 20-something Volunteers from Barranquilla, Santa Marta, and Cartagena would be taking on our office staff ranging from 30 to 60 years of age, I foolishly assumed the game would turn out completely in our favor. In retrospect, not only did I completely forget that Colombians can dance and play soccer better than I can walk, but the male staff members of our office hide their muscular physiques behind stafford shirts and khaki pants. It was almost as if they planned the massacre that was to take place? Ha.

In the end, I’m still not sure of the score, but I think it was around 8-2, which is a slaughter for a soccer match. But, everyone had fun, and it was the highlight of the entire week. It was also definitely the highlight of my week. Just take a look at this video and you’ll see what I mean.

And then this.

Another dive from earlier on in the game. I was diving a lot that day.

That second video happened with less than 30 seconds left in the game. It sounds so cliché, but I literally tore the cartilage in my left knee on the last goal of the game, just moments before time ran out. And, oh, was it a whimpy goal. As seen in the video, the shot went to my left, I dove for it, and immediately noticed the effects torn cartilage can have on the human body. But what is not so evident in the video is that I actually first went right, saw the shot was going to go to my left, and made a quick, and ill-fated, decision to switch directions to make the block. My left knee didn’t make the adjustment as well as the rest of my body, resulting in the situation I’m still dealing with now.

The MRI was actually very relaxing, minus the 30 minutes of machine noises. I had no idea it took so long.

Who could have thought an MRI would be so much fun! The bed was very comfy, though. I almost fell asleep.

Those are some handsome looking bones.

The next day (after a crappy, sleepless night of pain as the injury seemed to be getting worse with time) I got x-rays and an MRI. My doctor (who attended med schools in NY and Pennsylvania, thus learning to speak some very good English) informed me that the MRI indicated my very painful injury was only a small tear, I most likely wouldn’t need surgery, and the best medicine was ice pretty much all day. And I mean all day. Every 30 minutes. And interestingly enough, even though I was limping and making audible noises with every movement I made, he never once brought up using crutches. It was now the end of our conversation, and seeing how I wouldn’t be needing surgery the biggest thing on my mind was how much it was going to hurt to walk back to the car, I was itching to get me some crutches. However, as you may know, the Peace Corps doesn’t buy you medical stuff unless a professional says you need it. With this in the back of my mind, I figured I had to get him to tell me I needed them or I was out of luck.

Two ice packs that used to keep vaccines cold were my leg's best friend the first week after the injury.

Apparently some Colombians do use crutches, after all!

I don’t know if it’s a Colombian thing to not use crutches unless you literally CANNOT walk, or if that detail had just slipped his mind, but this reminds me of the sickest I had ever been in my life up to before I came to Colombia. I had a really a horrible cold in Germany, and my doctor REFUSED to give me medicine, even though he called it a “bacterial infection”. Germans love not taking medicine unless you’re about to die because of the belief that too much medicine makes your body week. Needless to say, I disagree. Luckily, my English speaking Colombian doctor thought reducing the amount of horrible pain in my leg was a good idea, and I ended up getting my first set up crutches EVER later that day.

Some kids at my school think I'm faking it because I'm so good at using my crutches, evidenced here as I climb a mountain. Photo credit Fabian Padilla

Fast forward two and a half weeks later. I’m down to one crutch, the pain is more manageable, and I’ve been sleeping well for quite some time. My doctor recently told me that it might be even as long as three months before I’m fully recuperated and able to play sports again. I get around pretty easily and even walk without a crutch around the house. I even sort of climbed a mountain! (It was a flat path that wove around a small mountain that a co-workers church went to for Holy Week before Easter. But hey, a mountain!) I still look back fondly at the game, because truth be told, it was just so much fun. I learned I really love to play soccer, at least if I’m goalie. I’m much too chubby to do all that running.

The last photo of the now infamous soccer game.

Here’s a link to a podcast episode where I talk about my injury: http://www.spreaker.com/user/peacecorpspodcast/tearing_the_cartilage_in_my_left_knee

After reading your article, <xxx> and I have decided that, unfortunately, we are unable to publish it in Oíste. We value Volunteers’ stories–both positive and negative–and consider Oíste a medium for sharing those stories. However, we feel that elements of your article amount to accusations, and Oíste is not the appropriate place for that kind of discourse. We want to promote constructive dialogue among Volunteers and between Volunteers and staff, and we have decided that your article would detract from the productive tone that we want Oíste to have.

… I know that you told <xxx> about it, and yes, we should have been more clear about our expectations.

As I mentioned to the editors of “Oiste”, these and other “accusations” I chose to not include in my article came straight from the mouths of trained medical professionals after they carefully reviewed the medical care I received as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. Please read my original article and let me know if it only amounts “accusations” by leaving a comment below.

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When Your Health Is On The Line, “No” Doesn’t Mean “No”

If you have questions or concerns about your health, don’t hesitate to contact qualitynurse@peacecorps.gov

By Chance Dorland

A photo I took to document my symptoms. My Peace Corps nurse never took a photo of my outbreaks.

A virus. My headaches, rashes, and dizziness were originally caused by a virus. At least, that’s the best diagnosis my team of doctors in Des Moines, Iowa, can come up with. Despite hours of doctor’s visits, blood cultures, and emails back and forth between my Macbook and medical representative in Washington, D.C., it appears a definite answer may forever be out of reach. Why? Because I’m not sick anymore, and despite my doctors’ best efforts, they haven’t really found anything wrong me. The problem? My blood. There’s nothing in it. Just blood. All the tests (that I’m sure had to be rather expensive) came a little too late.

I landed in Iowa on a Tuesday and saw my doctor the next morning. After a brief examination and back and forth about where in Iowa each of us was from, I was told to report to a lab where I would be poked and prodded in order to find out what was wrong. I remember her next words exactly because of the disappointment they conveyed. “These tests should have been performed in Colombia when you first got sick.” Unfortunately, I had first become ill two months before, back in 2011.

My internist took charge of all my medical care. She was the first, but not the last, to tell me I should have gotten better care in Colombia.

It may come as no surprise to the volunteers and staff of Peace Corps Colombia that I talk a lot. When I don’t find something particularly pleasing, or am asked to provide feedback, I am quite open about voicing my opinion. Probably too open at times, but that’s how I am. However, when I got sick and things didn’t seem like they were going the way they should be, I didn’t want to be “that guy” who always complains. I just wanted to get better. But, it didn’t happen that way. I got worse and worse. Mistakenly, I didn’t reach out for help. I didn’t contact our representative in Washington, D.C., specifically there to deal with these types of problems. And, I got worse again. Unfortunately, my reluctance to continue being “that guy” may have been very costly. Had I said something, had the correct tests been ordered, or the correct medication given, I may have stayed in Barranquilla. Instead, I was medically evacuated, taking me away from my Colombian family, school and community that I had sworn to serve for the next two years.

My doctors had very little information to go on, so every avenue was pursued until I was deemed healthy. Here I am getting a CAT scan to check for a brain tumor.

After speaking with my team of homegrown Iowa doctors, it appears I didn’t receive the level of medical care I should have had as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There’s nothing I can do to change that. But, I really hope it doesn’t happen to you. If you need to see a specialist, require a certain medication, or would like a second opinion, remember that NO doesn’t mean NO when it comes to your health. If you have questions or concerns about your health, don’t hesitate to email qualitynurse@peacecorps.gov.

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Check out the following two podcasts regarding my medical adventures in Iowa:

Meeting my elementary school bus driver while getting a CAT scan - click here

Describing side effects of medicine that made me worse & the tests I should have gotten - click here

]]> http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/podcasting-colombia/2012/04/04/when-your-health-is-on-the-line-no-doesnt-mean-no/feed/ http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/podcasting-colombia/2012/03/26/taking-advantage-of-the-hand-youre-dealt-with-instruments/ http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/podcasting-colombia/2012/03/26/taking-advantage-of-the-hand-youre-dealt-with-instruments/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:34:44 +0000 Chance Dorland http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/podcasting-colombia/?p=15 After traveling 19 hours on three planes, I’ve finally made it back to my guest family, public school and fellow volunteers in Barranquilla, Colombia. After being medically evacuated from my Peace Corps site last month, I spent three weeks in and around my home town of Woodward, Iowa, where I saw five doctors, got more blood drawn than a vampire can drink, and got a clean bill of health. And as an added bonus, on my way back I checked two full bags and more carry-on luggae than any normal person would dare to attempt. I brought back camera equipment, Twizzlers for my fellow volunteers and two musical items that should make the next two years well worth the $70 extra bag fee.

While never attracted to melodic instruments until recently, I think it’s safe to say I’ve always been musically inclined. When I was in elementary school, I remember gathering some of the assorted two-liter bottles that always littered the floor of my parents’ trailer home to make a drum set. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew it was fun and better than just dreaming about the drums I had seen on tv or my town’s high school band concerts. I wish I had taken a picture. Or had a camera to take a picture.

What’s the connection between now and then? I no longer have to daydream about cool drum sets I could use during my time in Colombia - and neither will any of my students.

I’ll post a blog entry here in a bit that better describes the medical side of my time in Iowa, but the gist of it is this: I got sick in Colombia, side effects of medicine I was given made my symptoms worse, and then it all more or less cleared up when I got to America and stopped popping pills. Needless to say, I’m very disappointed I had to leave Colombia for something that could and should have been prevented.

Iowa was cold (but quickly got hot), most of my friends don’t live in the area anymore (I haven’t lived there myself since 2005), and those that do remain might have kids, a job, and or tend to drink a lot. It was good to see everyone that I was able to get in contact with, but it wasn’t the greatest of times; I was stuck between Peace Corps Volunteer and unemployed sick person. But, as you may have seen on my favorite childhood tv show Family Matters, or experienced for yourself (as ’90s television show anecdotes can actually exist in real life), things we wish didn’t happen can set us up for new opportunities. Like my recent double shot of 50 pound checked bags. And lots of carry-on luggage. And a personal item the size of a purse. While it was no fun to be sent back home after only four months in Colombia, it gave me a chance to bring the things that couldn’t fit my first time around.

Enter the final piece of my checked luggage puzzle, a 32 year old fellow alumnus of Woodward-Granger High School’s Jazz Band named Adam. He and I both played drums for the band, myself back in 2005 when we were state jazz champs, and Adam some years before while both my sisters played in the band. I remember seeing him play drums when I was in elementary and middle school, thinking that if I could be as good as he was, it would be about the happiest day of my life up to that point. Years after moving away from Iowa, I reconnected with Adam and a few other people around his age on Facebook. Six days before I flew back to Barranquilla, he answered this post I left on my Facebook Timeline:

Anyone in the Des Moines area have cymbals or other drum stuff that they’re looking to sell? I’m

most likely returning to Colombia soon and looking to bring back a ton of stuff

Adam had just the type of equipment I was looking for, only he wasn’t out to make a few bucks by selling some used percussion equipment. This guy, this dude who I barely knew save for a few mutual high school experiences (and the love of hitting plastic stretched over wood with sticks), sent me a message letting me know he’d like to give me his drum set so I could take it back to Colombia. An ENTIRE drum set. For free.

If Adam ever needs a kidney, he knows where to look.

To make the whole trip just a bit more musically inclined, I also bought a”backpack” guitar that has a lot of sound for the small design seen below. I hope to use the drums to start a music club for some of my older students, while I’ll use my guitar to play English songs and games with my elementary kids.

I think ten years from now, when I look back at this whole medical evacuation experience, the first thing I’ll remember is what Adam did for me and how the students at my public school were able to reap the benefits. Then, I’ll remember how sick I got and the thousands of miles I traveled when all I need to do some just stop taking some pills. But mostly, I’ll remember the day when I pulled into a Casey’s gas station parking lot, saw Adam pull up in his car, and gave me a drum set to bring back to Colombia.

English teachers at my school here in Colombia love to see me dance - even if it’s only for a few moments. Their faces light up when they see my hips start shaking, despite that it’s only a joke to show how horrible of a dancer I really am. They alwaysl tell me I’m doing fine, but no amount of their encouragement has made me stop feeling like I missed a major life lesson during my childhood. I remember learning to tie my shoes, ride a bike, to read, and even to play a musical instrument. But I do not remember learning how to dance. Why is that?

After living in Germany, South Korea, and now Colombia, I’ve experienced a lot of different cultures and noticed many cultural differences. German teenagers can open beer bottles with their eyelids, Korean school children scream with delight at the idea of a day without homework, and every Colombian I’ve ever met can dance. . . really well. I mean REALLY well. All the time. Multiple styles. Everyday. You lay down some music in the street, someone will put out some plastic llawn chairs, and people will start dancing. It sounds stereotypical, but it’s absolutely true. And, it’s really, really cool. To say I’m jealous is an understatement.

And so you have me, in what appears to be the true “land of the dance”, surrounded by people who learned how to tie their shoes, ride a bike, read, play an instrument (phenomenal percussion players), AND dance better than most people can walk. The result? It literally feels like I was born with a disability that has only now begun to affect my everyday life. But, while some people can’t walk or do other things because of an actual injury or handicap, my body is perfectly able to dance. I simply just don’t know how to do it. And, I’m embarrassed as hell to try to learn.

While this was going on, yet another thing popped up to separate me from my Colombian amigos. After going on some medication, my doctor told me I couldn’t drink all of February, which just happened to be the same month as CARNAVAL (perhaps you’ve heard of it). At first, it wasn’t a problem. I just didn’t drink when I went out on the weekends. I didn’t drink a lot in college, so it was actually a bit refreshing to save some money. But as soon as Carnaval kicked into full swing, everyone had or was offering me alcohol as soon as the sun went down (which is about 6 pm here) and then just anytime of the day that seemed good for some drinking (which quickly turned into all times). It got to be a bit annoying to decline so many offers of cervezas and aguardiente (a hard alcohol I like to think of as Colombian Jägermeister), but I at least had a medical excuse. At the same time that I was shunning alcohol, I was also standing around watching other people dance their butts off. However, I lacked even the trace of an excuse to shake my butt with them. Even when a Colombian girl would grab me to dance, I would weasel my way out.

I get that some things are hard for some people, that not everyone can be a singer or athlete. But with the right encouragement, the vast majority of everyone could learn to sing or play sports. I’m not an athlete, but I can play baseball, basketball, or football at varying levels. I’m not a singer, but I can sing a few songs and learn more. However, I couldn’t dance to save my life. And I’m terrified to start trying because it’s something more foreign to me than Spanish. While I realize this is all in my head, it’s a damn shame.