xo peace

xo peace reflections on my peace corps journey

All tagged writing

Jul 9

Jul 9 Why Blog

This is not a play-by-play

@xo.peace

Last week @peacecorps decided to suspend global operations and evacuate all current volunteers. As devastating as it was to leave with rushed goodbyes and unfinished projects, I am grateful for a year’s worth of memories, new friendships and ne

in honor of international women’s day, i asked each of the young women in our GLOW group to tell me about a woman who inspires them. they each chose to talk about their mothers and told beautiful stories of resilience, perseverance, forgiveness

there’s really no typical day as a PCV. as a CED volunteer, i find myself doing everything from teaching entrepreneurship to 10th graders to meeting with the mayor to posing as a tourist for promotional photos for a new guest house in town. 📸?

congrats to these entrepreneurial women for completing Peace Corps’ Construye Tus Sueños entrepreneurship course! 🥳👏❤️ Felicidades a estas mujeres emprendedores por lograr a terminar el curso de Construye Tus Sueños de Cuerpo de

today in our GLOW meeting, las chicas made a timeline of what they’ve accomplished so far in their lives & where they want to go. Then, they set SMART goals and made bracelets with a word or phrase to remind them to keep working towards the

flying home for the holidays 💕

GLOW is a Peace Corps sponsored youth club for young women to learn about topics like empowerment, leadership, self-esteem & community service. Together with some students at the school where I teach and a fabulous local partner, I started a GLOW

when you move to colombia & become a coffee drinker ☕️💕

this past weekend i visited san basilio de palenque, a tight-knit afro-colombian community in bolívar. our local guides put together a fabulous program to teach us about the history of palenque, traditional music & dance, natural medicine,

Valledupar & Manuare 💛💙❤️

this is the road to Carrizal, a low-income neighborhood with a lovely lookout point. residents of Carrizal are participating in a program called Mi Calle Mi Gente wherein community members were trained in road construction and provided with the neces

my site, Usiacurí, is only an hour from the beach 🌊☀️😎 come visit! 💕

las mujeres emprendedores of Carrizal (as well as my site mate Amanda & PCVL Devlin) shared with me their dreams for the future of their community by drawing collages 💕

it’s my bday! 🥳 and i gave myself my very own website 😆 where i’ll be posting thoughts on PC life in Colombia 🇨🇴 link in bio

i live here! 🇨🇴💛💙❤️

after 18 weeks of pre-service training, 4 language proficiency interviews, 2 countries and 1 evacuation, i’m officially a peace corps volunteer! today in front of all the Peace Corps Colombia staff, our host families, and representatives from t

this weekend i got to visit my new home - Usiacurí - a charming town in the hills of Atlántico known for its traditional artisan goods, mineral wells, dry rainforest & the poetry of Julio Flórez 🇨🇴💛💙❤️

discovered my new favorite spot in town today - the boardwalk that runs along the banks of the rio magdalena, colombia’s most important river which runs from the interior of the country to the caribbean sea 💛💙❤️🇨🇴 📸 @cnaviles88

this week some of us trainees have been visiting farms (fincas) around our training towns. at one of the fincas, Dairon, a mechanical engineer and renewable energy entrepreneur taught us how local farms like his can be run entirely on solar and wind

one week from today my wonderful cohort of community economic development trainees will find out our sites - the communities we’ll be living and working in for the next two years! 💛💙❤️🇨🇴

Follow Me

Get email updates from me

Email Address

Thank you!

The contents of this website are mine and do not reflect the positions of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.