Talking to people opens many paths and I never expected that, thanks to a simple chat with a friend, during a Christmas dinner, after two months, I would have left my home for go to Colombia with the Change Making Tours project.
My name is Marta, I’m 30 years old and I come from studies in anthropology and videomaking. The day after the chat with my friend, I typed two words on google, “volunteering and videomaking” and I went to know about this amazing opportunity.
Everything happened very quickly, interview, training and I left for the far and mysterious Colombia. I had never taken an intercontinental flight, I had never been out of Europe and I must admit that I left with a bit of fears, related to the reputation that some South American countries have been carrying for a long time.
I left on February 15 with my project partners and from there began an adventure for which I will always be grateful to have lived.
The energy of the people was contagious; their love for dance, music and the environment made me reflect a lot about my home and myself, and somehow they taught me to appreciate more what I have
It would be nice to cross the world by foot in order to perceive the differences as you approach your destination, but since it was impossible I found myself, in just over a day’s journey, in a place far from home, surrounded by nature and rivers but also by a different way of life. And like all these types of experiences it involved a period of adaptation that was the greatest training I could receive.
Two months in Minca for a project related to the promotion of sustainable tourism, a town located at the bigginng of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, rich in music, colors and nature.
And it was nature that struck me the most, our house, owned by the host association “Mision Gaia”, was surrounded almost entirely by forest and bamboo reeds. I spent my afternoons working on my videos accompanied by the metallic song of cicadas, the sound of beating wings of hummingbirds and the countless birds and iguanas that inhabited the forest. You didn’t need binoculars, you didn’t need a walk in the forest, nature was there.. surrounding you, transmitting its energy and reminding you its importance for our survival and I am grateful to all the animals, monkeys, toucans and butterflies that passed through our house for reminding me.
During our stay we also had the opportunity to collaborate with the local community, we organized workshops, discovered the area through their eyes, laughed and danced with them.
The energy of the people was contagious; their love for dance, music and the environment made me reflect a lot about my home and myself, and somehow they taught me to appreciate more what I have and what is given to me by others whether it be material, symbolic or spiritual.
But it was also a challenging experience, adapting to the local food, the cold and undrinkable water, the electricity that was sometimes missing and the Spanish, which I don’t speak, was an opportunity to test my spirit of adaptation.
Maybe two months of volunteering is not enough time; it takes a long time to understand “new worlds” and it takes a long time to discover yourself in new situations.
But I can say that I took this experience as a springboard for the future Marta, who hopes to be able to continue on a path of growth accompanied by the “other”, the “different”, the discovery of the world and the love for nature that Colombia has shown me to be fundamental.
Marta
