Buses, beaches, and an INCREDIBLE WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!

What can I say? I had THE MOST incredible week of my time in Colombia so far. Where can I start and NOT make this 19 pages long? Ok, I'll start with the bus. 18 hours will get you to the Northern Coast from Bogota. But the drive is INCREDIBLE...through mountains and valleys and into the tropics. WOW! Using the bathroom on the bus was quite an experience and, if any of you women out there would like to laugh your tails off....email me and I'll fill you in on the hilarious details of that little experience.

I seriously can't give the day-by-day account of things cause it would take too long. I'll just sum it up. I went to the beach for an afternoon which was fabulous! We had two days of planning before the students started arriving from all over the coast of Colombia. There were 29 of us in total and we had an amazing time. The theme was "Can you have power without corruption?" How great is that for Colombia? Its also great for me! I'm learning to have some authority and "a say" here but I hope to learn to practice these things with complete humility and with an attitude of service. It was a great theme to study in detail and, even more, I UNDERSTOOD the lectures! WOOHOO

The retreat ended on Monday afternoon. We got all packed up and then hopped back on a bus for a 19 hour ride home. The travel time always depends on traffic and weather. I would make that trip again ANY TIME. I even had the thought more than once of "I could see myself living here". The culture in the coast is very different from the food, to the relationships, to the language. Its very very HOT and nobody has AC. And the coast tends to have a poorer population in general. But the people make up for it and I have definitely fallen in love with more of this country. The video will say it all! Enjoy the 2:30 minutes of my most incredible week so far!



QUOTE: Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.
Edward Abbey