Derek Sivers

Andrea Camargo

Met 2024-07-13 09:00 at La Colina Hotel: Calle 150 #78-46, Suba, Bogotá, Colombia.

Five years ago she emailed me saying, “I invite you to come visit my country”, so here I am. Andrea is so warm and open. She smiles when she talks, like me.

Age 12 moved from Colombia to Missouri and Florida, then came back to Colombia for university. She feels more alive in Colombia.

Then moved to Germany for four years to learn German. The language changes the way you listen, because in German, the verb comes at the end of the sentence, so you really have to wait until people are done speaking to get the meaning. In English you can get your grammar wrong and still be understood, but in German you can't.

She also studied French. Loves languages for connecting to people.

Her cousin, age 17, fell to his death when trying to climb in his own 10th-floor window after attending a party. So sad, but made her re-evaluate her life choices through the lens that life is short, and we can die at any time.

Worked in finance and international affairs, inside huge German and international companies. But then came back to Colombia to visit, did a yoga class, and again felt more alive, so she quit her corporate job, and works as a doula now, a body therapist, with yoga, focusing on the post-partum time. (She even does this over the phone, long-distance, for mothers in other countries.) This choice re-arranged her life, and made her feel more alive than ever. Some people in her life were disappointed that she changed so much, and wasn't the tennis partner she used to be. Relationships change.

Having a baby can be so lonely, even though you have a lot of people around you. Then the mother doesn't share that beacuse she feels that admitting the feeling means she's a bad mother. But then the mother wants payback like demanding the father just sit there, suffer with her, and also devote time like she's doing, to be in the same pain. But what they really need is support.

The first time laying face down after pregnancy, remembering it's possible, massage. Compared the shake that dogs and cats do, releasing tension from the body.

Talked about the difference between being in love with a person versus the idea of a lifestyle.

She wants to celebrate Christmas somewhere non-Christian, to see how other people celebrate it.

We go through so many deaths in life.

Andrea Camargo URLs