From Santa Domingo, Looking Out at a New World

The people in the Santa Domingo barrio, at the very top of a mountain overlooking the city, live in a teeming and crowded world, with every street going nearly up and down or squiggling sideways. This area has been reborn with steadfast determination of city officials who realized that part of the problem was how disconnected it was from the rest of the city.

People we passed by were smiling in the streets and in their little houses, cobbled together with bricks with tin roofs. One of the things that I like about Colombia is how busy everyone is. They are selling loose cigarettes and gum, or sugarcane juice, or offering a shoeshine or building a house. Everyone is busy working, and you don't see as many people hanging around and drinking with the dark and lost expressions that I have seen in the Dominican Republic and other places.

There is an energy in Medellin that is contagious...a feeling that people are working hard, and going about their business, and collectively wish that the world would give them a second look. We did and we think this country is bound for a great future.