My visiting friend Josh doesn’t like our knife selection. So that I could have time to write, he and Sonja set up in the kitchen to cook, with micheladas and Uproot Andy tracks. Josh is in there chopping garlic for a marinara sauce and moaning about the four inch steak knife that I’ve provid[...]
Archive for the ‘Colombia’ Category
July 15th, 2011 - 9:48 am § in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Looking for Opportunity, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela
La Vida Idealist.org is Seeking New Writers!
If you are reading this now, chances are you’re interested in nonprofit or development work in Latin America. You may actually already be teaching English in Colombia, or working in a national park in Costa Rica, or completing your first year of the Peace Corps in Chile. And if that’s th[...]
Colombia: Not Canada
I have never felt so far from home. In the northern part of Colombia, five hours inland from Santa Marta, you´ll find a small town named Valledupar. When asked if I would like to spend my three weeks of vacation with a Colombian family, I jumped at the opportunity. After all, that’s why peopl[...]
One NGO Down, 24 to Go!
NGO Profile #1 of The 25twenty-five Project : Corporación Condor Corporación Condor is an organization based in Bogotá, Colombia that travels to marginalized areas all around the country to provide free medical care. In this essay, the group of volunteer doctors and members of the Colombian Air F[...]
“When are you coming back?”
To go away is to die a little, it is to die to that which one loves. Everywhere and always, one leaves behind a part of oneself. – Edmund Haraucourt Field work requires comfort with transience. Many development workers parachute into places, build their lives from scratch, weave themselves i[...]
Field Loneliness in Colombia
Amazon rainforest In an indigenous community of the Amazonian rainforest, the line between family and community becomes blurry. The village consists of five inhabitants, all of whom are related by blood or marriage. Every November, tribe members flock to the maloka, the hut-like structure that hou[...]
Love in the Time of Conflict
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou When I parachuted into Colombia after months of work in environments of modesty and reservation, I was taken aback by the abundance of unbridled affection. A[...]
