Why Blog

Despite many attempts starting in my childhood, I’ve never been able to consistently keep a diary.  In fits and starts, my adolescent self would scrawl my daily activities and emotional outbursts in various notebooks, but I was never able to keep the habit going for more than a few days.  As an avid reader of the Royal Diaries books, I considered this a personal failing.  How would my accomplishments, wisdom and feelings be preserved for future generations if I did not write them down? 

When I cleaned out my closet last summer, I came upon some of these old notebooks and after reading a few entries, I can attest it is best to spare the future generations the tedium of reading my melodramatic teenage musings and my immortal soul the embarrassment of having them exist in the world. 

All this is to say that although I hope to publish at least once a week, this blog will not be an account of my quotidian goings-on in Colombia (that’s what Instagram stories are for, here today gone tomorrow, not part of the permanent digital record).  I am more interested in communicating what it feels like to be here doing the work I am doing.  I want this to be a thoughtful and reflective space, and I know myself too well to believe that I can write in real time with any verve and clarity on day-to-day events.  I need time and space to observe and to let those observations sink in before forming thoughts worth writing about. 

Here you may find poems, photographs, reflections, Spanish vocabulary and other miscellanea that represent my attempts to describe what it means, from my perspective, to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia.

What are you curious about? What would you like to see on this site? Leave me a comment below to let me know.

Photo: Cristo Rey statue Usiacurí