A little background

As WASP-y as I may look, it may be a surprise to find out I am actually Colombian. Well, half and half, (hey American dad!) my mom's family is Colombian, from Cucuta, a city that borders Venezuela.

My mom's family on our wedding day

My parents met while my dad was getting his Masters (my mom her undergrad!) at Texas A&M and, once married, moved to Oxford, England so my dad could get his Ph.D . After a year of living in Oxford, my parents had my sister, Delina, and then me!

At Oxford on the honeymoon - back to my roots!

We then moved to South Africa where my dad worked for a few years and it was off to Cali, Colombia where my brother, William, was born! Most of my childhood memories are from Cali and what a great place to grow up. My mom's whole family lived in Colombia at the time (in the capital Bogota and the surrounding 'burbs', Chia) so we did a good bit of traveling around the country. We lived in Cali from 1990-1996 and if you have knowledge of world events (or if you watched Entourage) you know that was the time that Pablo Escobar basically ran the country with a bloody iron fist.

As beautiful a country as Colombia is, in 1996 we had to move to the States for safety reason and we headed to Cary, North Carolina, then moving to Fernandina Beach, Florida and finally settling in Charleston Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Colombia is a beautiful country full of beautiful people, places and history and now is as safe as any city in the States.

 It is always funny when I tell people I grew up abroad, I have limited knowledge of American happenings until 1996. OJ Simpson and that white bronco - had no clue about. 

NKOTB were not in Colombia, so we listened to this growing up - Shakira, Carlos Vives, Grupo Niche (thanks to my parents).

The food I ate (and still eat) is completely different than what American children ate.  Fresh fruit was abundant and as tropical as you can get. Moros y Cristianos Black beans and rice, platanos plantains, arepas (funnily enough, one of James' favorite breakfast foods that my mom makes for him)

Source: Bandeja Paisa

Source: Tropical fruit at its best

Source: Arepas

The food I crave, my true comfort food, is Colombian/Latin. Any kind of legume and rice - black/pinto/lentils and a fried plantain and I am immediately happier and more at ease.  Having grown up with fresh squeezed juice every morning it took my siblings and I years to drink OJ in the States and to get used to not having the different tropical fruits.

Light Ya stash in our house

Thankfully, my Tia Delina still lives in Colombia and when she comes to the States she brings me gold Light Ya, the Crystal Light of Colombia but made to taste like the Colombian fruit juices I grew up with. 

So imagine James' shock when I told him about my family and my background. James is now trying to learn Spanish so he can understand what my family says when we want a 'private' conversation yet don't want to leave the room. He has also learned to love Light Ya, my mom's Arepa's, my love for Spanish music and why I have little, if any, idea of where states are located on a map (We were out of the country for that!).