“I’ve had a splendid time,” she concluded happily, “and I feel that it marks an epoch in my life.  But the best of it all was the coming home.” -from Anne of Green Gables

Posted in home 8 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.  […]

Posted in colombia, home, teaching 12 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 […]

Posted in colombia, friendcitos, home, rambling 5 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 […]

Posted in colombia, faith, home 2 Comments »

Mis amigos, mi familia: I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day, really. First of all, shouldn’t you be all mushy and romantic everyday? Commercialized holidays shouldn’t tell us when to buy flowers or say nice things, should they? Fair enough, I’m probably just bitter and against relationships altogether. Generally I wear all black on February 14th, eat […]

Posted in colombia, friendcitos, home 4 Comments »

Walking through my parents’ yard sometimes feels like a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  There are flowers of every kind that grow in their soil.  Blossoms that are rich in color and invite you to walk among them.  There are purple cone flowers and daisies and black-eyed susans and lilies of every hue.  Blooms that stretch a […]

Posted in home, rambling, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

I like beginning of the year activities. They’re a chance to get to know one another and to be silly and to build community. One of my favorites is Me Bags. I ask kids to put three objects that best represent themselves in a bag and to share the contents with the class. Today there […]

Posted in colombia, home, teaching 9 Comments »

It’s Monday. Five days since my last post. Craziness. I rarely ever go a day without writing when I’m in Manizales. Life is slow and I don’t have a cell phone that rings. There’s wifi in my apartment and high speed internet at school. But I’m in Mississippi today. There’s no internet at my parents’ […]

Posted in home 2 Comments »