The camp was a success- 24 people in attendance. Youth were the campers and young adult volunteers from the YMCA Medellin were being trained so that they can run this camp in the future. Mel and I along with 3 volunteers taught all about the process of farming and the English words associated with it. We learned all about the parts of a seed, how to prepare the soil- it started off as a grassy area, how to plant corn, composting and we spent some time with the farm animals (chickens, goats, my friend the parrot and the rabbits who have 18 new little ones). We also went for a hike around the countryside to see the local crops and of course played many leadership games and had a campfire. A fun and much appreciated time were had by all.
After 2 days of camp and a long sleep, we were up and ready to get going on our last adventure of the trip. We travelled to Guatape where we climbed the El Peñon de Guatape rock. If you remember, in a previous post, I talked about climbing a mountain in Strata One, well this climb was even more challenging. There were 740 stairs on the side of this650 foot rock and every step was challenging as we twisted and turned all the way up.
My last day on The Farm was filled with chasing chickens (they all got out of the pens overnight, so off me and the farmer went chasing them around the farm and back into their pens), checking out the little bunnies (almost impossible to take a picture as they kept jumping!!) and of course packing.
Thank you all for following my trip to Medellin. I hope you enjoyed my adventures and learned a lot about the YMCA along the way. It is with a hopeful heart that I said goodbye to all those I met here. If all goes well, I will see many of the friends I made on this exchange in the next couple of years. Until my next adventure, with my friends and colleagues from the YMCA Medellin….