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...