My brain is exhausted. I am exhausted. The speed of life has gone from a nice comfortable cruise of 20 mph to rapid 75 mph. Myriam, Oscar and I celebrated Christmas in Subachoque, returned to wash some clothes before we again left the city to Villa de Leyva where we spent a week over New Years. From there it was straight back to work where I began a grant for United Thank Offering, started packing up my room, and preparing the office and apartment for Laura-Catherine’s arrival. And since Laura-Catherine safely arrived Wednesday night, we have spoken about 10 minutes of English and about a million and one hours of Spanish as we run all over the city finding things to transform the apartment into a livable space. Monday, another national holiday, we finally had time to sit and relax for a few hours.
We have moved into the basement apartment of the church, our home. It is wonderful, a little cool temperature-wise but we’ve found that fresh hot chocolate helps take out the chill. Our thighs are growing strong due to the lack of a toilet seat, the cold showers help wake us up in the mornings and preparing our own meals with fresh fruits and vegetables is a definite plus.
I am discovering the deeper I travel into this experience, the more I fall in love with Bogota, Colombia. I am thankful for my experience these past 4 months, all that I have learned; the time I have had to become comfortable with the language, the people, and myself in another culture. Now that Laura-Catherine is here it is nice to have someone to share this experience with and it is transforming into a completely different adventure- nothing short of amazing. It is a mystery why and how some things work out they way they do. There are times where you are able to prepare yourself, prepare yourself for moments, for what will come next, for life, while others need to be spent embracing the mystery, trusting ambiguity, it is all just as rich.
3 comments:
hi Audra! reading your blog this morning reminded me that I had a dream last night where Mike and I visited you in Colombia. it was one of those weird dream realities where most people (except for one crazy lady) spoke decent English and we were only there for one or two nights and the bedrooms had old style bathtubs in them. you introduced us to people, showed us around, and made sure we had good food and water.
anyway, back in reality, I enjoy reading your updates and am glad you're doing well! you are a brave soul to embrace a lack of toilet seats and cold showers! :)
Gosh you have been gone 4 months already and look how much you have matured in so many ways. By the way your picture took me back a second you look just like your mother. Love YA!!!!!
Oh how we love you, beautiful daughter!
It is good that you are keeping in shape for skiing, albeit an interesting way to do it :-).
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