I want to share with you some of the really beautiful things happening behind the scenes of our new project. Take the girl who runs the teleprompter for example. I don't know her name and haven't been introduced. However, my producer tells me she's so excited to be part of our team, that she brought an english to spanish dictionary to the control room so she could better understand the words that were scrolling across the screen. There's also a great RCN reporter named Jefferson Asprilla. He's only spoken in english a few times. We usually speak in spanglish. He's never reported in my language before. He was working on a political story and offered to help us with a piece, if we would help him with the correct words. Jefferson and I spent time writing his script in english. He took a few minutes to practice reading it from the teleprompter and then did it for real. It was his first time speaking in english on television... and his first time sitting in the main anchor chair at RCN. He did a great job and we really appreciate his effort. He believes in what we are trying to do... which is to share with the world what's really happening. I know his english will only get better as time progresses. Efrain Arce is another reporter at RCN who will be filing stories for us. Efrain and I actually worked at the same station in Miami about 12 years ago. We didn't know each other then. Now, he's a friend and a colleague. Look for his reports from Bogota on traffic and transportation issues. And then there's Claudia, one of the main anchors at RCN. She's super smart, beautiful, and a true professional to work with. While she told me she's not very comfortable speaking in english, she did a fantastic job in our question and answer session about the FARC emails for Thursday morning's webcast. I'm so pleased and appreciative of the efforts my co-workers are making to help the project move forward.
I'm also so thankful for the hundreds of emails I've received from viewers all over the world in the past few days. So many Colombians living abroad are excited about the News in English. Many Colombians in country say they're going to watch because they want to learn my language. So, I'm basically an english teacher too! I'm glad this project is going to make a difference in people's lives.
Thursday,
