OnBlueUnderCanvas

This morning I ate a peculiar fruit: Granadilla. It has a hard, almost cardboard-like exterior, giving way to a sloppy center full of sacs with seeds inside. It’s interior texture reminded me of a pomegranate, however it tasted more like a kiwi. Even so, it wasn’t as sweet or pleasantly tart as a kiwi, and crunching into the seeds to swallow them wasn’t the most pleasant experience. Apparently this is a cousin of sorts to the passionfruit.

I’m relegating this piece of produce to photo prop status only.

Hola, buenos dias!

Holy vaca. Holy cow. So many things have happened since I arrived Monday evening, I don’t know where to begin.

I’ll start ahora mismo. Right now.

This morning, Natalia (nah-TALL-yah) made fried eggs and toast for desayuno. David (dah-VEED) had already left for work, so the two of us ate together. We talked about our families, brothers and sisters, and she showed me her wedding album from when her and David were married, five years ago.

David and Natalia were kind enough to take me in for a month. I couldn’t have landed a better host family. The two of them are incredibly cool and friendly. They both speak a decent amount of English, which has helped ease me into learning the beginnings of Spanish. Their house is just a minute walk from the project, which makes it a snap for me to go back and forth.

Yesterday at 10am, Julie, who lives further up the road with her host mom, Yanira (jah-NEE-tah), came to pick me up to go to the project. We walked down the steep neighborhood road, dusty in the morning sun, past juxtaposed houses protected by heavy barbed wire topped gates. Clothes lines crisscrossed the interior patios. A dog, lying stretched out on the patio tile, jumped at the sound of footsteps, and glared at us though the bars.

At the bottom of the hill we reached the Abraham Project. It’s comprised of three children’s homes, a building housing a day care and classrooms, and a church. Julie walked me around and introduced me to the interns, Brian, John Marc and Hunter, the coordinators, Jonathan and Amy, the couple who started the project, Steve and Georgiana, and the members of the team who were there for the week to volunteer.

Everyone was really nice, and a lot of them already knew who I was, and showed their excitement in having me there. I spent the day taking pictures and getting to know people, and in the afternoon I played with the kids after they came home from school.

So far, so busy! I’m juggling learning Spanish, planning & shooting my documentary, interacting with everyone, taking photographs, finishing up some freelance work that followed me down from Chicago, slipping in a few social activities (we went to the movies last night and saw Gran Torino, 2 thumbs up, by the way!) and simply processing the whole experience.

Thanks so much for keeping up with me! If you have any thoughts or questions at all, please feel free to drop them in the box below…

Much love!

My hair has been growing for over a year now, since the last time I had it cut while I was in New Zealand. It’s become so long and consequently more and more unmanageable, literally getting in tangles on a windy day. It definitely needed some sort of cut.

I decided to go for broke and chopped it all off to donate to Locks of Love. My friend Andrea referred me to Salon U, who’s stylists will cut your hair for free if you’re a hair donor.

Here are some before and after shots taken by my stylist, Shirley, who really didn’t listen to a lick of what I had to say about how I wanted my hair styled. My friend Laura, who tagged along for the ride, consoled me when it was over.

Of course everyone and their dog who saw the new cut told me my hair looked “so good”, which I’ll admit, doesn’t look half bad if I spend two hours blow-drying, brushing, straightening and spraying. But I don’t do that! I’m a take-a-shower-at-night-let-it-air-dry-while-I-sleep kinda girl.

Ah well. The good thing is since the front is still quite long, I can get it into a pony-tail if need be. Because when all else fails, a little elastic hair band is all you need to clean up the mess.