Clothes

In my family clothe travels from one person to the next. I have a sweatshirt that my grandpa got in Italy, in the world cup of 1990. This lone item has belonged to most of my cousins and some of my aunts. I don’t want to give the sweatshirt away but I know someday it will leave my house and move on.

My uncle, the castaway

On January 1992 my uncle went through what you would call a near death experience. He, along with two daughters and my aunt lived in Puerto La Cruz and, like most residents, owned a boat. The port to which this boat belonged to was on the other side of town and he had to go park it there. So he went. This was at around 6:00PM. That particular day the waves were ridiculous and after the motor inconveniently shut down they started filling the boat with water.

My uncle started fighting the waves, tried to keep them of the boat as long as he could, but lost the battle. The boat was sinking and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Then he grabs all the live vests in the boat, and his glasses. He takes his shoes and ties them together before jumping in the cold water, he says he did this so he can step on the rocks when he gets to the shore.

He looks at the boat sink like the titanic and then a wave tramples him, then another, he can’t breath with the waves coming at him like that so he thinks of a solution. He lies on his back and every time a wave comes he grabs his shoe and covers his nose with it, so he can breathe. So he floats to the shore and is a long time, he never panics nor does he think he is going to die, he occupies his minds other ways. Were he and the kids are going to have dinner, the studies he did on sea currents, the starts (remember, he is still lying on his back). He sees a few boats in the distance probably looking for him, but they’re too far away for him to do anything about it.

At four in the morning the next day, he makes it to shore. He says that he was expecting to faint dramatically such as most castaways do in movies, but he doesn’t.

Eleven hours at sea without a boat. He was very lucky to survive. Very lucky some shack didn’t attack him. Very lucky he wasn’t the skinniest man and that served as a shield for the cold. Very lucky indeed that he lived to tell the tale.

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!

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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.