Exploring My Roots, One Step At A Time

By the time I started blogging last night all I could do was talk about the volunteering experience.  Yesterday was an exhausting and draining day.  After working with the abuelitas, I had lunch around the corner from the apartment at Masa.  It is really delicious, and I was supposed to meet someone but they never showed.  I didn't mind though, Masa has wifi and I was able to call my mom.  After lunch I met up with Guillermo again, who said via email yesterday that he had good news for me.  We planned on going to the hospital where I was born.  I was excited to go see the place where my birth took place, and be able to piece together somethings regardless of being able to meet Magnolia.  On the way to the hospital Guillermo informed me that he was able to get a phone number and an address for my BM.  He asked me if I wanted to go to the neighborhood after the hospital and I replied yes.  Our intention was just to find the place and scope it out, but not to make any contact.  







Here is a picture of the Hospital called Clinica Cio San Diego.  It was located not too far on Avenida Calle 33 #14-37.  We took the Trasmilleno there and it took 15 minutes at most.  

The hospital used to be a general hospital and took emergencies.  12 years ago it converted into a Cancer hospital, for that reason we could not go inside.













After we looked at the hospital we got back on the transit and took it to the last stop.  The neighborhood address we had was far south.  We got a cab and asked him to take us to that address.  He didn't know exactly where it was but said it was all the way up the mountain.  The neighborhood we were in was not safe, I wasn't supposed to speak in English so I just passed notes with Guillermo in the back seat.  We searched for the address for an hour and got close but couldn't get there with a car.  Some roads were not paved and our guess what that her address was down one of them.  It was getting late and if was not safe to leave the car.  Guillermo said that the area was a level 1.  That was a little disappointing for me, I had hoped that she lived in a safer or better area.  It was also discouraging that we couldn't find her apartment.  The mountain was so high and riding in the cab was like a roller coaster, really steep incline and equally steep decline.  I could not take pics because it was too dangerous to take my camera out.  We decided to head back and that we would try during the day some other time.  Guillermo informed me that in those neighborhoods, there is a very high pregnancy rate for teenage girls, and a lot of violence.  I just felt like I was in a completely different world, I was thinking how different I would be having grown up there.  I got a little motion sick on the train back, it took us a while to get back to the apartment.  Guillermo called the number to see if she lives there, the woman that answered told him she moved a few months ago but to call back tomorrow to see if anyone has contact info.  The experience was eye opening and thought provoking.