My cousin from Bogota

 My second cousin, Andrea Cecilia Gomez Vera, lives in Santa Fe de Bogota, Colombia’s capital city and also the largest one. She is the daughter of Alfredo Gomez Montero, first cousin of my mother, and Virgina Vera. They had to move there from Caracas because her parents are victims of political persecution by Venezuela's current government.
Bogota is located at 2,625 meters above sea level, so it has a cool mountain climate throughout the year. It also has an estimated population of about 8,500,000 inhabitants, figuring in the 30th largest city of the world. This city is known for its tasty hot chocolate and its high cultural level. Because Bogota contains multiple universities, libraries and public art work - the law requires that all buildings in downtown Bogota must have a work of art on its front - is also known as the "Athens of South America"

 

Costa Rica: Pura Vida!

My Great-Grandfather Guillermo Cordido Rodriguez was a landowner, a widower and Governor of the state of Yaracuy, Venezuela, during the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. When this government fell in 1858, my Great-Grandfather was stripped of all his goods and exile in Costa Rica with his three younger daughters. There, he married a local lady, Leticia, and have two daughters, Mariantonieta and Soraya, my Great-Aunts, whom I haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet.

They both live with their families in San José, the capital of the beautiful Central American country where they were born: Costa Rica. Its tropical climate and variety of beaches, at both the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, make this country a tropical paradise that I hope to visit someday, and say as the local say when they’re enjoying: Pura Vida!

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DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE



Don’t drink and drive.  How many times we’ve heard this phrase. So many that sounds hollow, until tragedy touches you close…

Recently something happened. Something t hat shouldn’t have happened. One of my father’s first cousins was killed in a tragic accident. Early on a sunny Sunday morning on his beloved city of Coro, located in Falcon, Venezuela, Jose Angel Garcia Cordido was biking with a group he organized among neighbors, patients and family, when fate stoke him in the shape of a drunk  police man.   

On his early forties he was not only a husband and father of two. Uncle Jose was a recognized Cardiologist, an active leader on his community, with social sensitivity and a generous heart. 



Jose Angel

Drinking and  driving doesn’t only affect the driver. It’s hard to measure how many lives, how many families a drunk driver can affect with this irresponsible behavior.



Full House

So most of my family has decided to come spend Christmas in my house. Tuesday, the first bit arrived, one of my mom’s sister with my adorable little cousin, she’s ten months old. Later, after winter break starts tree more of my mom’s sister, along with 11 cousins will be arriving. My house only has tree rooms. Well figure out how to fit when they get here I guess.  It’ll be fun.