Friday, 8 April 2011

The trip (Alvaro)

THE TRIP

We all have good memories of our first trip: A nice visit to our grandmother’s house, an enjoyable weekend in a farm, a romantic and well deserved vacation on a beach or a stimulating expedition to an exotic place. But the memories of my first trip are not exactly the happiest one. They are in fact as traumatic as a rape scene.

The trip begun paradoxically as soon as my mother, my father and I arrived from a lovely afternoon at the cinema. My father was parking the car in the garage, while my mother and I ran up the staircase. She opened the door and I run at full speed. I hadn't notice that one of my shoe's lace was untied up. I stepped on it and I fell down. My head knocked against the edge of my bedroom door like a blacksmith hammer against the anvil. I stood up quickly but calmly. Suddenly a drop of blood run down my forehead before vanishing in my left eyebrow. I was strangely calm. My mother on the other hand was in panic and crying like a lunatic. She took my arms and we returned to the car. She ordered my father not to park the car since we had to go to the Hospital. The trip to the hospital was distressing. Although I didn't feel any kind of pain, my mother screams frightened me and turn the situation more stressful. My father drove like a mad convict after a jailbreak, dodging the others cars and holes in the street. The wheels screeched in each corner and the horn clear the way to hospital. For the first time in his life, my father didn't pay attention to the red light. Luckily, it was late in the night and there wasn’t any traffic agent around to catch us. When we arrived, I could notice the devastating panorama. The scene seemed to be taken from a war movie. People injured in the middle of the hall, painful screams spreading and echoing all over the room, women begging for a miracle and mothers crying inconsolably. The first sensation that disturbed (after the feeling of sadness and impotence of the doctors) was the smell of ethyl alcohol. When I smelled that, I intermediately felt a cold breeze all over my body. I froze myself. That sensation really frightened me. Then a nurse approached us and asked my mother what had happened. She told her and she began to examine me. Then, a doctor came and put his stethoscope in my chest. I was so scared and paranoiac that I felt the stethoscope like a cold sword through my skin reaching my vital organs. After that I was taken to a white room. There, Doctors were trying to explain me the situation and how they will proceed, but I was too frightened to understand even the simplest instruction. After that I felt sleep.

Thursday, 7 April 2011

The Trip by Natalia

THE TRIP by Natalia

February 2009 finally arrived. It was a perfect sunny morning for a long plane ride. The bags were packed and everything was set up to start the journey. My mom and my dad couldn’t hide the sadness on their faces even my “Juanita” was acting different, her tail was still and her eyes were spiritless.

We got in the car and we all were silent. Our way to the airport seemed eternal.

As soon as we got there my mom started crying. I did the check-in and got my boarding-pass.

My dad wanted to look calm and comforted my mom but when he hugged me it wasn’t easy for him to let me go.

It was time, I kissed them and told them “everything would be ok, don’t worry”.

After having ride 4 airplanes I got to JFK, I arrived at 2am and it was freezing, there were another four Colombian girls and they could barely understood what the immigration officer was asking them, fortunately they were tired enough to not check all our bags.

We stayed one week at St. John’s University “learning” how to take care of kids. Then I left to Pittsburgh to live with my first shitty host family. They lived in a suburb 40 minutes away from civilization. The weather didn’t help much. There were raccoons and bambies and groundhogs dead aside the roads. I put up with that situation three long months, and then I moved to Fabulous Vegas! I lived there nine months and then went back to Colombia. End of the trip.

Every time I think about that trip I remember how nervous I was. When I woke up that morning I couldn’t stop thinking that that was my last shower and my last breakfast, at least for that year. For a minute I wanted to tell my parents I didn’t wanna go and let them alone but I gave up a lot of things to have this trip that there wasn’t much to do then. At the airport my heart started beating faster and faster and I tried to not tell with my face what I was actually feeling at that very moment. I needed to be strong for my and for my family. Nobody said it would be easy I know. The aisle between the gate’s entry and the airplane got narrower at every step I’ve made.

I really enjoy flying, but the flight from Costa Rica to JFK was a nightmare. In there was a teeny tiny baby who cried the whole flight. It was exhausting.

On my arrival I had my first encounter with the snow; it wasn’t that pleasant I must say. I was very anxious. I was wondering how my life would be in there for the rest of the year. My first trip abroad. My first year away from home.

Twice-told: Shitty weekend, by J. Ávila

SINGLE ENTRY:

It all started as a normal Friday: sunny, boring, and though the day was just beginning I knew it was going to be an exhausting long day. I dressed up neatly -more than I usually do- with black and dark shirt, jeans, and shoes. I took seventy thousand pesos to pay the ECAES -of which the deadline was that day at noon- and put them in my pocket. I left home feeling pretty down and arrived to the bus stop, where I got on the bus. All I can remember is that I did nothing more than listening to music. Then, when I finally got to the bank and filled out the deposit receipt, I walked towards the banker to realize that I had lost the money. All of it! I returned home just to find nothing. Later, my ex-boyfriend gave me a ride to work, but we were late. The next day, I packed my lunch and put some soda in a flask, just to notice two blocks away from home that the soda was dripping on my left shoe –which continued to happen on the MIO. Later, a few blocks away from work, I almost fall down there! I said, “Had I fallen here, I wouldn’t continue going to work…”

DOUBLE ENTRY:

It all started as a plain and normal Friday: sunny and bright, boring and dull, and though the day was just beginning I knew it was going to be a pale and exhausting long and endless day. I dressed up neatly and tidily -more than I usually do- with black and dark shirt, jeans, and shoes. I took and grabbed seventy thousand pesos to pay the ECAES -of which the deadline and closing day was that day at noon- and put them in my pocket. I went out and left home feeling pretty down and grim, got and arrived to the bus stop and got on it. All I can remember and recall is that I did nothing else and nothing more than listening to music and songs. Then, when I finally and at last got and made it to the bank and filled out and in the deposit receipt, I headed and walked towards the cashier and banker to find out and realize at the same time that I had lost and misplaced the money. All of it! I went back and returned home just to find nothing. Later and a few hours after that, my ex-boyfriend picked me up and gave me a ride to work, but we were late and tardy. The next day, in other words Saturday, I packed and prepared my lunch and some soda in a flask, just to feel and perceive two blocks away from home that the soda was spilling and dripping on my left shoe –which continued to happen on the MIO. Later, a few blocks away from work, I almost fall down and collapse there! I said and stated, “Had I fallen here, I wouldn’t continue and keep on going to work…”

Wednesday, 6 April 2011

OPEN LETTER TO MY HOMEWORK BY ROSA DORIS HUERTAS

“Sometimes my homework is small
Sometimes my homework is long
But whenever i do my homework
My homework is always wrong”

Faiz Khan

Sometimes is too much homework for a day, sometimes I fell myself like “NO MORE”, and I wonder where could you please leave me alone, but then I think, something we do not like but are necessary, but why you are so necessary to me?, why you always me?, you can life me alone just one day, you are as a parasite, you always be there. “Rosa do this”, “Rosa do that”.

Wherever I am you follow me, is like a pursuit. I hate for example when the teachers invoke sentences like: for the next class, next Monday bring, complete for the next day. The worst thing is that sometimes appear under the outfit of small or large activities that at the end shall remain the same.

I would ask you a favor, could you give me please a holiday free, because I almost always ruin my weekends. But you know it's funny, I am also those one who invoked you. The truth is that I am not so sure if I do this just to fill a gap in class, because at the end, I got no enough time tocheck you, at the end, whether if I have to make you or qualify you I am forced to stay up lateand never by anything or anybody I do what I do for you,
I finish sacrificing for you my onlybreak, my family, myself, and I often wonder how healthy is this relationship, how much benefityou bring me, just a score? Will I always learn something? Ok. I am not going to be so rude, yes, maybe sometimes I learned, but It does not always happened.

Open letter to my dear friend Procrastination

Open letter to my dear friend Procrastination

April 6 2011

Dear friend

As usual, I'm using you as a method to get a smoother and fresher mind, I definitively work better at the eleventh hour. I suppose at this time I am obliged to do it, there is no escape. And you know what? I don't feel remorseful; after all, I come up with a solution. Believe me, I have learned to cope with you and as you can corroborate with evident proofs, I have used you or enjoyed you at my pleasure. At work, for instance I don't even think in falling in your sweet embrace, but once I reach home, you become the queen of my mind, of my desires, of my basic instincts; I become an easy prey of your delightful tactics of having a good time first or instant satisfaction plus that extra encouragement you add to my abilities to rely exclusively in my well-known capacity to play the task by ear (It sounds like I have a big head?). As I have been doing it for years, I have become a master in this matter (you can't deny it). Well, I don't blame you or tell on you, you have made your best to make out of me what I am and, needless to say, our friendship is growing to unexpected proportions, probably you will help me to put off my last instant before reaching heaven (who knows for sure!!).
Take care and greet those of your colleagues: put off, delay and postpone, tell them not to show up so frequently, otherwise I will take serious measures, well if you don't appear first.

Your faithful friend

Frank (procrastinator Pro)


A Trip For a Meeting
As most of the nights at home my brother, my mum, my dad, my aunt, one of my cousins and me were altogether that night. We were talking about the travel my mom and I were going to do. They started to ask me what kind of shampoo I was going to take and what kind of candies should we take to our relatives. My mom started to mention weird names, they started talking to me about her brothers and relatives that I didn’t know, and once again as she had been repeating she said that when we get there the first thing we’ve got to do is to visit the only aunt alive she has got.
I remember that one of the days before we left I listened to her talking on the phone saying that she was taking me to her house, saying that she was going home and that she was going to stay there until my vacations finish. I could see she was so happy; she even told she was getting sick of our house. “I hate to be fighting with your aunt,” she said.
The night arrived and we had to go. It was 8 o’clock P.M, we said bye to everyone, my dad took our bags and I started to feel a little bit excited and scare at the same time for not knowing exactly where we were going to, besides my daddy was not going to be with us and I wondered if my mum could do this travel by herself. We took a taxi until the terminal and it was amazing to me to see the city with all those red and white bright lights when I was seven. My dad bought the bus tickets and said bye, I will always remember my mum kissing my dad in the mouth. It was weird for me to see it since I didn’t use to see that very often. Once we got on that bus we were all by ourselves. The travel begun, we were in one of the back sits and I was next to the bus window. While we were waiting for the rest of the people to get on my cousin came to my mind and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I could see him playing with my bike, I could see him laughing and playing with my soccer ball maybe he would sleep in my bed or something like that, maybe he will break my bike I thought. I freaked out and I felt like I shouldn’t go anywhere. The bus started up and my mum was getting comfortable in her sit. The road became loner and loner; the cars disappeared and became huge mountains that I believed they were monsters watching us.
I looked at the most beautiful sky I had ever seen and it was like I was seeing the doors of another world. We spent eight hours traveling, and a month knowing each other; a month where I discovered my mum didn’t have her birthday on the day she had told us, a month where I discovered her real name, her likes and dislikes and she made me wonder why did I ever think she was weaker than my dad, a month listening to many different kinds of stories, a month in family meetings, a month living an adventure in the middle of nowhere between rivers, birds, cows, deer, horses, dogs, pigs, trees... and an old woman who painted me a better idea of my mum as a child.
VHI    

Saturday, 2 April 2011

Open Letter 

Dear persistent Colombia’s war.

    We know each other from long before so let’s avoid the hypocritical greetings and let’s go straight to the point. Have you been trying to communicate something to me these last days? I know I have stopped watching news but you don’t know how stressful that has became, I know that maybe you are a little bit offended because all I do with the newspaper is to use it as an envelope to ripe my avocados and bananas but most of the people do that in this country so I wonder why do you want me to keep reading about you. It hasn’t been enough for you? Don’t you realize I have to see you everyday in the face of the homeless little kids of my neighborhood?  Isn’t enough for you that I have to listen to stories about you in some of my relative’s voices? Isn’t enough for you all these years I’ve tortured myself wondering why do you exist, wondering how did we get to this point where there is not an act that can make us react and try to fight you? It hasn’t been enough? For real? Do you remember that day when I got home and my dad was watching the news and an old woman appeared in the T.V crying because her son was found killed and she couldn’t understand why her son was found wearing a F.A.R.C’s uniform? Do you remember it turned out to be our honorable army who killed that boy and it took one day to find out that there were so many other similar cases in the whole country? You don’t know what I felt that day.
All my life I’ve been waiting to tell you this, all my life I have wanted to tell that I fucking hate you, that you have taken away from me any possibility to feel pride for this country, that thanks to you all I feel for this country is a huge desperate deception, a deep sadness, so tell me son of a bitch what have you been trying to tell me? That you are always going to be there for me? I bet it’s that. Right?  

P.S: Say hi to your parents, weapons and cocaine and tell them that to me, they were as exciting as sex.

V.H.I