I've now been living in Medellin for over a month, and life has taken on something of a routine. Last week consisted of lots of working, a little climbing, plenty of good food, and a copious amount of rain. In fact, today is the first truly nice day we've had for over a week, but it's still early. The thunderstorms tend to arrive around midafternoon, so I can't officially count today as a clear day just yet. That said, it's been a gorgeous morning. Unfortunately, my office doesn't have any windows to the outside, so I don't get to really enjoy the change, but I generally have a few excuses to go walk across campus each day, and I thoroughly enjoy those brief moments of strolling through the immaculate gardens and passing beneath the now abundantly flowering orchids. The rumor is that urbam will be getting their own house just outside the official boundary of the university sometime in July, but I'm not sure I'll believe that til I see it.
In any case, since last week (and this week) have revolved fairly heavily around work, I suppose I should say a few words about that. Overall, I am quite content with my tasks and have been thoroughly enjoying both learning more about Medellin and getting a chance to play a role in the future of this amazing city. Just a few minutes ago I wrapped up my work on the urban planning portion of a social housing project outside the city. The organization in charge of that proposal now has lots of work to do in order to get all the players on board and all the correct gears turning. Urbam will not officially be involved with further stages of the project, but I've asked to be kept informed, and may get a chance to see that develop, outside of my hours at the office. At the very least, I've been promised a site visit as soon as we return from Semana Santa, which is a big holiday spanning all of next week.
Beyond the social housing, I'm still working hard on defining and structuring a network that will hopefully serve to connect individuals and organizations striving to create positive change through socially oriented urban development. It's a rather vast topic, with a myriad of different players, so it's been a little tough getting a firm grip on the process, but after our most recent meeting, I think I've worked out a fairly strong plan of attack. I'll keep you all posted on how well that process works out.
The third component of my current workload is to collect, organize and eventually analyze an enormous quantity of information relating to the Integrated Urban Projects (PUI) that have been planned and executed in the city over the past decade. The end result is to hopefully synthesize the process, successes and failures, in order to allow other cities and future generations to learn from the experiences of Medellin. All in all, a wonderfully interesting project for me, as I get to read all the nitty gritty details of how to succeed in creating real, lasting change through a combination of design and social enterprise.
Between all of these tasks, I've also been attending various presentations at EAFIT and other universities regarding 'Social Urbanism' and other interesting topics. This morning I managed to make it to a talk about WikiLeaks and the relationship between journalism and politics. Not exactly on topic, but working at a university, especially one as involved and active as EAFIT, certainly has it's advantages!
Next week is a holiday for the university, but I need to extend my visa in order to stay here for the duration of my contract, which can only be done in the capitol city. Fortunately, government offices are open until Weds, so on Saturday I will be flying down to Bogota in order to make it to the Ministry of External Relations as soon as the open on Monday morning, with a little time for sightseeing beforehand. If all goes well, I should then be headed off to Suesca on Monday evening for a week of climbing in what is supposedly the best site in the country (assuming it doesn't rain the whole time). After 2 weeks of hard work and very little play, I'm excited to get going on another adventure. Will not be taking my computer with me, so you'll all just have to wait til I get back for a full report, but rest assured there will be plenty of good stories to go around!
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