Pies- The Background

Welcome readers to Around the World and on the Tip of My Tongue. I'm glad you're here. I hope you take the time to poke around, read some of my posts, leave a few comments, and share a few of your own experiences with me. Anyway, by now, you're probably wandering who I am. 


I am a self-declared wander-lusting nomad, food fanatic, creativity connoisseur, and social justice warrior reigning from the Wild West. No lies, I actually grew up part-time on a ranch, herding livestock by horseback on cattle drives, helping hay, feeding cattle, and all of that fun stuff. The years of my baby-hood, childhood, and teenager-hood were spent traveling back and forth between the artistic “City Different,” melting pot town of Santa Fe and the “stuck in the 1950’s,” wildflower, ranch-laden San Luis Valley. Hence, if you ask me where I’m from, I’ll quickly reply “ New Mexico and Colorado.” Growing up in two very different realms- a world of the conservative and liberal, the old ways and the new age, normalcy and diversity- I am a child of a metaphorical frontera.

Upon graduating high school, I moved up to Ithaca, NY where I attended Cornell University, lived in “The Oreo House” with a fantastic group of people, enjoyed swimming in the gorges, hosted lovely parties (and attended quite a few too), tromped up hill both ways in the snow, and in May 2009 eventually received my B.S. in Human Development and a double minor in Africana Studies and Latino Studies.

Currently, I live in Hartford, CT working as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member for a lovely little organization called NextGen Leaders. I am PeaceJam’s program coordinator, working with groups throughout the Northeast to implement the PeaceJam curriculum, planning conferences attended by hundreds of youth, recruiting and training college students to serve as mentors at our conferences, and participating in an array of other community projects.

Through my experiences as a nomadic youth, living and studying with a diverse group at Cornell, and working in the non-profit sector, I am a strong believer in the power of listening to the stories of others. I believe that in doing so, in understanding one another and acting on this understanding, we will be able to create a more empathetic world community and progress towards positive change. Around the World and on the Tip of My Tongue exists for that very purpose, as I use it as a means of sharing my story, art and poetry with the world as well as addressing pertinent social justice issues and ways that we can work towards making the world a better place. 

besos y abrazos, 
Camila