the smallest ones with the biggest hearts

Some people have life goals, things they absolutly must do before they die, a bucket list, exspectations of what will happen to them and how it will make them feel. I want to travel, everywhere. I want to see every culture and landscape, everything that makes us as people so incredibly different but still have the idea that we should all be alike.

I have a friend who wants to be an actor, more than anything else in the entire world. Her determination is truely something to admire. I will never forget her saying -If I can touch just one person, just one, in my entire life with what I can do as an actor, than I don't need anything more, I'll be happy- I understood exactly what she meant and realized I felt the same way. If you can do something you love, no matter what it is, and really make a difference and know you have. Then you'll have the confidence to do it again and again until you've made more than a difference, you've made a change; in a life other than your own.




The most rewarding thing I've done while I've been here was help with the younger grades english classes. At the beginning of the year, before I got there, they were reluctant. They didn't want to speak, didn't see the use of knowing another language. By the time I left I had to run around the classroom to get all their questions. I was getting the wind knocked out of me by hug-tackles every time I walked into the junior school and all their english grades had gone up. Their teachers were surprised, children they thought weren't listening in class built their vocabulary up enough to talk with me and make themselves understood. Kids that looked like they would never get through the year got 4.8s out of 5 on their exams. A group of grade 4s would come to talk to me and be all yelling together trying to figure out how to translate the next word.

These kids proved to everybody that they knew the importance of words. They would run me down in the halls to show me their test scores or their latest master piece drawing or just to see if they were pronouncing something right. And when I left they all jumped into the pictures like mad men and drew every kind of thank you/love you note possible. There was no good way to say goodbye but they knew. And maybe someday when they're older, they'll come to Canada and I'll be there waiting to hear all their stories about how their lives grew.

lets talk about the weather.......no, really!

Okay, I'll admit it, I suck at this! I wright stuff for this thing and then never type them up... Butttt, lets face it, who cares?
Anywayyssss.......

I've always loooved storms! but at home it's more of a rare and wonderful thing to get what's daily here. When we do however, everybody runs around like chickens with their heads cut off because they think the wind's just going to pick them up and sweep them away.
It's wonderful when the storms come here. First the mountains are covered over by clouds then the rains (*monsoons) start and soon after the thunder and lightening crack down. The lightening is so bright it's like it's day for a seconed, or like the sky is taking a giant snapshot picture from above. Medellin is like a bowl with all it's mountains surrounding it so when the thunder starts it rolls across and then breaks over our heads; loud, proud and a slight reminder of an angery parent...

if i could be anything in the world...

Maybe a brass doorknob learning the twists in people's lives by the swirls on their skin
or maybe the knocker resting above, watching people beg to be let in.
I could be a cloud, resting in the sky
Or better yet, a bright red bird, daring the clouds to fly this high
doors? clouds? birds!? why would you want that?
wouldn't you want to be noticed?
not in the remotest. i would want to be someting only avhievable with massive amounts of caffeine
something like a dance or a sense of humor or that feeling you get after you put on sunscreen
i could be the teen queen of a tangerine submarine in the brightest blueish-green, hunting for sardines!!
i could watch from my sunmarine as the people played on their trampolines
and throw tangerines at the men discovering the slot-machines
And then on Halloween, i would stroll onto their elite putting green dressed as an olive bean and teach them how to play the tambourine.

mango men and familiar faces...

Every morning i wake up at 5:30am and have my bed made before 6:00am. The bus comes at 6:45am and it's a half an hour bus ride to school. The bus is always surprisingly quiet, mainly because we're all exhuasted, and i stare out the window, starting to reconize the streets, and the people. There's the homeless man near the supermarket and the mattress store who talks to himself, the woman who makes plastic pieces on string come to life flying through the air and the little kids cheer for her as the traffic passes. One of my favorites is the man who lets his daughter ride on the fruit cart. Everyday i see him wheeling this thing that almost reseambles a giant wagon down the street, filled with fruit and his daughter sitting on the side, like it's nothing to cross the biker-crazed roads like this. I don't know if she goes to school or not but everyday I see her sitting there, content with the familiar morning sounds.

There's some people selling gum in carboard boxes walking through the car lanes, and there's the guy i've internally nicknamed "the mango man". He walks passed the cars with bunches of mangos slung accross his arms, in that netting that you can buy packages of onions in at the grocery store. He's older but not elder, he always wears a ballcap i can never make out the letters on and he walks at a pace where i'm not sure if he's selling them or just really likes mangos.

On the way home from school; there's a woman with dreadlocks juggling bowling pins and the little kids cheer for her too. Different people selling more gum in their boxes and police roaming the city, occasionally with rifles.

The mango men, fruit cart girls, and police avoiding citizens of Medellin do not know each other. But they all have the connection of pride. Weather the people i see sell: mangos, gum, coffee or just a preformance they all seem to pride themselves in being able to do it well. And they appear at ease with their sunrise routine.

walking with mona...

"mona" : okay, this roughly translates to "white girl" it can be used for flirting as well but that is only part of why it's what i'm called it every time i walk down the streets of Medellin. Living here i have found people with all different colours and tones of skin, but nobody with skin quite as white as mine. Another thing is nobody has blue eyes, so in comparison mine are as electric blue as the colours of my new school (Jorge Robledo -IJR-). So on days like today when my friend and i walk around exploring the city of 1000 springs surronded by moutains, old men ramble at me in spanish i am just begining to get an ear for and the one word i always reconize is "mona". Even the people at the grocery store check-out;....spanish.....spanish...."mona"!!......spanish... hahaha :)

-RR a.k.a "mona' ;)