When I arrived in Colombia, I was sure that I would be surviving on sign language and charades forever.  Going to the grocery store was a chore and catching the bus was impossible.  And talking to my students’ parents?  Yeah, right.  
I’ve come a long way.
Our principal ran our staff meeting in Spanish last week and I [...]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted in colombia 6 Comments »

“Did you have a good sleep?” he’d ask me every morning and my answer was always the same.  “Yes, sir.”
My last day working at Port Hacking, Atto told me he’d miss being called Sir and to this day if I answer my mom with a “yes” there’s a “yes, what?” that comes quickly on its heels.  But [...]

Popularity: 52% [?]

Posted in colombia, home, teaching 12 Comments »

Snoozing on the first leg of the trip.

Catching some shut eye on the final leg, too.

And here are a few from along the way.

About ten minutes into our three hour hike through the Amazon jungle.

This was the easy part.  The 40 meter climb up the tree — not so much.

Sunset on the Amazon River. 
Is [...]

Popularity: 43% [?]

Posted in colombia, travel 7 Comments »

I need to take a deep, cleansing breath.
Because if I don’t some folks might die today and that’s just not becoming of a lady, now is it?
A list should suffice as the aforementioned deep, cleansing breath.

I cannot expect people to value my time as much as I do.
Manizales weather does NOTHING for my hair.
It’s fall [...]

Popularity: 51% [?]

Posted in colombia, friendcitos, home, rambling 5 Comments »

I am fascinated by people.
There’s a young man sitting on the porch of a house next to the river.  His boots are standing neatly on the floor beside him, mud on their soles.  His skin is dark and rich and his hair is askew.  There are books scattered on the table around him each one [...]

Popularity: 37% [?]

Posted in colombia 1 Comment »

The taxi picked us up at 3:00 a.m. this morning and there was more waiting than I’d expected, but we are here at last.
I’m lying beneath a mosquito net on a bed in a room with no true walls.  The edges of the sheer material are tucked snugly beneath my thin mattress and I feel like this [...]

Popularity: 38% [?]

Posted in colombia 5 Comments »

I teach at a private school where the tuition rivals what I paid for my college education.
Our campus is tucked neatly into the back corner of a hidden away street outside the city.  In the past 20 years it has changed from an old farmhouse into a picture of growing perfection.  Red trim on white [...]

Popularity: 42% [?]

Posted in colombia, teaching 3 Comments »

Coffee is a staple of Colombian culture.  Go figure, right?
The line of people going into and coming out of the staff room with their steaming mugs is as constant as a train of ants at a church picnic.  I admit that I look at them longingly.  I want to fit into that social circle.  I want [...]

Popularity: 42% [?]

Posted in colombia, rambling 9 Comments »

The Andes Mountains are all around me, their peaks covered by the morning mist.  The Colombian air is crisp and cool and I drink it in. 
My eyes wander toward the steep slopes and the houses that are perched there.  Small communities shoved together in a makeshift suburbia.  Houses with concrete walls and floors and corrugated tin [...]

Popularity: 59% [?]

Posted in colombia, faith, home 2 Comments »

Seriously, sometimes I just don’t have it together.
I think I’m all buff and I want to be super athletic and hard core and all those other things that my heroes are.
But I’m not those things. At all.
I’m no Linds or Whit or Jimmy (I’m SO NOT JIMMY). I’m just me with another 13.1 [...]

Popularity: 46% [?]

Posted in colombia 6 Comments »