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...

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.