holidays

Oscar and I made brownies!! When I said we needed to add two eggs to the flour mixture he put in the two eggs, shell and all, into the mixing bowl, on top of the flour mixture, smiled and said, “ok what next.” It was a fun evening.

My time in Cali was bittersweet; the first few days were spent trying to hold back tears of frustration. The family I stayed with was not affiliated with the Episcopal Church and worked long hours. They, along with myself were under the impression that there was a structured plan for my being in Cali, which was not the case. Nobody wanted me leaving to venture out on my own and not knowing anyone, I felt imprisoned in the house with a television, my journal, and my thoughts.

After the first few days of my ‘perceived imprisonment’ life began to pick up speed. The people of Cali are so warm, generous and excited to share all that is unique to their city and their country and to show that there is so much more to Colombia than the world news portrays. I visited a few different communities in and around the city and every person/family I met was so hospitable and loving, generous and gracious, once again I am left speechless, full of love and lost in thought. I will be going back. (quick side note; no matter how hard I try I cannot escape that darn cow stomach soup).

One thought I would like to share with you is about how each and every one of us has been blessed with different gifts, it’s how we choose to make use of, accept and appreciate these gifts that forms our lives, our journeys. It does not matter where we are or what we are doing, moment-by-moment our journeys are formed and the wonderful thing is that they don’t require anything more than ones self, the belief in ones self.

The point I am trying to make is that we all have the potential to do amazing and noble things and crossing an ocean is not required. Living is living, being real is being real, honesty is honesty, giving is giving, and loving is loving, anywhere and everywhere on planet earth and beyond. You are the difference and you are your life.

travel!!!

I am in an awful hurry as I had to sneak in one last rock climbing session before I head off to the Pacific coast to a city called Cali. A city in Colombia famous for busting some pretty rad salsa moves, and as I am told dancing in general. This adventure will be to fully experience the Novena(9th) nine days before Christmas which are celebrated with family get together and all sorts of other things that I will be sharing in my next entry.. In Colombia Christmas is celebrated on the 24th rather than the 25th. So I will return from Cali in time to spend Christmas with Myriam, Oscar and the rest of the clan in a town called Subecoche.

P.S. I bought a pretty awesome suitcase (as you can see in the photo) for $2.50 in the 2nd store the church runs and it is probably one of the coolest things I now own, and thought it fitting for this quick blog entry.

confusion and inarticulacy

These two words have been the theme as I have been trying to type this blog for the past week, my attempts at simplicity are to no avail. It has been a very muddy while as I attempt to swim through my thoughts... and mind you, mud is not easy to maneuver in, let alone swim in.

I want to write about how there are days where Spanish comes easy and I surprise myself with the ease and fluidity of my speech while others I sound like a skipping record and people have to use all of their creative abilities to extrapolate any sort of meaning(it's fun for all).

I want to write about the frequent occurrence of grandparents being dropped off at the hospitals never to be retrieved again by their own children. Their children seeing them as a burden and disown them with literally nothing but the clothes on their back.. How heart breaking it is to know that one human being could do this another, especially their own parent. But how wonderful it is that others show such generosity and kindness by taken them in.

I want to write about the sadness I feel due to the corruption, lack of social services, injustice, deaths and missing persons caused by standing up for yourself, your home, your family and the numerous homeless children on the streets that sniff glue to ease the pain of being homeless, hungry and alone. And how incredible it is that compassionate people exist, people who see this suffering and because of it give what they can to help.

I want to write about stunning beauty of this misunderstood country and how it is just one of many misunderstood countries in the world. How I wonder what would happen if we all just opened our minds to be a little less fearful, a little less judgmental and opened our hearts to love and accept just a little bit more, what would happen?

I want to write about how life is about perspective and how perspective is reality. We each create our own perspective which in turn allows us to create our own reality. It is what we choose to see and believe in that shapes and forms ourselves, our worlds, our lives...