EST. 2011

 SMALL WORLD Guatemala left me with countless memories that more than corroborate our working definition of Globalization - “The interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture”.  Antigua, Guatemala  is a perfect example. This UNESCO site should be the topic of countless anthropological studies. In Antigua, you can come across someone from any country on this planet. Guatemala, as a country, draws b ackpackers, world travelers, week-long vacationers, habitat for humanity folk, mission trips of the religious and medical nature, and people who just enjoy the moderate annual climate and the favorable exchange rate. I remember being out in the middle of nowhere Guatemala and crossing paths with a woman from Denmark who had been living for three months in one of the villages where I taught. She had been teaching English and conducting Univer sity research about sanitary standards in rural Central America. Our intera ction was bri ef but I rem...

Working as an international developmental worker abroad isn’t always easy. Life, as it always does, is bound to throw you some curve balls. However, when things happen at home, whether they be good or bad, involving your family, friends, or the life you left stateside, it will often lead to a complicated feeling of nostalgia seasoned with a little regret for having left. Logging onto facebook and seeing that your friends are getting engaged, moving into new apartments, and advancing their respective careers can be detrimental to your own journey as an overseas development worker. Realizing that the world that you left and the one you currently live are no longer congruent is something that you just get you use to. This past Saturday news from the homestead had me wondering about a lot of things. It lead me to question my move to Colombia and extension for another year with the Peace Corps . It had me thinking about the life I would have had, if I had stayed stateside. It had m...

After some radio silence, I thought I'd share with you some photos of My Barranquilla Life . In the last couple of weeks, I've had a lot of my Colombian friends commenting on my blog.I've gotten mostly positive feedback and have been asked, on separate occasions, to put up more photos. So, here you have it. The following photos are brief excerpts of my daily life here on the caribbean coast.  I've spoken about it many times before but I'll say it again. Latinos, no matter how hard they try, tend to arrive at places late. I took this photo of Drew, a fellow FCC worker and PC Volunteer, at his surprise 30th birthday party . The party was set for 6pm on a Sunday and I had told everyone to get there before 5:30pm, so as to not ruin the surprise. In the end, a quarter of the people, including myself, arrived before Drew did, so the surprise ended up being on everyone else who got there after he did. So, in the future, when planning a surprise birthday party for your...

I don’t remember how old I was when my parents told me that I was adopted.  I was young enough to where the details seem vague but old enough to never have forgotten how I felt. I was in elementary school and on my way home with Michael Sydorko, my childhood best friend. We had stopped just outside my house to sit and talk before he would continue on his way home.  It was here, sitting on the rock formation across from my house, where Mike said “Hey, I hear that your parents aren't your real parents”. I remember saying something like “Yeah right, whatever” in an attempt to quell, what I believed to be, an obvious lie.  I remember thinking that he was out of his mind, yet, at the same time, a seed of wonder had been planted. Could it be that my parents weren’t in fact my real parents? No! It couldn’t be, could it? I returned home and Mike went on his way to his house. That night, over dinner, I asked my mother and father whether in fact they were my real parents. Their r...

Since arriving in mid June, I’ve done my best to get to know modern day Colombia through time spent sharing coastal culture with the beautiful people of Barranquilla .  In the entry entitled The Playa Es Hot , I gave a brief introduction into how my Barranquilla life was shaping up. Since then a lot has happened and saying that I’ve adapted to the heat would be a fabrication of the truth, as I’ve only got more use to sweating. In my quest to understand Barranquilla, I’ve started to see that it’s the details of my daily routine that make up what this port city will always be to me. Barranquilla is slowly being defined by the little things like my host sister’s smile, the not so little cockroaches, the contagious rhythms of salsa on every corner, the rain , the sun, the coastal spanish, and everything else in between.  It’s hot. I wish I could start by writing about something else but I can’t. I’m currently sitting on my bed, in front of my fan, it’s 9:33 PM and I’m sweati...

I hope that this   Fútbol Con Corazón   Feliz Cumple(años) collaboration finds you well.  I love you very much and hope you have a great 23rd  birthday !  Your Big Hermano p.s. -  Diana, make sure to click the blue birthday link!

If you got some time, please click on one of the links below. All the links are to CNN articles and very pertinent to the current immigration situation. I found the ones on Central America immigrants to really hit home.  I don't even want to think about    how many of my friends will try to make   the treacherous trip to the El Norte   in the upcoming months . On the other hand , I also know many  people  who benefit from the immigration system. These "guides for hire" or  coyotes  make a living off of helping their fellow Guatemalan countrymen  get to the U.S border with hopes of a brighter tomorrow. Every year, many men leave my Peace Corps pueblo in Guatemala headed north through Mexico with a backpack, one change of clothes, a roll of cash,  toilet paper, a bottle of water, and a dream. The American dream - the chance to make a better future for their children and extended family through financial security in the...

Tomorrow, the 31st of July, will be the six week anniversary of my arrival to Barranquilla. Since getting to Colombia, I've spent the majority of my time with my fellow Peace Corps Response buddies Andrew and Eric. I thought I'd share the links of their blogs with you, so that you can get to see Colombia through the eyes of another Peace Corps Response Volunteer. Andrew's blog is pure brilliance and written in a very charismatic manner that makes you want to keep reading. Eric's blog is  very conscious of his time spent with the Peace Corps in Central America and how that relates to his current Colombian assignment, while really doing a great job of describing his new surroundings in Barranquilla .  I hope that you enjoy their blogs as much as I have!

Yesterday was the  one year anniversary of Joe Arroyo's passing. He was one of the most influential  singers in the history of salsa. Today, while in the library I let these two students listen to some of my music. I played everything from  Ray Charles ,  Earth Wind and Fire ,  Paul Simon ,  Jay - Z , to  Led Zeppelin . I played songs from all around the world. The only criteria was that the song be up-beat. I took this photo of them at the exact moment I put on Joe Arroyo's most popular song entitled  En Barranquilla Me Quedo . Their faces light up and they began to move as though the salsa music had taken control of them. Joe Arroyo  will forever be a musical and cultural icon for Barranquilla. 

As I complete my first month of service as a PC Response Volunteer, I thought I’d take the time to share with you some of my thoughts on Guatemala. What you’re about to read I wrote after my first week in Colombia. I’ve been going back and forth on whether to share this entry but in the end decided to publish it. I originally wrote this as a letter to myself about Guatemala. I was going to open it sometime in the future. I hope that you enjoy it.  *          *           *          *          * Where to begin? My last day in Guatemala was March 11th 2012. I was home for almost three months, although some days it seemed like I had just stepped off the plane. After living and working in Guatemala for twenty-six months, returning home and reacquainting myself with the “good ol’ US of A” was quite a process. Everything was as I left it. My childhood home smelled and felt the ...