thanksgiving today

Oscar has returned home which means Myriam will now be getting a full nights rest. Now it's story time...

On Monday I gave Myriam some brownies from the bake sale to share with Oscar in the hospital(his sweet tooth is almost as big as mine). Last night after Oscar arrived home, Myriam went out to run some errands. I was reading in my room when the banging of cupboards started in the kitchen. I assumed Oscar was just so overjoyed to be home he was nostalgically looking through everything, touching anything he could.

Well, that wasn't the case and within moments he appeared at my door very collected with his hands folded over his belly, very politely with an hint of serious concern in his voice, he stated, "Myriam told me that you made brownies, and well, I had one on Monday but I cannot seem to find the rest of them anywhere." How could I stop from smiling? I had to inform him that all the brownies had been consumed early in the week.
"Oh, I see. Well, what are the ingredients?" I listed the ingredients.
"That's it? When can you teach me to make brownies?"
"Saturday or Sunday I have time."
"Great, Saturday we'll make brownies together. Does the oven work?"
"Yes the oven works."

Today my office mates were determined to find turkey and mashed potatoes to celebrate Thanksgiving. We also found mini pies.

Today I learned how to belay rock climbing and teach Alice how to do a proper 'ocho' knot.

The sun is out for a few moments and I am so thankful to be here, learning all that I am learning, while being supported and encouraged by so many wonderful people. For all of this and all of you, I am thankful.

P.S. If you are not on my email list and would like to be, please let me know!

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Dance photos are up, click here to view: http://picasaweb.google.com/akrislock/Bogota#

Oscar was supposed to come home from the hospital last night and my heart sank when Myriam walked through the door alone. Every time Oscar gets close to leaving along comes another complication. The worst was a fall he had last week, causing much concern and now Myriam is spending not only her days with him, but nights also. Her sister-in-law helps out by taking a shift when she is able to so Myriam can run home to shower and take a quick nap. The few times I do see Myriam she shows me family photo albums while explaining each photo, telling me wonderful stories so full of love and life.

I am unsure of how to explain my thoughts so instead here are two quotes that come to mind, "tell me what is your plan to do with your one wild and precious life." Mary Oliver. And, "Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold." by Zelda Fitzgerald

Prom was great. Dr. Santos(my coworker) his wife's nephew was graduating from high school. The families of the graduates, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles all attended... In the hotel they had long tables set up with waiters serving drinks and appetizers and the majority of the people danced til the wee hours of the morning. The hotel was still packed when I looked at my watch for the first time surprised to see it was 3:30 a.m.

My date(Carlos) was an amazing dancer and was patient enough to teach me a thing or two. I picked up the dances pretty quickly and was excited that I was able to keep up until Carlos got excited also and started adding fancy footwork while explaining all sorts of things. I strained to hear him over the sub woofer we seemed to be dancing in and would focus so much on what he was saying that I would forget to keep my feet moving.

As my friend Alice and I were enjoying coffee hour at church this past week, they announced a bazaar this coming Sunday. Alice turned to me and said, "too bad we don't have anything to sell." Not sure if she was serious or not I found myself saying jokingly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "um, brownies." Well, Alice thought this was a fantastic idea, so we now have a booth of brownies and no bake cookies. Please do stop by if you'd like to buy some of the world's best baked goods, it'd be great to see you.

dancin' the night away

I came to Colombia with an open mind and heart hoping to 'just be', not having too many expectations in order to get the most out of my experience. Thus with this in mind aside from the amount of love I have seen here, not too much has taken me by surprise until Tuesday...

Tuesday started off as one of those mornings... one of those that went like this: waking up was difficult as my body was exhausted from the previous days intense rock climbing session. I turned on the shower full blast to see my clothes hang drying and not so dry anymore; sock and underwear drawer completely empty. My eyes were too tired to put my contacts in, glasses it was and brushing my hair seemed too much of an effort so out came the hairband. My regular morning exercises seemed more fit for someone such as Chuck Norris rather than myself, so I figured why not move on to breakfast, maybe that would help.. . . until I poured orange juice into my hot chocolate. It's only 8 o'clock in the AM.

As I left the apartment the torrential downpour started which left me arriving fuzzy haired, soggy and groggy-eyed at work. I just wanted to sit at my desk peacefully and avoid the day, but no such luck. Pilar comes in to say, "we need to get you a dress for prom on Friday and your prom date will be here in a few hours to meet you so it won't be awkward at the dance." My thoughts at that moment were revolving around questioning whether or not this was reality or a dream? Prom? What? The end. I've given up trying to differentiate between the two.

It just so happens to be that it was reality and I am going to prom this evening with the cousin of one of my coworkers. His cousin isn't in high school but we are still going to prom? Is anything making sense these days? I'll just go with it.. Here begins the true adventure.

Dress shopping, hair, make-up, nails- it has no end! The prom being a 'cocktail prom' requires a fancy cocktail dress(silly me, if only I'd thought to pack one). Since I tend to be taller than the average female Colombian, half the morning was spent trying on dresses saying, "well you could wear that dress just don't bend over, or well, if you want to look like neon barbie that dress would work." Finally we found a nice black dress.

Now comes the hair, make-up, nails- I now look like a 90's rock star. After leaving the beauty salon all gussied up, I spent the walk home trying to contain my laughter. I could not keep a straight face to save my life and still as I type this it is difficult. It feels so nice to laugh as I think about my day, my week, Colombia and how everything unfolds. I will for sure be a salsa expert after tonight- oh how I love it here.. Happy Friday folks.

'molasses cookies'

(photos are from a day trip to the Salt Cathedral, built in salt mine)
A lady in the office, Maria Pilar, enjoys coming into my office to chat. Last week it was discovered we both have a love for cooking/baking. Once this came out, the treats started... Tuesday it was a milkshake (quick side note, if you want to taste the worlds best milkshakes, come visit), Wednesday she brought me a piece of apple pie, Thursday, an arepa. First, I told her she needed to kick the habit of bringing me things to eat because my stomach really was not built to hold so much and second, I would make her chocolate chip cookies. That was until I discovered her favorite were ginger aka, molasses cookies which is fantastic because those happen to be one of my favorite cookies also. Well the adventure starts here...

After translating the ingredients and researching the difference in high altitude baking I set out on my mission. First task was finding the ingredients: ground cloves, ground ginger and cinnamon, plus molasses, HA! Right. I might as well have ridden an elephant into the store asking for the isle where they kept the penguins. I was able to find fresh ginger, whole cloves, and something roughly translated as burnt sugar, which their version of molasses. I returned home to no measuring units but to be expected and easy to deal with.

Next surprise: Myriam has NEVER, EVER used her oven, never. I wish you could have seen her reaction when I asked about making cookies. She just kind of blankly stared at me, realized what I had said, repeated it, and then said, "The oven? I don't know if it even works." We figured it out after many attempts and coaxing the heat source to stay lit. Long story/evening short cookies were eventually produced, although they don't taste quite like molasses cookies, I succeeded in my first attempt at baking.

Halloween is celebrated here. Kids dress up in costumes and trick or treat at the stores and malls, all day long. They were so cute wandering around in their costumes, playing in the plazas. With the coming of Halloween I began to miss the delicious smell of fall. On Friday, when I left the office just for a moment I caught a whiff of fall. The crisp, damp, cool and somewhat smoky smell in the air, I absolutely love it (how nice would it be if you could send smells like this in a jar). My mind may have been playing tricks on me, whatever it was I am not complaining.

Oscar was doing really well and was supposed to come home last week but he began retaining fluids and had to go into the ICU. Now that that is under control, he has developed bronchitis. With one complication after another, I am impressed with the strength Myriam seems to be pulling out of some secret box of infinite reserves.

Myriam gets frustrated at times with this situation she cannot control and there are moments filled with such heaviness for the love of her life. Yet she accepts it, faith has not left her and she still finds time to laugh and enjoy. By no means is it easy but the attitude Myriam has is real and honest, and she does not blame. It is as if she is really able to see beauty, wherever she goes.