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Deion Ninivaggi
Professor Deciccio
College Composition
June 3, 2015
The Lessons In Color Comme Rio is a very small village in the upper mountains of Puerto Rico, a small village where everyone knows their neighbors like family. Traditions are the law and one can trace their family back a 100 years. It is a quiet and peaceful place where time seems to move slower than the hustle and bustle of San Juan City. There is one main road to go in or out of the town, and even then it is a minimum of a three hour drive to anything that resembles civilization. To many people of the town it is paradise on earth. The sun is always warm, with a cool breeze coming down from the peak of the mountain. During the summer months you can smell the wildflowers growing in the fields and the songs of the toucan birds in the air. You can see the birds of paradise growing in palm trees. Around the village grows the greatest gift that Comme Rio has to offer, the rainforest. A combination of huge trees and vines, sweet smells and beautiful sounds from all the creatures that call it a home and to top it all off the ever cool moist air that envelops you as you enter the rainforest. It is truly paradise on earth. My day started off as it always had; I woke up to the blinding light coming into my room from the windows facing the morning sun. I got up, ate breakfast in a rush so I could go and do what I love to do during my school break months, go into the forest and explore and have fun seeing what nature gave to us. I was not the only kid who enjoyed this; my friends would also go into the forest and play but their parents always made them stay within earshot of the main road so they could always know when to come home. luckily I had the cool parents in the town and

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they let me go wherever I wanted to, so long as I always come home “before I could see the stars.” I took my usual route into the forest, down the road past the cathedral, then a left at the baker’s, across the tall grass field and straight into the rainforest. Just before I went in I took my shoes off and hid them in the bushes next to the path that I had created from entering in this spot so many times. I went into the rainforest and ran towards a small waterfall that I always loved to cool my feet in and relax. As I lied down with my feet in the water I was thinking about what I was going to go today. There was the abandoned rock quarry...but I had already visited that two days ago. I could hike down to the bottom of the mountain and enjoy the views and have a good time, but the day was to hot for that. I decided to hike up as far as I wanted to and take some flowers down for my grandma so I could show her how high up the mountain I had climbed. At about midday I decided to take a break and eat some food that I had brought with me.
I found a cool place to sit down in and began to enjoy my meal. About three quarters through my meal I looked up into a low hanging tree and spotted a beautifully colored frog. It was not larger than my thumb and no wider than your index and middle finger together. what caught my eye was not its size but its color; it had a bright strawberry red body with bright blue thighs that faded to various hues of purple as the color went down its legs. It was one of the most beautiful animals I had seen that summer and to top it all off it was partially blue, my favorite color! The second I saw it I knew that I wanted to get a closer