MY AUDITION by Maria Camila Arboleda Gil

The last year in January, I auditioned in the folkloric ballet of Antioquia who is tasked with 

carry to various countries of the world a sample of the multicultural richness of Colombia, in order to show in each scenario the positive image of the country and promote intercultural dialogue using dance as a common language. I wanted do the audition because I have loved dancing all my life, I started dancing when I was 3 years old and now i am 18 years old.

I have dancing in the folkloric ballet of Antioquia, I started at school and then I did many auditions and raised as a dancer in small companies, children and young company, then it was time to grow more and that day, I went to present the audition to belong to second company.

The requirements for the audition were:

*Be aged between 16 and 24 years old

*Be a height (1.60mts women) (men 1.70mts) Minimum

*Have mastery of ballet, folklore, dance hall, dance   contemporary and urban

*We had to carry a song with the rhythm that we wanted and prepare an individual choreography.

I was very scared but also very confident about my talent. This morning when I got there, we went to room for warm and stretch. In this place I saw about 60 people or more, people from different schools and the same. After to warm and stretch, we were called for our names, they put us a number, my number was 26. When we went to the main room, there are eight jurors (directors, teachers and principal dancers)

The audition was separated for three stages, the first stage the jury qualified folklore and traditional dances, when the first stage ended the jury eliminated some people.

The second stage the jury qualified classical ballet, ballroom dance and physical conditions, I mean, stretching and the end the jury eliminated more people.

In the last stage we presented an individual dance who the jury qualified. We presented different dances, some people presented classical ballet, others presented contemporary dance and others folklore, I was dancing Currulao that is my favorite in folklore. Currulao is a dance that came from Africa that is the representation when slaves when conquered their wives through a handkerchief, this was their communication and stomping the man did to show joy and enjoyment.

I passed the audition, I did not believe, I was really happy.

Shit, This Can Not Be True! - by Juan Jose Ortiz

I remember waking up that day very very slowly ,  because the  last night I  stay up late studying .When I saw my phone it was full of messages , and missed calls. Suddenly  I  remembered that I had agreed ,  with my friend Andres to go to a horseride  in Guarne. Two minutes latter . I  was in the shower , while my sister was making my breakfast. I put on what I found first and left almost running out of my house . Thanks to god , I arrives just in time. When I  enter to  the bus ,in which we were going to guarne. Everyone booed me. Until I showed the bottle of jose cuervo .That I had bought .In that moment  the party began . We all talked and laughed , but in reality there were just a few that knows each other. I sat next to my friend Andrés . There were a lot of girls , all of them were cute.The driver took him like two hours to get us to Guarne ,but they seemed like fifteen minutes. When we got to Guarne. We saw that the drink was ending .Andres said ; that's because, we had been drinking like three hours ago . we were all a little crazy, but still fine. So we decided bought another bottle for the ride . All of them gave me money .In that moment I felt that I was with the craziest people in the world.

At that point we were all best friends. We laughed about almost everything, we made jokes between us, and we were already matched. What else we could request . Everyone  chose a horse . The man's grabbed the aggressive horses ,and the ladies those who are more relaxed , and the horseride began. The guide was a boy of about thirteen years old. Which was good for us at the time, because we didn't feel any control. The night was falling . Andrés and I started to worry , because while ago we had left the bar , and nothing that we arrived .We were not to drunk as the rest, so we had the idea to ask the guide what happen .But we couldn't find the guide . At that time both of us  thought. God we are with a bunch of drunks riding horses and we are lost. Shit this can not be true.

Requiem For A Dream by Daniela Holguín Realpe

I've always wanted to be a fashion designer and I remember my mom used to give us beautiful dresses with gorgeous little details like bows and collars

One day I decided to do a little dress like those for my barbie and show it to my mom. I was like six years old. I'd found a needle, a thread and a scissor so I took all the dresses I wanted to use from the closet and I started to cut the details that I liked. I was so excited and happy.

I had been cutting pretty things for almost 10 minutes when my older sister and my younger brother opened the door and said to me: " What are you doing? You are destroying those dresses. We'll tell mom!" and I hadn't seen it from that perspective. I just thought I was creating something but when they went out of the bedrrom I got nervous because I didn't want my mom to get mad at me.

Apparently, they didn't say anything to her but I didn't knew it so I spent around twenty minutesthinking what should I say to her when she saw what I had done. Then, she came in and stared looking at me, like waiting for my explanation. I felt so ashamed that I started to cry before she said something. She scolded me and said how iresponsable and unconsidered I was for doing that without asking so with my broken heart and all my tears I stood up and picked up the mess I had done, helped by my mom. I thought it was all over and that I should quick. That day I made a long pause of my dream.

A VERY SPECIAL GIFT BY DANIEL MAURICIO MEJIA CALLE

When I was about eighteen, I was in first semester of international business program. I remember that my father had to do a very big effort to pay that semester and my mother had been thinking about how we are going to overcome that problem. Those days, my grandfather had been hospitalized because a cancer started to attack his pancreas. Days later, he had a procedure to analyze how big was the cancer and if the medical group could move away some part of it. While he was in the procedure, I was taking lunch with my girlfriend in Molinos Mall near the University; in that moment I received a call from my father and he told me that my grandfather was dying because something worked badly in the procedure. I left my lunch and my girlfriend was worried; in that moment, I explained the entire problem to her and we took a taxi on the way to the Leon XIII hospital; I had been in that hospital many times and those situations didn´t bring me good memories. When I was arriving to the hospital my father called me again and he told me that my grandfather had died. I was petrified. Minutes later, we arrived to the hospital and we ran to the surgery room. I saw my father crying and all his brothers and sisters; I can´t believe that. My father and my grandfather were the best friends; they always went out to play pool and sharing good comments about the soccer matches every single weekend. When I hugged my father, he told me that –minutes later of the death of my grandpa´, my father received a call from somebody of the enterprise that he have been working for; a that guy told him that I won a complete scholarship for my career and the tools that I would need in the future-. We was very grateful with that notice but at the same time very sad with the death of my grandpa´; in that moment, my father told me that took that situation like a gift that my grandpa´ sent me from the heavens. My father got calm me with that words and days later I had a dream where I got inside in a beautiful apartment and my grandpa´ started to tell me some advises that could be useful for me.

MY FIRST JOB By Geraldine Cuartas

When I was 15 years old, I did my co-op of high school; in a company called MUMA. The core business of this company is produce furniture. I worked for 1 year there. When I did the interview, I was the first selected.

I worked in customer service department; the job consisted in receiving complaints and processing it. My activities in one day were receiving calls, checking the     e-mail, register complaints in the computer, send correspondence and archive documents. I hated archive because the archive of the company was located in the basement, and this place was very dark and scary. I worked part-time from 2pm to 5pm, from Monday to Friday.

I had worked only a week when I realized that I liked it, I could have choosen to work less time but I decided not to do it.

My boss was very patient, respectful and fair. I had a workmate who was also my classmate she is very friendly; we would buy something to eat while we were taking a break.

I remember, the day that my teacher from my high school went to the company to do a test for evaluate my performance inside MUMA; I was very nervous but my great boss did an excellent evaluation of my job, I was very happy when I read my results.

My workmates were very friendly, sympathetic, funny, respectful, loyal and polite; they always helped me when I needed.

My last day of work was very sad; my boss invited me to lunch in a restaurant this was good, but when the time came to say goodbye to my colleagues, I cried for a long time.

For me it was a good experience, I enjoyed it a lot. I want to work in a future in a company like this with colleagues like I had there.

LA CLARA BY WENDY TABORDA

This happened to me when I was about 15 or 16years old. I had gone camping with some friends to “La Clara”. La Clara is a really nice place to go walking and swimming. It has a little river and it’s full of trees and grass, and people usually say it is safe.

We were around 12 people. I was very excited because I had never been camping before. When we got there we started to organize everything for the evenight. We made our tents up and we got some wood for a bonfire. At night we prepared some hot chocolate and we sat around together just to tell jokes and stories.

Santiago -one of the guys, was telling a horrible story about a murder that had happened there in La Clara nearby the river. He told us that most of the people who lived there were still afraid that something like that happened again so they used to locked theirself inside their houses to be safe.

Of course we didn’t trust in a word that he said. We had been sitting there just talking for a long time when it suddenly started to rain so we just went to bed.

We had been inside like for 30 minutes when we heard something out. It was like if something was running in the river. At first we thought it was a horse or any animal. One of the guys even went out to see the animals, but he didn’t see anything around. So he came back in and immediately we heard the noise again. I was so scared that I couldn’t even move or talk.

Suddenly, we felt like rocks falling to the tent. It seemed like someone was throwing them to us, and the wind started to blow pretty much stronger. I had been blowing like that for a half an hour when it just stopped.

Obviously, we didn’t fall asleep immediately after what it happened. My friend Sara and I were still shaking from fear, and was about crying. Anyway, we were trying to pull ourself together when a thunderbolt made us jump from fear again. We got to see a shadow just at the door of the tent that looked like a giant person. Sara and I screamed so loud that the guys from the others tents came to see what was going on. At the same time it came out the giant shadow that was just our friend Santiago trying to gave us a heart attack.

Nowadays we still laugh at what happened that day!!

Camping Trip by Giovanni López Ceballos

Four year ago, I and some friends decided to climb the highest mountain in the village. It had been a big challenge for us because not anyone can climb it. This trip usually takes three days. We knew that it would be so difficult; we had to be far away of comfort amid extreme conditions. We left the village at 3 a.m. We started to walk with a huge bag; it was pretty heavy. Everyone had to take food, water, camp tools and clothes. When we had walked by an hour, unfortunately one of us stumbled with a rock and he fell down. He hit so hard his knee that he had to come back to home. 

About three o'clock, we had arrived to the last mountain; we were in the bottom of this and we had to pick some water because after that place there was not much water. We were so tired to increase the weight of the bag, but we had to do it. After that, we had to keep climbing; the name of that hill is "El Desconsuelo". So, you can imagine how difficult it was to get to the peak. It was six o'clock, when I arrived to the peak. I still remember how good I felt. It was so much satisfaction. However, after a moment I got a pain on my trapezius muscle; that moment has been one of the most painful moments in my life.

At midnight, we could see a lot of towns -of course, far away - and the only thing that we could see were lights that reflecting each town. The best part of that night was seeing lots of shooting stars. Notwithstanding, the weather was pretty cold, somehow we were frozen after five minutes outside the tent. The next day, we walked around the mountain. We found remains of a plane, a lagoon and we could see the most amazing and natural landscapes. 

This trip was really worth. I will not do it again, though. It is like being totally disconnected of the world, and this teaches you to appreciate everything you have around you. I returned to home as a new man.

THE UNSTABLE TUBE By: Jorge Alejandro Lopera Rodríguez

A prepotent doctor can put in risk the life of patients. When I was doing my medical practice in a town in Antioquia, a female baby was born with breathing problems. Baby couldn’t breathe and she was diagnosed with newborn breathing insufficiency. When I arrived at the Hospital the pediatrician doctor as anesthesiologist doctor were trying to help the baby. They were trying to introduce a little orotracheal tube in the baby to improve her breathing, but with much difficulty because the size the tube and the respiratory way of the baby were very small. I remember they spent approximately one hour in this procedure when normally this takes only one minute. When they achieved to put the tube the baby could breathe better. Baby should be transported until General Hospital in Medellín and I would care the baby during the travel. I saw they were exhausted for the procedure. When they gave me the baby pediatrician said to me:

    - You must be careful! You have to avoid that tube moves out from baby’s respiratory way. It’s vital for save her. If the tube moves out you’ll have problems to assure the baby’s breathing.

I felt terror in that moment. I saw the tube was easy to move from its place and I imagined how would be the travel towards Medellín while I avoided that tube moved out from its place. A nurse, an ambulance driver, the baby and I began the travel. I always tried to maintain the tube in its place with my hand while I measured the oxygen in the blood of the baby.

Ambulance ran very fast. Vehicle took the curves with great violence for the speed. Inside of the ambulance I tried to maintain the tube in its place but it was very difficult. Each time that ambulance took a curve the tube moved out a little and the oxygen in the blood of the baby decreased, then, I put the tube in its correct place again. Finally, so curve gives us nauseas. Suddenly, my nurse took a bag and she vomited inside. My nauseas were big but I tried to avoid them because the baby’s life depended to me. However, my stomach didn’t resist and with help of my nurse I vomited inside of a bag too while I avoided to lose contact with the tube. Fortunately, the tube never moved out. It was a long travel, but the baby was always good. Finally, we arrived at the General Hospital. I remember I had pain in my right hand, I had been maintaining the tube in its place all time. Another pediatrician doctor, a woman, receive us. Our mission had been successful! When she looked the baby she said:

-               - This tube is unnecessary! This tube affects to the baby’s breathing!

I tried said the great need of that tube for the baby and the great difficulty to put the tube, but she didn’t hear me. Then, she retired the tube while my nurse and me saw her incredulous. Immediately, the baby’s blood oxygen decreased. I saw how my sacrifice finished sadly for the prepotency of an irresponsible doctor. Pediatrician tried to put other tube in its place but it was impossible. Doctor called urgently an anesthesiologist. Fortunately, the baby was saved for an expert anesthesiologist. After, we returned at the town thinking the ego is the most dangerous thing for a doctor and his patient.