What Now?

Now that I have returned so many people have asked me what happens now, people have even assumed that my blog is over.  This story isn't over, I don't know what lies ahead, but I know that this isn't the end of my story.  At this very moment, I have answered imoortant questions that were holding me back in my home life.  I have explored my heritage.  Now is the time to get my life at home together.  To start a career that embraces my talents, where I can be my creative self.  I have decided to start a career in Event Planning and Coordinating, or to work towards that.  In addition once I find a position, I would like to continue to volunteer here.  I would like to give my time to children, hopefully the children's hospital, my schedule permitting.  In some way or another I will incorporate giving back into my life.  I have had friends express a desire to start volunteering too, so I will help anyone who wants to find ways to help that will work for them.

I made a commitment to myself to blog my journey to Colombia everyday, I kept that commitment and found it therapeutic and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.  I think I will keep this blog up, blogging about everything that makes me tick.  My love of fashion, makeup, baking, DIY (do it yourself projects), family, dogs, volunteering, traveling, and my adventures with work.  I will not be doing a blog post everyday anymore, but when I'm inspired to I will post.

I intend on seeing the world, and after this recent adventure volunteering all over the world.  I would like to find someone to practice regularly with my Spanish. I would like to stay in contact with Magnolia and Juliet, and I would like to visit them again. We have hurdles in the form of language barriers mostly, and distance.  I think with technology and its reach, it will help to make these hurdles easier to overcome.

Magnolia wrote in her last letter to me, that I was brave to travel to Colombia and search for her without knowing what lay ahead.  I am starting to embrace the notion of bravery on my part, but the truly brave person in this equation is her.  To give a child up for adoption not knowing what is in store for that baby, but trusting that everything will work out.  Leaving my destiny in fates hands, and then to reopen the pain and guilt associated with the adoption and open her heart to meet me, and incorporate me into her life.  Magnolia is the brave one, as I said in my letter to her before knowing that I would ever meet her, I thank her once again for giving me life and opportunity through adoption.

Letter from Magnolia to My Parents

Here is a letter that Magnolia wrote to my parents.  

She signed it below.

What I Miss, and What I Don't

Things I will miss from or about Colombia:

• Birth Family
• Other Volunteers
• Kids at Soacha and Hogar
• Everybody at the homeless project
• Arepas and other street food
• Arequipe
• Talking freely in English without being understood
• Mountains
• Limon Chips
• Not always being connected and not worrying about it
• Gringo Night
• Cheap Meals
• Cheap Mani's
• Having more than 10,000 dollars on me at a time (in pesos of course) lol
• Having Juan Valdez coffee every day
• Crepes and Waffles

Things I will not miss:

• Not having television or technology
• Public Transportation
• Taxi drivers
• Crossing the street aka playing frogger with my life daily
• Putting toilet paper in the garbage
• Random places not having toilet seats
• Converting money in my head all the time
• Always having to buy bottled water at restaurants (they never give tap)
• Over cooked steak
• Lack of seasoning on food
• All the stray and hungry dogs

Letters from Magnolia and Juliet

Last Tuesday during lunch I asked my friend Claudia who is also a volunteer here and speaks spanish fluently to translate letters I received from Magnolia and Juliet over the weekend.

Juliet wrote how she had always wished to have a sister, and how happy she is to have her dream come true.  She told me that the distance is difficult, but I will always be in her heart.  She wants to be able to tell me everything and hopes that we can improve with our language difficulties.  She told me that she learned a lot from my letters to her, that not only am I beautiful but that I am a marvelous person on the inside.  She told me that she has a passion for animals and especially dogs, that she feels like they are peoples truest companions.

I love my sister, she is such an amazing person.  Her letter made me feel really special, and closer to her.  Now that I am back, I miss her a lot.  I emailed her via Facebook on friday and am awaiting a response.

My bm wrote a lot, it was a little more difficult to have translated but here is the gyst.  Magnolia said she is so blessed after loosing a child, to have another child in her life.  She is grateful to get to know me, and learn who I am as a person.  She said she feels unworthy of everything that has happened and the gifts I have given her.  She said she tried to show me her humble life as it always is.  She said that I am a grand person who is a Princess because I am not only beautiful on the outside but I am on the inside too.  She wants to stay in touch, and when I visit I can always stay with her.  She loves me a lot. She signed it and underneath wrote: My beautiful star in the sky.

As I got to know Magnolia, I determined that she has had a rough life, and has dealt with tragedy and loss throughout.  She takes pride in her children, and grand child.  She is a loving person, and she is an emotional person.  She cares about me, is curious about me, and wants to continue to know me.  I tried to explain to her on many occasions that she owes me nothing, and has given me so much through her choice.  I am happy to have met her, and despite the hard times she has persevered and is a really good person.  I will miss her, but I found the answers and closure I needed regarding this mystery.  Now I can just build this relationship if its possible.

Last Day in Colombia

Short post today, but more insightful and meaningful ones to come.  I am pooped, but had a great day today.  2 and a half hour walking graffiti tour, in the pouring rain.  Then salon time....torture, but cheap!  Then dinner with everyone at crepes and waffles.    

This graffiti drawing illustrates a place in Colombia where the poor are so poor that the people who have money use them to get from one place to another, on the poor ones back.

This was my favorite graffiti artist, name is Pez and always illustrates animals with bright colors and smiles.

These 2 are graffiti pieces done in protest of the slaughter of bulls, varies artists collaborated in it and the event where they slaughtered bulls did get shut down.  Here one artist depicted the slaughter of a bull, and Pez drew the bulls having a fiesta.  Below it says Fiesta for Todos- switched to Toros, bulls.

These were all over the city, they varied but directly relate to what is happening to the Colombian people at the time that they are placed.  Here it is raining machine guns on the pedestrian.  

Last Day Volunteering

Today was my final day volunteering, I spent it at Hogar with the kids I have been tutoring during my time here.  I also finally got a tour of where the kids sleep.

The walls are painted throughout, I wondered while walking through if other volunteers painted them.  I like that we were able to leave our mark in the orphanage and our art will be there to brighten up the place.

These are the boys beds, and bunks.

Rows and rows of babies cribs, and more than one room of the same.

Halloween decorations were everywhere.

Boys playroom.

Girls playroom.

Toothbrushes in the girls bathroom, there were stalls of showers, and a large common sink.

Girls beds, many more stuffed animals than the boys.

Within the orphanage there is a hair salon, a dentist, and nurses on hand.  Here is the hair salon.

After the tour by my fellow volunteer Rose (thanks!), I got to tutor Luna and Lizandro one last time.  I brought them some of the donated items from the new volunteers, they loved everything.  I feel like I just started getting the hang of this teaching thing and now I am leaving.  I will miss these kids a lot, remember them for a long time.  They also made me cards today, and thanked me for teaching them.  I also made them cards, we stuck with the Halloween theme for our art session. 

These kids are some of the lucky ones that get the opportunity to be adopted, and at the age they are completely aware of that fact.  I believe Lizandro has been in this Hogar for 4 years awaiting the opportunity to be adopted.  They are both bright, hard workers, and happy kids.  I can only hope that I had a positive impact on them and taught them useful things that will help them during their transition to the states.

Last Day at Soacha :(

Today was sadly my last day volunteering with the kids, the classes went really well.  I handed out crayons (3 per child), pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and markers to all my students.  These were the donated items from the new volunteers.  The kids were so appreciative, and then we used all of the items for our lesson.  I told them to draw pictures with the crayons and pencils of halloween and anything that has to do with it, ie witches, ghosts, pumpkins etc.  They learned what the english words were and how to spell them all, but also had a lot of fun drawing them.  When I went to teach my second class, there was a knock on the door and one of the students from my previous class (5th Grade) asked me to return to that classroom.  I was able to because I had 2 new volunteers with me today, so they were managing while I went back upstairs.  When I entered the classroom, all of the kids presented me with cards they made for me, and hugs begging me not to leave.  It was so nice to know that they enjoyed my classes so much, even though I haven't taught them that often.

Once home I read all the cards, and most of them called me their favorite teacher, and said they learned a lot in my classes.  Here are all the cards I got, and there are some drawings also that the second class today gave me too.  The kids are sweet, and I was sad to say goodbye.  I know I'll be back to Colombia, and I will be sure to at least return to the school in Soacha to teach at least once per visit. 

6th Grade Class

5th Grade Class

A beautiful drawing using the wonderful donated crayons.

Tonight we went to gringo night, so much fun!! 9 volunteers went this time, we met up with some friends from previous gringo night adventures.  We took 5 people in one cab, so the picture above is us all squishing in the back of the cab.

Bitter Sweetness & Inspiration

Today Magnolia and Juliet came over to the volunteer apartment, Magnolia brought some food for us.  We watched the DVD I made, and I gave them a copy to keep.  We said goodbye, it was sad.  I am going to miss them, I grew up and always thought having a sister would be so nice.  Now I have had one for a while and have grown to love her.  Knowing that I can't see her often or when I can see her again is pretty difficult.  I hope to stay in touch with both of them and still am very satisfied with the total experience.

My parents were able to FaceTime with Magnolia and Juliet, which was lovely.  I figured out how to snap this picture...Mia stole the spotlight.  After they left I called my parents back for their wonderful support.  

We got 6 new volunteers over the weekend, and the final 2 arrived today.  They came into the apartment with huge suitcases and one had a cane.  I thought maybe she was injured, and felt for her since we walk everywhere here.  Shortly after saying goodbye to my birth family, and still pretty emotional, I walked into the newbies room and saw tons of stuff for donations.  There are tons of toothbrushes, tooth pastes, pencils, pens, crayons, markers, canes (for the Abuelitas), soccer balls, harmonica's, notebooks, erasers, pencil sharpeners, pairs of shoes, and probably even more that I didn't take note of.  After speaking with them, I found out that this trip is actually their honeymoon, and in lue of gifts from their wedding they requested for their guests to donate goods for this trip.  Their names are Melanie, and Kristy and I have to say I was truly moved by this.  During the first few weeks here, I was constantly aware of the possibility that my life could be any of the people that I am volunteering with.  It was an incredibly humbling experience, and I always had an awareness of my blessed life but now it is on another level.  The fact that these people, took a honeymoon to help the people of my country, and on top of that had all of their guests donate all of these wonderful things to the people at the projects we work at brought me to tears.  I am truly touched, and inspired.  Below is a picture of the newlyweds and their friends Amanda and Brad, behind is just some of the donated goods.  Happy to have met these people during the last few days here.

Tomorrow I am going back to Soacha to teach my last classes there, and I get to be the bearer of some of these gifts....the pictures will be great!

Last Weekend with Magnolia

Wow, what a weekend I have had!  As you can see by the time stamp on this post it is almost 4 in the morning.  Yesterday I tried to go on the Graffiti tour in the afternoon, but it was cancelled (which I didn't find out until waiting 45 minutes for the guide to show up.  Luckily he said we could go for sure on thursday.  The rest of my afternoon I spent trying to burn the dvd for Magnolia, it took almost 4 hours.

Guillermo and I took the Transmilenio to Magnolia's area around 6:30, and once there I bought her a dvd player for her birthday.  I got to her house and said goodbye to Guillermo.  Once inside I gave her the gift, she loved it.  We watched the movie and 3 minutes in, it froze.  Ugh, so much time on the video and it didn't work.  With the dvd player we were able to watch video's of my brother Freddy, and my sisters quinceanera.  My sister came home at 11 from studying, and we hung out for a while.  It was fun and more comfortable this time.

We woke up mid morning, and had soup with carne for breakfast.  It was Magnolia's birthday so I didn't know what to expect as far as activities went for the day, but it ended up being a lazy morning through afternoon.  It was nice.  We had lunch later, of homemade hamburgers.  Then we got ready and headed out.  We went to a centro de commercial which is a mall relatively close to my apartment, so Magnolia was able to take me home after the mall.  It was fun, we took a lot of photos and ate helado aka ice cream.  Once back at the apartment, Magnolia came up and was able to watch the video on my computer.  She made a few comments about how expensive my phone is, and she asked how many apartments we own, and also if my parents have always worked.  This time I just ignored the comments about how expensive everything is, told her that my parents have always worked, and that we don't own many apartments or houses.  After that she just enjoyed the movie.  I made plans to see them one last time tomorrow, I think it will be sad to say goodbye.  Magnolia cares a lot about me, and loves me a lot.  I think she still feels guilt about not being able to raise me.

We were able to FaceTime with my parents tonight, which was awesome.  One of the most profound things that Magnolia told my parents was that I was never hers, I was always their baby.  I agree, I was meant for my parents, as they were meant for me.