Jayke's Summer Internship in Colombia!

**Change of plans**

After a long, arduous process of talking to and emailing the Pakistani Consulate in charge of approving my visa to enter the country, my trip had to be postponed and ultimately cancelled. As of now, there has been 10 extra days for the approval process to go through and it has yet to do so - the apparent discrepancy between what the Ministry of Interior in Pakistan and the consulate here (a "he said, she said" contradiction of epically obscene, bureaucratic proportions) cost me my much anticipated sidetrip through England and Dublin, as well as money and time. After waiting another week for the governmental forces to get their acts together, the visa approval deal still seemed (and still seems now) disappointingly hopeless. With a heavy heart, I had to reconsider my plans and put my trip to Lahore on hold (my last post went into most of this).

SO despite this setback, I have switched gears and have found an exciting internship in Colombia! In Ibague, I will work with younger children and the elderly through different NGOs, planning and developing classes with a team of interns from around the world. We will be talking about various things, from cross-cultural understanding to human rights to leadership. I will also have a cool opportunity to take Spanish and dance lessons there, as well as experience the music capital of Colombia during the folk festival later in June and the hype of the World Cup as it starts soon. After soon much stress and heart/headache, I am so excited to be able to help people, learn about myself, enjoy beautiful weather, and see a wonderful city in a gorgeous country. I'm leaving with the week!