This Pilgrim's Journeys

Writing in my journal in the living room Ahhh. Waking up to Colombian coffee before walking to the corner to buy bread and arepas for breakfast. Sitting on the balcony overlooking the still-sleepy street where a few cats saunter along. Enjoying coffee in the morning on the balcony Home away from home in a Colombian house in Palmira, hosted by a wonderful Colombian woman. The house - we were upstairs That's where my brother and I stayed while visiting our coworker and her mom. They rented out the bottom portion of the house and lived on the top portion. The door from the street opened right into a staircase that turned rather dramatically to go upstairs. The balcony at the top opened into the living/dining room; from there, a tiny piece of hallway with a bathroom to the right and a staircase to the left that went upstairs to the enclosed "backyard." Next was the kitchen and then a small back room and a bedroom to the right. Small, but cozy, and it did

It all started with a co-worker asking if she could borrow a suitcase. Two days later, both my brother and I had plane tickets and time off of work for a five-day trip to Colombia, South America. I couldn't believe my brother had volunteered to go with me and actually seemed excited, since I had been trying to get him out of the country for the past five years to no avail. It also felt strange to be going on a trip that wasn't a missions trip. We would be visiting with our coworker while she visited family members in Colombia before bringing her mother back to the US for a month. It had been five years since she had seen her. Less than a month after purchasing the tickets, we made our way to the Philadelphia airport for our American Airlines flight to Cali, Colombia. I wore my usual ensemble for air travel; my brother wore the shirt I had brought him from Thailand and had never worn before. It had been years since I flew American Airlines; usually I flew United if goi