Proust was right.  It is the little moments in life, both immemorable and memorable, which give us meaning.

Yesterday I was walking from the house to the main road to catch a bus to the school to pick up Annie.  I tried to memorise the tiny things along the way to paint another picture of local life in Calera, a little district I love.

Those moments in time:

¹      The wave and smile from Amparo Vargas, the local mad cow lady who owns half the valley, who always wears her galoshes and ruana and floppy cap even when going to Bogota, and who always smells of that wonderful odour of dairy cow.

¹      The dandelion heads, enormous and greeting the occasional sunshine they are called Dientes de Leones here, or lions teeth.

¹      The way wind in the pine trees sounds the same the world over. The same is true of eucalypts who creak and shift making people look up for dropping branches.

¹      How the winter rains here curiously cause the plants to sprout and blossom as if it were summer.

¹      How chuffed I felt by the time I got to the road because on the way two people had asked me for directions. I didnt know but it was nice to be asked. I felt very much the local. 

¹      Squeezed into the minibuses which fly around the mountain roads here, how people dont mind if you touch them, and how they can manage to sleep with llaneros music blasting out and rollercoasting motion.

¹      The way the clouds fly over the tollgate range and form gigantic banks of fluff which flash with spears of lightning.

¹      The fog on the lake on the way to Calera which swirls and shifts through the gum and pine tree forests along its edges.

¹      Annies smile and wave from the first floor of the reformity-like building which is her school in the main street of Calera.  And the other kids in her class at the window mouthing Hello Annies Mum through the glass. 

¹      Annies obvious pleasure in telling me how she was given a standing ovation after her drum performance in music and how she received top marks in art.

¹      How the chicken lady with her fierce eyes always says hello senora through the window as I come into town.

¹      The enthusiasm with which her two English-speaking friends Jennifer and Katherine, speak of their dreams of studying Microbiology and Marine Biology, as we walk across the Teusaca river bridge to the bakery before we catch the bus back.

¹      The greetings from the gatekeeper and the man who makes bunuelos (cheese breads) as we walk through the Santiamen gate for home.

¹      How the guard dogs here guard against each other rather than human intruders, and they run if you try to talk to them.

¹      The shine in the eyes of Kaliche and Simon, two of our guard dogs, as we come through our home gate, knowing that Tina, the ever vigilant gatekeeper is at the kitchen window of her little cottage checking all movements in the area.

¹      And at night the way the Southern Cross rises sparkling in a clear Calera sky, and how Saturn shimmers in winter.

Little things that make up a little life.