A Little Bit About Me

"Not all those who wander are lost" ~J.R.R. Tolkien

One might think that Colombia is a strange place for a girl from Minnesota to end up living, but this is exactly the right place for me. Before I go into writing about what I am doing here and the crazy adventures I am sure I will experience, I figured I should let you know a little bit about how I got here.

When I was 11, my parents brought my siblings and me on a trip to Bolivia and Peru to experience something completely different from what we knew in Minnesota. I remember eating empanadas, naming dirty dogs in the streets, sitting on the floors of trains when there were no more seats, hiking beautiful ruins, renting bathing suits to use in hot springs, being amazed by a foreign language, and loving every minute of it. When we returned to Minnesota, I started the sixth grade and I started learning Spanish. Ever since then I have done everything to continue developing my language skills and returning to Latin America with every possible opportunity.

The Pickards at Lake Titicaca, 1997

Climbing Machu Picchu, 1997

Nine years later, after changing my major about seven times at Hope College, I finally decided to create my own major and called it Latin American Humanities. It included a little history, politics, religion, and language, as well as a semester studying abroad in Buenos Aires. Finally I returned to Latin America! I loved navigating the crazy bus system, sharing mate with my new friends, and learning a completely different Spanish. After returning to the United States to finish my studies, I knew I needed to return to Latin America as soon as possible. The culture had stolen my heart completely and, while I love my home and my friends in the U.S., I felt lost and uncomfortable being back.

Mate in Argentina

The big city, Buenos Aires!

Just five months later, I had the opportunity to go to Mexico. This experience was incredibly different from Buenos Aires; I was in a small town named San Fransisco Cozoaltepec, with little communication outside of its community but lots of love. I felt so content to be back in Latin America and I learned so much about the diversity that is in Latin America; every country is so different and in every country, every area is unique. In Mexico I spent most of my time playing with kids and glitter, bubbles, mud, and hoses. I fell in love again with the community and the diversity that makes up Latin America. Luckily, I have been able to return to Cozoaltepec five times since 2008.

My best friends in Mexico

When I graduated from college in 2009, I was granted an opportunity to return to Latin America, this time to Colombia. As if it weren't enough to send me to this amazing country, my placement was on the Caribbean coast, in a beautiful city called Cartagena. I got to live across the street from the ocean for a year and teach English conversation in the University of Cartagena. I drank delicious juices, found an awesome community in the hotel where I lived, and discovered the fantastic game of Ultimate Frisbee. (See blog from that experience here.)

I spent many days on the beach playing Ultimate. It was through Ultimate that I figured out what I wanted my next step to be in life. To put it nicely, my Ultimate team wasn't very good... but the only other team in the city rocked! We played them every week (since they were the only other team) and so we got to know them very well. The team was comprised of youth affected by violence in Colombia and through our games together I got to hear some of their stories of loss, displacement, and recovery. Their situations and resilience impacted me greatly and because of them I decided that I wanted to start working with youth in similar situations. However, I did not feel like I had the resources or capacities to do that kind of work, so, once again, I returned to the U.S.

Ultimate team in Cartagena, 2009

Once in the United States, I applied to Master's in Social Work programs and finally ended up at the University of Denver in the MSW program for working with high risk youth, the certificate program for social work with Latinos and Latinas, and playing for their club Ultimate Frisbee team. I focused much of my research on trauma therapy with youth, more specifically ex child combatants.

Ultimate team in Denver, 2013

In one class, I was asked to research a global player in international social development. As I was one of the last people to pick an organization, there were not many options left when my turn came around. My friend suggested that I research the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), an organization that was not even on the list. I figured, why not? Through the project I familiarized myself with the group and their work and I realized that their values and attitudes toward international social development aligned very well with my own. I found a position through the MCC in Central America as an assistant psychologist doing trauma therapy with youth and decided to apply. Unfortunately, they had already filled the position.

A few weeks later, MCC sent me an email asking if I was interested in a position in Colombia... I was ecstatic! The chance to return to Colombia and work with displaced populations, victims of violence, and communities working towards peace had practically fallen into my lap! After a long process of applying, interviewing, and waiting, I found out that I was accepted into the SEED program and Colombia would once again be home for me from October 2013 to September 2015.

So here I am again, a Minnesota girl in Colombia, and I am ready for this new adventure!

SEED team, 2013