March 12, 2008
I treasure my weekends and guard them as though they were King Tut’s wealth boxed into two measly days. This weekend a friend asked me if I’d like to see the real Colombia and believe it or not, I said yes.
We met early on Saturday in Villa Maria, a small town that shouts simplicity. Men sitting about on worn benches in the central plaza watching as people strolled between the church and the bakery. Wagons of fruit and vegetables for sale, the farmers offering to load the goods for free. Dogs lazing in the shade and children skipping rope on the sidewalks. The Jeep that was waiting for us was up a side street and I swore to remember it all as I made my way there.
We piled in, two in the front making friends with the driver, six in the back smushed and uncomfortable and one standing on the bumper because he wouldn’t fit anywhere else. The ride was long and slow, the terrain rough, but breathtaking. The mountains, the coffee plants in perfect rows along their sides, a man with a picking sack and a dog ambling toward the top. A tight turn as we climbed up, up, up further into the Andes Mountains and eight skittish gringos covering their eyes sure that we would slide toward our deaths at any minute.
Three hours later we passed through a gate and bumped on toward a flat in the mountains. There waiting for us were two pack mules, a Colombian cowboy, and nine horses, saddled and waiting to take us and our things to the farm we could see beyond the Rio Claro. The ride in took another hour or so and I couldn’t help but smile as Halcón and I splashed through the river and clip clopped up the rocks. Only in the movies. Things like this only happen in the movies.
Then around a corner and up a makeshift drive to the farmhouse. It was painted a crisp white with red trimmings and doors and hanging baskets of verbena adorned every support post. Two children played gleefully in the yard and their mother greeted us with warm cups of tea and an afternoon snack. We wandered about the place taking it all in. A pool fed by natural springs, hot from passing over lava seeping toward the crust of the Earth, chairs lined up on the wrap-around porch and an open air shower with a view of the mountains all told me I had found Colombia.
I spent the weekend riding horses through the mountains, hiking along the river, drinking fresh milk, and eating the food of the land around me. I chatted easily in Spanish and napped beneath wool blankets, a book beside me as I slept. And on Sunday afternoon, I sat on that perfect porch staring out into nothing, the sound of a crashing waterfall my only music, and wondered if there was any way I could ever make words describe it all.
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March 7, 2008
It’s no secret. I like food. A lot. And I like the food in Colombia. I honestly do. It’s fresh, generally not processed, and prepared by hand. Given, I could live without the rice. And the rice. And, oh yeah, the rice, but it’s better than chili mac or the Potluck Fridays of Mississippi Mystery in the public school realm.
Truthfully, the cafeteria lunch here is the best meal I get all day and I just adore the cafeteria ladies. They call me Senora and I call them all Miss and they shake their fists at me every single day for saying “No, thank you” so often. What can I say? I refuse to eat a 5 course meal for lunch. I can’t do it. So, most days I have warm vegetable soup and fruit and fresh juice and I am more than satisfied.
I don’t know what happened to me today. Maybe I was eating for all of my pregnant friends back home, but when the Miss behind the counter said, “Senora, quieres la sopa?” I said, “Si, Miss. Quiero todo, por favor.” And then she called behind her for everyone to look! I was mortified as she heaped my plate full of rice, potatoes, meat, and salsa de something or other and all the lunch ladies cheered.
They might as well have issued me a double dare! I sat down and went to work. When I finally made a happy plate and went to put my tray away, I yelled for them all to look. They came-each and every one-, hugged me, and then clapped. They actually clapped! I was a rock star and all I had to do was clean my plate! My students stood around amazed and joined in the applause! And then we went back to the room and instead of doing new vocabulary, we all got our books, found a quiet spot, and read for the next half hour. Nice.
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March 5, 2008
Why do we so often choose the easy route? We choose it even if it’s at another’s expense. We do and it’s sad and we’re called to so much more. Rather than tearing each other down with words and actions we’re called to build each other up. Brody’s starting a revolution. Times 39. I’m jumping on the bandwagon.
Sometimes it’s awkward to be a nearly thirty something single and sometimes I’m really bitter and cynical and against the idea of marriage and such altogether. And then I think of these couples and I’m just a little bit hopeful (but don’t tell anyone.)
They’ve offered to adopt me and I’m tempted to say yes. He teaches guitar, bass, and drums and killer vocabulary at the same time. Coolest almost-dad ever. She reminds me about the important things, organizes my life, and loves me even when I’m selfish. They’re young and good to each other and they let me spend the night and take me to airports and help me pack when I get all in a tizzy. They show me Jesus every day in word and truth and in the way they live and love- me and each other.
They just might be the coolest couple that I know. They flirt like teenagers and still laugh at each other’s jokes. They’re fearless and full of adventure and reckless and happy as long as they’re together (and he doesn’t try to steal her french fries.) They read together and run (but not together because he’s really fast and she’s fast, but not that fast.) And they teach kids English in South Korea. How cool is that? Check out their story.
Now, join the revolution. Build someone up.
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March 4, 2008
There’s this kid in one of my extra curriculars that I adore. He’s cool, has band hair, a great sense of humor, and super English. He plays the guitar and rules the recess ping pong tables. He’s smart, athletic, creative, a total heart breaker in the making. His name’s Jacobo and I heard this story from his teacher. Classic.
“Let’s talk about goals. About what we want to be when we grow up.”
“I want to be a scientist.”
“I want to be a professional soccer player.”
“I want to be a super model.”
“Agustin, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Jacobo.”
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February 28, 2008
I’m a total booknerd. Unashamedly. Spread the word. Mail me more.
The list of books I’ve read in my lifetime could easily fill this post and maybe the next 52 as well, but I won’t do that. I will say this, though. Since I’ve been in Colombia, I’ve started keeping a list. Just out of curiosity to see how many I plow through in the next 2 years. I’m making pretty good progress. But this post isn’t about what I’m reading now or what ridiculous numbers I can accumulate. It’s about my favorite book. Annie and Shannon inspired me.
The first time I read Dove by Robin Lee Graham, I was in college. It was a Camp Lake Stephens staff favorite and I wanted to be in the know. What I didn’t expect was for it to affect me the way it did. I’ve always been a dreamer. Always wanted to travel. To see the world. And I’ve never really been afraid of doing it alone. I’m independent like that, wanting the story to be mine for the retelling.
But could I ever do it? Just pick up and leave? Stay gone for years at a time? I know what you’re thinking, “You ARE doing it! You’ve done it before.” And you’re right. I guess I have, but I’ve never picked up and left everything like Mr. Graham did and I wasn’t 16 when I left. He was. He left to sail around the world alone and didn’t come home for 5 years. His story is unbelievable. The story of the things he saw, the cultures that he danced through, the kittens that kept him company, the storms that he faced, and the relationships he forged. With the bride he met. With the Savior he met.
Seriously, it’s my favorite book ever. It changed the way I view my life in Christ and the way that I dream. It could change yours, too. Or maybe a book already has. What’s your favorite? Join in. Share. Check Shannon out for details. I’m waiting on recommendations.
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February 28, 2008
I like to think of lesson planning as a sort of guide, a map even, but never anything set in stone. I’m open to change. I do, after all, live in Colombia. Today we didn’t follow the map at all. We made an adventure of our own and where we ended up was, well, beautiful.
Some days it’s just hard to be a teacher. Kids are cranky. I’m cranky. It rains. The projector doesn’t work. The chapter in our read aloud is too long to finish before lunch. And lunch. Lunch. Is rice again. Today was one of those days. So, after rice again, we took a little detour.
I asked the children to close their eyes and listen. I whispered the word “beauty” and asked them to picture it. To think really hard about it. To paint their picture. And then, I just let them think awhile. The silence was my beauty and I told them so. But their pictures were so much better than mine. ” My mom.” ” A day on my horse.” “You, Miss.” “Dancing with my Papa.” “Puppies.” ” When the sun comes up.” “When you read.” ” All the different greens in the mountains.” “Waterfalls in the river.” “Mississippi.” “My name when you say it.”
Now, that’s beauty.
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February 26, 2008
There’s never a question of whether or not it’s going to rain in Manizales. The only question is when. Will it be a morning shower, an afternoon sprinkle, or a torrential downpour that lasts all day? Because, my friends, the rain is inevitably coming. Last semester it nearly got the best of me, nearly washed me away. And then I went home for awhile. And I brought back the best present ever.
Ada and I have been friends since before I had braces and before she learned that flat irons were magic. I saw my first concert with her (Garth Brooks in Starkville). We went to our proms together and danced those nights away while our dates held our shoes. We spent the day before we left for college listening to the soundtrack of highschool, letting the memories swirl out the open windows, sobbing uncontrollably at our impending separation. We repeated that cycle the day before I stood next to her while she was wearing a wedding dress. She peeled wall paper off the walls of my first house and picked up the pieces of my trampled heart a thousand times rather than saying, “I told you so.” She’s watched me leave the country more than once and been waiting with arms wide open for my homeward journies. She’s laced up running shoes just to spend time with me and chased me out countless doors with mascara in her hand. We’ve been weathered by years and distance, heartbreaks, losses, missed chances and shattered hopes, but all the while she’s been there. Dusting off the dirt, wiping off the tears. She’s been my sunshine. Today was no different.
It was a morning shower. Dreary and cold. A hint of the day to come. People rushing by, buses blaring their horns, a crowd of black and gray umbrellas on the Avenida. And then there was me. Standing beneath orange and pink and purple polka dots. My Ada. My sunshine.
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February 23, 2008
There’s just something about the USPS symbol that toys with my emotions in a way that you wouldn’t believe. Honestly, my students are a little obsessed, too. That could be my fault. Still, the highlight of our day is afternoon recess. We take turns running up to the Red House to check the mail. And sometimes, only sometimes, we get BOXES! And sometimes, if the moon is just right, we get TREATS in those boxes.
Yesterday at school one such box arrived. We scrapped the idea of isoceles triangles and went back to solid figures. The rectangular prism to be exact. And it just so happens that individually wrapped rice krispie treats are, in fact, in the shape of rectangular prisms. Education should be about real world connections, right?
I sat there with 24 angels from Colombia, watching their faces, listening to their smacking, refusing to tell them to chew with their mouths closed. Remembering the joy of trying something for the first time. I wish that I could bottle that feeling. Save it forever. Open it once in a while. Revisit the tingle. Firsts always pass too quickly.
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February 21, 2008
Beginnings are never easy. And now that I think of it, middles and endings aren’t too easy either. Still, everyone has to start somewhere and for me, for now, it’s here.
Who am I kidding? I didn’t start here. My friend started me here. I’m a technological moron of the worst sort, but have been toying with the idea of blogging for a while. Joining the masses, following the crowd. It’s what all the cool people are doing, right? Again, who am I kidding? Cool was never my strong suit.
Nonetheless, I’m here. Here in Colombia. Here online. Here for the world to see. Here in some sordid adventure of words, websites, and weakness.
Posted in Uncategorized 5 Comments »
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