Burnt cookies. So embarrassing to produce ugly cookies with so much love! All I wanted to do is to celebrate the end of the summit with a homage a mon amie Chantal who makes great cookies and thinks she taught me too! Picture says she taught me nothing about cookies. The whole experience is, everything she taught me and I am so grateful for them.
So what happened to the cookies? I think to get to that I am about to write the longest story, before!
Yeah, so, the Iberamerican Leader’s Summit has ended! I could not interview Hugo Chavez as I hoped—deep down I had the feeling that this was not the time and in retrospective I am glad he did not come. Now that he is drowned in the elections he would not be fun to interview—but I have met great people thanks to the summit, and even get to be interviewed as a “personality” on the national radio! So good to finally understand what “enjoy the process” means!
Thanks to my nervous breakdown at the Press center a day before the Summit, I met one of Uruguay’s most famous TV journalists and all her banda, who not only managed to get someone to find my lost credential but also introduced me to many other colleagues who helped me a lot during the summit. There were good ideas that came out from the summit for the Latin Americans and I hope President’s keep their commitment to that.
I love running around, getting quotes, writing news, sending them over, and giving live phone interviews. For three solid days I did it, and hope the results are satisfactory for those who hired me to do this great job. I wish CNN Turk was more interested in what I do here and send me more feedback, but they don’t. Watcha gonna da.
I felt a bit Latino machismo inside the press center, which bothered me at first but I did not fight back. Like veteran female journalist told me “you have to pay your dues. They will respect you as a journalist over the years, now they don’t know you, so that is why they treat you like a little girl.”
One of the best parts was preparing a feature story for WBAI’s free speech radio news. I decided to create a story that reflected both what summit is about and who it really should be about. The Bolivian President Evo Morales’s anecdotal speech was undoubtedly the best speech I have heard in a long time. He seems and sounds like an honest leader of a group of people who elected him because they really believe in him. In order to reflect that I worked all day with my radio show partner Leo to produce a good 3-minute story. By the time I sent it, I was drained.
And today is my first day off after 10 days of non-stop preparing and working. I did not even set the alarm, because I needed to listen what my body was telling me. She woke up at 7 and I got out of bed by 8! Had breakfast, read, did laundry, read more. Then I walked for an hour to have lunch with friends. 3 hours of joy! I walked back home carrying a couple of bottles of wine and organic veggies to prepare a great meal, for a deserving audience back home. All this thanks to my friend Chantal.
If I did not spend, I wish it was more, so much time with her this past summer (northern hem) I might have been far from feeling like this.
When I landed in Miami 6 months ago, I was depressed. I was depressed from everything that happened last year and that I was still over weight, and I was probably overweight for so long it was depressing me. The month I spend living with Chantal I realized that I was not moving forward because I was fighting in my head with the past. So instead of doing that now I live today, like I used to, again, and enjoy every moment of it. I understood that the body is a temple but not to worship it from outside just buy looking at it, one needs to try to understand its philosophy and listens. It is so comfortable to have a relationship with your own body.
She was worried about me because the person she was looking at was not her friend she knows almost for 10 years now. My downer attitude was a shock to her. She could not believe when I told her I was not cooking for a long time and that I was not even enjoying my meals—except at hot-owner-of-the-restaurant’s place, those were great meals and were the happiest days of last year—So she started curing me by cooking with me. First I was reluctant but she opened me up in a few days. Then I cooked almost everyday. Or we cooked together, inventing new dishes. After almost a year (on and off I cooked for different occasions but I was not enjoying it) I started cooking again and it was such a joy! We invited over my brother and his friends and her brother and other people. Food is festivity. I am so thankful to her that she reminded me of that.
The she told me I should go back to doing yoga and almost dragged me with her to all of her classes. I finally started to see a glimpse of what yoga meant for our souls and bodies—in that order. My body started to feel great and look great. It is so interesting to understand this new relationship, from inside out, instead of outside in. And one can see that in many other examples, i.e. if you don’t have physical balance, because you lack the balance within you. Or you need guts not only abs to believe and do something.
Those days brought me here again, to do what I believe in. I am in peace and I am happy. I can focus, I can balance. I work, I function and I cook!
So I decided to celebrate this great feeling I have today by making cookies to Chanti’s honor—I bought a little electric oven—and share them with my neighbors! Well, they happened to sit on top of the kitchen table right now, un-edible. They look like little burnt cup cakes that did not rise! The sad part is that: I could not even make cookies that look like cookies! I don’t remember what but I messed up somewhere between trying to chat with mom with the computer on top of the fridge and whisking the butter with sugar—did I put eggs? Who knows! I am going to observe the remaining dough and wait for cookie master (chanti)’s email within the next few days and save them! I am sure she will teach me how to make cookies in a heartbeat!
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