Visiting My Sponsored Children in Santa Marta

My next entries will be about my visit to Santa Marta, to see two sponsored children, Andrea Carolina and Leonardo. But before I continue, I'll take a few moments to share some observations. The reason I enjoy the people of this area is because everyone that I have met, tries to be helpful and they are very warm and friendly, even the aggressive van drivers. They speak to one another in the morning and all are accepted regardless of race or culture, which is something that I really like. During my trip, I realized that my bank in the US had failed to make it possible for me to use the funds that I had allocated for the trip, despite 3 requests from me to make notice on my account and despite the assurances that all had been taken care of. The realization of this caused a lot of frustration for me, but the CI staff was ready and willing to do whatever they could to help me exchange the US money that I had on me for pesos and a very nice taxi driver helped me to get to a bank in the New City that enabled me to get what I needed from there. My CI worker in Cartagena was also very helpful too in this regard and so I want to send a sincere thanks to everyone who helped me out during this time. I plan to write letters of appreciation to the CI agency for the hospitality and help that everyone gave. Gracias!!