Another busy week of dancing. I don’t really know how I survived it. My body is on the verge of muscle failure just from getting up in the morning but somehow I made it through the entire week with an absurd amount of energy.
One of the highlights of the week came from the finalization of a trip that I’ll be making next month. A trip to my native motherland: Colombia.
I’m first generation Latino in my family. My mom comes from an awesome little valley city called Cali and my dad came from an awesome city closer to the coast called Barranquilla. They met in New York while trying to make it in the United States, got married and legalized and then went on to have my brother and I. It was a great experience for my parents and a shot at a beautiful new life in the states but keeping in contact with everyone left behind is tough. They miss out on a lot of things and hear about big news second hand. Its even worse for me being born here because as far as I knew my only family consisted of my immediate parental units and brother and my aunt and 2 cousins.
When I was much younger, I took a trip to Colombia to meet family and party during a fantastic little festival called Carnival. It was such an amazing time that I’ve always dreamed about going back. Its just an amazing experience to try to regain a connection to a culture that is inside of you but always laid dormant. Additionally, I got to catch up with family members who I had never known existed. As much as I wanted to return, life kicked back into gear. There was still a lot of school work that I had to finish, plus college, and a plethora of social teenage crap that I had to get over with. So the dream dissipated….
Until now.
Recently my dad has been pretty anxious to get out of the cold weather of Virginia and enjoy some sun to remind him of his native homeland. Temperatures in Barranquilla are tropical all year round. Needless to say that he was less than thrilled with the snow storm that hit the Northeast sector of the United States this last winter. So when he got a good amount of money and vacation time saved up, he decided that he would make a run for it and I told him that I would gladly follow suit for a week. So as of yesterday, the plans have been set and now I’m am stoked to see some family in a few weeks. I’ll only be there for about 5 days but I plan on getting as much as I can out of the trip.
As far as school work goes, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from my professors. They all agree that these are the kinds of trips that I should really take advantage of. I’ve been lucky enough to get that kind of encouragement. I just hope that they are still positive with me when I get back because I will be missing a good week of school.
I’ll be keeping a bloggery of my escapades down there so there will be plenty to post when I get back too.