Days 15 - 19 - TV Interviews & Field Trips

Oct 19 - 23

This week is pretty hectic, between winding down our project, getting interviewed by local/national news and managing to go out of Bogota a couple of times for work field trips and sightseeing day trips, it's clearly a race against time..

I came back pretty sick, with a bad cold, from Medellin:-( What a way to start my week. Had to stay in the hotel for a couple of days to get over the cold and cough.

Meanwhile Divi and Rene hold down the forte at the SOLE office and represented SAP. Nice work guys!

Also this week, we have a cooking session in Sabrina’s room, this week it is Pasta night.. Yummy!

On Friday, we go to Cazuca (South of Bogota) for a SOLE session in collaboration with another organization called Fundacion Tiempo de juego. Cazuca is a neighborhood south of Bogota, this is one of the most dangerous and neglected sectors of Soacha. Regardless, the welcome that we received from the kids in the center of Tiempo de juego was so touching.

This is what we’ve been waiting for since we got here. I don’t even think words can explain our experience. We went with the Fundacion Capital group on this field trip. What an amazing experience… The kids were so excited to see us! At first we had an intro session and played some serious games with the kids… They are so full of energy!

After the games, the group was split into 2. 1 group went back to the community center for the SOLE session while the 2^nd group stayed behind to play football (Soccer).  The SOLE session was very interesting and the kids were so enthusiastic about the session. It was so nice to see how much they were so into it. The BIG question was “Where did Football (Soccer) come from”? Of course this means, letting the kids loose on the computer to research and be prepared to present in front of everyone else. What a bunch Smart KIDS!

After the SOLE session, we went back to the Soccer field, played a round of soccer with some of kids. By 5:15pm, all the kids had to be sent back home as the curfew for kids to be home was 5:30pm. Lots of hugs and kisses were exchanged. We were only there for a 3 hours but these kids really touched our hearts with their openness and smiles. 

We headed back to Bogota around 5:30pm and stopped at a restaurant for dinner and went on to the hotel. A few people went out on the town to celebrate the end of the week.