After a few months of Spanish lessons with Liliana Zambrano, the director of "Dive Into Spanish", my wife Jan and I traveled in April to Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The trip was fantastic.

Everyday I studied Spanish with an enthusiastic and talented young teacher. Her lessons covered Colombian history, traditions, food and places of interest. The lessons were taught in Spanish and ended with a daily grammar review.

Cartagena de Indias is a city in the north of Colombia, South America, located on the Caribbean Sea coast. Exploring this beautiful colonial city and its surroundings allows you to go back in time and enjoy the unique blends of cultures, the joy and kindness of its people and the variety of artistic expressions: food, music, dance, art and architecture. It is also surrounded by exuberant natural wealth, nice weather and paradisiacal beaches and islands, which is why it is considered "The Jewel of the Americas".

The Festival of the Dead is a celebration during the month of November that honors our ancestors. Although it is primarily seen as a Mexican holiday, it is also celebrated in many indigenous communities in North, Central and South America, as well as in the Catholic religion and in other cultures and religions around the world.

So, I ask myself, Why is there a celebration like this? and Why do so many cultures honor ancestors?

During this last year I have realized that many people, including myself, have been going through a lot of movement, change, tension and conflict in emotional and work issues.
Sometimes we think that when things do not turn out as we expect, we have not done things well or we are not good enough. Now I think that this is not the case, that we are misreading the events.