During my first Thursday back in Medellin I was posed with a heavy decision (not uncommon in these busy days of mine): to attend a forum preceding the 6th annual National Conference of Public Health sponsored by the Universidad de Antioquia--which my friend the dean Dr. Gonzalez invited me to a month ago, or to go to the weekly Rotary meeting. As you can probably deduce, my reasoning led me to choose the forum since it only happens once while the Rotary club meets every Thursday.
Y'all have heard of Juanes, right? "Tengo la camisa negra" pop star from Colombia (born in Medellin)? The Bono of Latin America? Heart-throb of the century? Well, even if you haven't, hopefully you can tell by that description that he is a pretty big deal down here... and I have to admit that I have been a fan of his myself for not only his catchy music but also the humanitarian work for which he has become a spokesman over the past few years.
So, if it isn't obvious already, Juanes came to the Rotary meeting...not me. I not only missed out on one of the most interesting Rotarian alliances of the year--his non-profit wants to do get support by the Rotary Club of Medellin)--but I also missed possibly the most exciting photo-op of my scholarship (imagine me with Juanes as my Facebook profile pic!). The only consolation I have for being so unlucky is that the visit truly was improptu, and the club had to cancel their scheduled speaker just to accomodate the rockstar.
And I would have been blisfully unaware of my scheduling blunder had my professor/research advisor/Rotarian friend not come back to our office after the meeting and said, "Alina, Alina, Alina...you'll never want to miss another meeting after hearing who came today." I don't think I will.
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