Meghan Markle Removes Her Earpiece and Speaks Spanish on Stage in Colombia

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are continuing their Colombia trip in Cali.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in the city of Cali on Aug. 18, where they attended a discussion focused on highlighting and uplifting Afro-Colombian women. Meghan, 43, and Harry, 39, greeted attendees at the Municipal Theatre and swayed their hands during a musical performance by Cynthia Montaño, as seen in a video shared by Vice President Francia Márquez’s office.

Meghan took the stage during the conversation, removing an earpiece and speaking Spanish to the crowd. Afterward, she jokingly mimed wiping sweat from her forehead as the crowd applauded before switching to English.

Earlier during the Colombia trip, Meghan and Prince Harry spoke Spanish while interacting with a kindergarten class. While Harry asked students their names and ages in the language, Meghan brought up their 5-year-old son, Prince Archie. “You’re the same age as my son, Archie!” she told a student in Spanish. (They are also parents to a 3-year-old daughter, Princess Lilibet.)

Meghan interned at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, helping to hone her Spanish speaking skills. She previously displayed her language ability during a 2020 outing to a Los Angeles charity.

“She spoke Spanish perfectly with one young woman,” Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries, a group that supports people moving on after incarceration or gang involvement, told PEOPLE following the visit. “She just went right into Spanish, which was a revelation — and it was very good.”

At the forum, Meghan said, “I was very, very fortunate at a young age to feel as though my voice was being heard, and I think that is a luxury that a lot of young girls and women aren’t often afforded,” she said, recalling how she penned a letter to have a commercial’s language changed to be less sexist at age 11.

“For us and the work that we do with the Archewell Foundation, certainly the work that we do as parents and that I do as a mother, is ensuring that young girls feel as though their voices are being heard and also that young boys are being raised to listen and to hear those young women as well,” she said.

Later in the chat, Meghan said with a laugh that her young daughter, Lili, is already learning to use her voice.

“Part of the role modeling that I certainly try to do as a mother is to encourage our daughter — who, at 3, she has found her voice,” Meghan said. “And we’re so proud of that because that is how we, as I was saying, create the conditions in which there’s a ripple effect of young girls and young women knowing that if someone else is encouraging them to use their voice and be heard, that’s what they’re going to do.”

For the forum, Meghan wore a sleeveless button-down top tucked into a sequinned midi skirt by Silvia Tcherassi and swept her hair into an updo, highlighting her statement earrings.

They’ll also attend a festival celebrating Afro-Colombian music and dance during their time in Cali, the capital of the Valle del Cauca department in the Pacific Region on Colombia’s west coast. The ethnically diverse city is known as the world capital of salsa, according to the Republic of Colombia’s official tourism website, and is the country’s third-most populous city with nearly 2.3 million inhabitants, per Statista.

Prince Harry and Meghan kickstarted the trip in Bogota on Aug. 15 with an official welcome from the vice president. Their busy first day included an insight session surrounding social media use at a school (plus a stop at recess!), a cultural performance and a summit addressing the urgent need for responsible technology practices.

Staying in the country’s capital city, the couple spent Aug. 16 visiting a local kindergarten class, attending a luncheon hosted by Vice President Márquez and meeting up with Colombia’s Invictus Games athletes.

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent Aug. 17 in the city of Cartagena, where they joined a drum lesson at a school dedicated to preserving cultural traditions through music education before touring the historic village of San Basilio de Palenque, established as the first free African town in the Americas in 1619.