Autumn in May

How delicious does it feel to be cold in the middle of May. As you get dressed in the morning you ponder a third layer. It’s so wrong, and yet so wonderfully exciting. The minute you step outside, the air hits your face and instantly the corners of your mouth curl up into a smile.……

Happiness

The truck takes a sharp right, whipping around a riotous curve, and you begin the ascent into the verdant, coffee-covered mountains. After a hour-and-a-half of stomach-churning roads, your digestive system isn´t so sure about those three cups of coffee you chugged several hours earlier. The backs of your knees are clammy, still soaked with sweat, as your faces……

Circumstance

Happy New Year. There’s so much pressure compacted into those three little words, don’t you think? I’ve always had qualms with this holiday, if you can even call it that. It seems so strange and almost unfair that we pick one day to apologize for a year’s worth of misdeeds and wrongdoings, promising to get it……

Inspiration

Sonia Ynette wakes up at 4 a.m. The coffee’s on by 4:30 and the corn for the day’s tortillas is washed, cooked and ready to be ground into masa. By 6 a.m. the sun’s risen and Sonia’s breaking a sweat working the molino while her two youngest, Alba and Elsa, collect firewood to power up……

Cicatriz

There are so many words that are much more fun to say in Spanish than in English. They’re not prunes; they’re ciruelas. Honey doesn’t come from bees; it’s made by colmenas. Smoking doesn’t necessitate an ashtray; get yourself a cenicero. Even being drunk (borracho) is more fun when you’re speaking Spanish. To get the full……

Humbled

A couple weeks ago, I was humbled. I found myself in Teguc at the same time as a very good friend and fellow volunteer. I was returning from Costa Rica, and she had brought a child from her community for cleft lip surgery courtesy of Operation Smile. So I decided to hang around the hospital……

Reflections

Just in case you care to hear more from me, here’s something small I threw together for the Feb. 22 edition of The Diamondback , UMD’s newspaper. It seems these days everyone and their mother is contemplating taking the plunge and joining Peace Corps, as my mom loves to inform me every time she gets on the……

Brainwashed

If there’s one thing my mom has mastered after twenty-some-odd years of parenting, it’s brainwashing. For as long as I can remember, my mom has engrained several unbreakable rules in me and my sisters, a sort of Life According to Mama Tish, if you will. Here are three of the more prominent ones. 1. Wear……

Time

Time is funny. Americans are obsessed with it. We have Palm Pilots to organize it, creams to erase it from our faces, punch cards to validate it. But in the end, all our efforts to control and contain it are in vain, and we’re left mystified. After all, how are you supposed to quantify something……

Welcome!

New dot com address, same great taste. I’m sitting in the municipal building listening to a meeting with the entire municipal staff and have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. My life in a nutshell: sitting in meetings staring into space looking like a complete idiot with my mouth hanging open like a stroke……