At Dinner

This past week my family was fortunate enough to get together for the holydays. My favorite part. When we clustered around the dining table and ate. Everyone shared interesting anecdotes that I attentively listened to. I will retell my favorite one next, it is short.

The woman she is in the hospital, her kid has swallowed a screw. After an entire day in the hospital everything turns out OK, the child gets rid of the screw fine.

The next the woman ends up at the hospital again. Her kid had swallowed a pin. The woman sits in the waiting room this time she’s distressed. At this time a nurse sits next to her and offers some comforting words. “Don’t worry, yesterday a boy came who has swallowed a screw and he turned out perfectly fine” She simply responds “I know, it’s the same kid”

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!

!

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.

ice cream

Maria Cristina also sends me these ice cream recipes

 

Vanilla ice cream.

1 can of condensed milk, 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 can water

2 eggs Vanilla extract

Condensed milk is mixed with water, is put in the vanilla, beaten egg yolks and evaporated milk pot. Place it in the freezer until medium-hard. Then this is removed and mixed with the 2 egg well beaten, mix it and place in freezer until is very cold.
Chocolate ice cream.

Same as above but adding a mixture of chocolate made in this way: melt 6 tablets of chocolate in ½ cup water, and when you lower the fire  put 1 tablespoon butter and mix it with evaporated milk is added to that.

 

Gomez descendance

Maria Cristina from the Sucre Eduardo side (correspondent to Luciani Eduardo) 

Maria Cristina recently send me an e-mail in reference to one of my first post Match.com in the 20^th century, she corrected me in some historic errors.

 She said that Juancho Gomez actually died on June 29, 1923, not 1935, on the same year as Juan Vicente. He was also the governor, and first vice-president. He was very dedicated to his position and in following his brother’s rule.