Wayuu

We headed out on Thursday to the Peninsula where we met many Wayuu people. They are an indigenous group in the area. We attended a school opening there. The governor was there presenting the school to the people. I could hardly believe the press that was there! Everyone was snapping pictures, even of us! As a tourist I take pictures of lots of people all over the place, posing and not posing. However, this time the locals were taking pictures of us. It was quite the odd sensation.

There was a ceremony where many people spoke and honoured education and the traditions of the local people. The chief, the governor, the principal of the school, the mayor, Luis from SMART, and Sheila McLeood from the CBE all spoke among others. It was very humbling to be part of such an important celebration of education.

After all the speeches, we were able to tour some of the classrooms and see what kinds of things were already happening. Each student is assigned a MAC laptop and there are SMARTboards in each classroom. As well as IPAD's and all sorts of other technology. This school was designed to be decked out with technology.

The money for this school was paid by a joint venture between the governor's office and the mayor's office through royalties from the coal mine and the oil rigs that are in that region. I was quite glad to hear a young boy speak of his passion for his community and the desire to use technology to show the rest of the world his culture. It seems like a combination of traditional values with the modern values that technology brings.

We also were able to see tradional dances and stories from the Wayuu. My favourite was the story of how their weaving began. An ugly girl was found in the jungle by a young man while eatting ants, he felt pity for her and took her back with him to his home. There he gave her to his three sisters for them to take care of her, but instead they mistreated her and made her do all the work. However at night she would transform into a beautiful woman and weave beautiful bags. The sisters did not know what to do with this and thought she was a witch, they summoned the help of an evil spirit to help them get rid of her, but instead it turned them into a bat. The young man came back and was in love with her so they lived happily ever after.

This is a much longer story than I have told but this is what I got from the explaination between bites of goat meat and a plantain type side dish.

It was a wonderful night with lots of sharing in educational values and experiences. I really enjoyed it.

You can visit the school's website at: akuaipa.blogspot.com