Uncle Sam's gonna wanna Hummer

Earlier today Traci and I were invited to visit one of the local schools to share some thoughts about peace at the assembly for the 11-18 year old students. With the students, we read a poem about opening our eyes and standing up for peace, we discussed what peace means, and questioned how to be active peacemakers in our schools, neighborhoods, families, and world. The best part, though, was at the end, when a few student snuck away from their classmates to ask us relevant social questions:

1. What exactly is this thing called a Hummer? Why is it called that?

2. Who's this Uncle Sam guy? Whose uncle is he?



The cultural exchanges continued throughout the day. Sometimes it's really helpful for me when I'm speaking spanish to share a pen and paper with my conversation partner, both to help myself understand new words and so I can be more articulate in explaining concepts in english. This afternoon I talked for well over an hour with a teenager who plays the oboe in the community orchestra here (by the way, I myself have abandoned the dream of joining the oboe section for the holiday concert -- the eight years that have passed since I last played the oboe erased everything from my memory, and my self-education priority for the six weeks I have left here is to continue to improve my spanish). During this discussion, my oboe friend and I spoke about music and the holidays and Colombian cheeses, and I answered for him some random questions about words and phrases he had heard in pop music and movies. The piece of paper we shared during this conversation is a keeper, I think, and I'm posting it here for your amusement. Feel free to click on the image to enlarge it. You won't regret it.