Trip to the Bathroom

3:41 in the morning and I just got back quivering into my bed.  I’d had to go pee for several hours but hadn’t figured out how I would make it alive.  I knew I was living in the rainforest region but this truly clarifies: I am living IN it.

The rain droplets can be heard tapping ominously on the tin roof sporadically, and the crickets abound in song.  I just wanted to pee but I was afraid the front door would be locked when I got down stairs and the distant yellow ‘street’ light is too bright to just do it outside.  When I finally get the courage to go downstairs, the dog was furry and gone.  Josefa the cat is just glad I let her in and at 3:00 am something is cooking on the stove.  In her nightgown my mother greets, “Hola!” in her most cheery daylight voice and I realize this is no big deal.  On the way back I am extremely relieved, until I hear the calls of distant wolves… or something. My heart leaps as the call is answered from the edge of the yard.  I rush cautiously back upstairs closing all the doors behind me but by the time I reach my room I’ve realized it was the giant squealing call of the pig we are to eat for Christmas.  No artificial fatteners.  I guess he thinks he’s a wolf.  Or a loud rooster.  But my heart stopped beating so fast.  Except for the giant “voice of God” that suddenly permeated the entire neighborhood, saying something about ‘compañeros’.  I don’t know what to say but I just hope that along with all my two brothers, sister, parents and friends, I will learn to sleep at night.

Arrival

I’m here bumping along on the road to Tena. We drove through flat lands of farms and now we are going through those mountain roads that follow a river up through the wallowing hills.  I’ts all the browns and greens of moss and heather.  Clay- the ground is saturated with water.  And we feel very high up.  And Welcome graciously lent me his iPod so I’m listening to Iron & Wine, and I’m so at home that I hardly noticed when Resurrection Fern came on.  And the little rivulets! Mitch says the soil up here is soaked as it is the sponge for the filtration of all the water that goes back down to Quito.  I am so in awe that I can’t help taking in giant breathes of the fresh air despite the cold.  And the lake! Giant green lake.  And there are hot springs to chill at.  Andi says we’re stopping to lunch where the truck drivers eat.  High up but now we’re descending in to the rainforest.  And I know this is the honeymoon phase hitting hard.  The vegetation is about to change.  The mama cows watch their calves every few hundred feet.  Little stucco stone houses over bridges of rushing lush rivers and the bamboo foliage is starting to show.  I am feeling better now despite the thoughts that have tormented me the past few days about people, and sadness and jealousy.  This is where I am going to live.

Rivers of the Amazon

Amazonian Region

Sin Bici No Hay Paraiso

Just coming back from Cumbaya, the cutest town in Ecuador, and suffering from the paradise syndrome.  A stucco church with bell tower edges a hedge-rowed garden park complete with a trickling fountain in the center.  Boutiques surround the square across a cobblestone road that leads past the mission-style Educativo where the uniformed school-children are getting out.  Down the street the mountains span the view, descending into green hills and valleys, from where the fresh breeze drags the mellow sunlight to play with the palm trees and our hair.  There is everything from local bakery to a Sushi bar, and I’m glad I have no money, because I would hate to know the prices.

Down a 17-km bike trail lined with flowering foliage, the spike-gated mansions turn into one-roomed tin and wood structures where children and chickens run around.  It is not bereft of the layered shawls and hats of indigenous poverty, but nevertheless it holds that endless weekend feeling that can be found at Parque Carolina on a Sunday morning.

El parque Carolina is a giant green park in the center of Quito filled with all the entertainment of a mini-paradise on Sundays.  Couples cuddle as children beg for a paddle-boat ride in the winding lagoon, and avid bikers dash around a hilly dirt course.  Artisan venders and entertainers tarry along the tree-lined street beside the famous “Jardin Botanico” of Quito, housing a fraction of the bursting biodiversity of Ecuador.  Families laugh and play catch with new puppy they picked up at the dog adoption fair going on next to the promotional heavy-metal concert going on under the grove of Eucalyptus.  This population is not necessarily rich simplicity is key to their biggest joys.  As bit of street art claims, “Sin bici no hay paraiso” ~Without a bicycle, there is no paradise.

Meet, Cheese and Olives

My first family outing to a Baby Shower: It was a solid evening.  By the time it was time to go, I decided my Indian outfit would pass for something unique at least, to avoid the other judgments. It was a nice town-house out in the mountainside with lots of nice people to kiss on the cheek.  I sit down on the decked couch with my sister Naomi beside me, chatting away… or texting.  This scares me because she is my sole anchor to the world and without her it’s gone.  I was buried in the dose of cultural cleavage and all I could do was digest the endless supply of cute little appetizers; meat, cheese and olives, to dip in some sort of zesty mustard sauce.  I was the shy curious one.  The blond girl.  Smile.  I struggle with the need of something to say and the guilt of not having more to add to the cultural interaction- of me and a “Beby Show-er.”  The words flow over in Spanish and I pick up too much to remember how to say hello.  In silence my mind convulses over what to say versus observing and questioning.  Young, modern, almost bored girls, and the macho guy that cradles the baby; more hellos and the streamers float among the pale blue balloons. “It’s a boy!”

I am tense and taller than most of the people there and I still don’t know what to say.  I don’t even answer direct preguntas, but turn to Naomi to understand.  All the while I’m thinking “How estrange.”  How strange.  This thought clouds over.  Finally I stop trying.  Driving home in the car, lost in the ebb and flow of the conversation, I finally pick out a phrase I do know: “Ella es tranquila, no?  Toda tranquila.”  She’s chill isn’t she? Completely chill.  In the world of culture shock, I’ve just reached nirvana.

Asking You

I have been very proud to learn how to ask questions, not only questions that arise in the end-of-a-chapter Review, but the ones that actually reflect what I am thinking.  The ones that reflect the true issues that complicate me, but also questions that can bring out very interesting answers.  Effective questions.  They give me more to work with, actually increase my knowledge.  I mean, forget vast awareness, I am actually gathering specific evidence of the world, and its amazing.  I love it.  I have asked more questions than ever before, I’ve asked to join in the factual discussion of the world.

Argue to agree, to get more out of conversations- that drives me.  New realizations, observations, discoveries, and no need to keep it all because it’s all there once I’ve asked.  I can see more, and its amazing.  I’ve tried cereal, boiled eggs, Mote (popped maize), and not disliked a single one of them.  It’s absurd.  I’m discovering new sides of me as though my dislike of nuts and socks were merely facades.  “I like” is a bad phrase for what should not like? To ask you must be prepared to hear an answer, you must be able to listen, and to listen you must be able to believe.

Flight

Here we are in to Atlanta, flying over it at the moment.  “Starting our descent.”  Left at 4 am this morning on extenuating circumstances of leaving 31 soul-mates that I met last week.  I am awake to say the most of this situation, since I have been falling in and out of a doze for the past several (few?) hours, next to ‘Martin’ of Belguim on the plane (Delta Airlines).  He is a calm cheery level-headed person to have along on a plane-ride away.

Now we are on the plane to Quito capital of Ecuador.  People were telling me to get some sleep.  Yesterday, as a farewell, we each shared something we commit to, and then passed on the ball of yarn.  Abigail, who is sitting next to me on the plane, committed to ‘embracing the unexpected’.  My piece of string that is currently tied around my ankle signifies my promise to love the entirety of this experience.  It is extremely endearing to be broken up into country groups and be sharing the experience of a stormy ride to Ecuador as unique.  Abigail saw some lightening and we are in a dark cloud.  It was gloriously sunny before, above the palaces of clouds, but the skies change.  Especially going at 904 km/hr.  Cuba is carrying a mess of storms about its shores.  It is perfect for writing in this dark, dim lighting- perfect almost, as it is personal; unadulterated and free-flowing in the just-gleaming light.

We are sitting next to a young man named David, from Quito.  His father works in Washington.  Abigail understands español bastante (quite) well…possibly because her mother is a Spanish professor.  This plane is full of Ecuadorians and some stares, so that it felt like foreign territory even as we set foot on the plane.  Their features do seem to share some Asian characteristics.  I got quite excited to start learning Spanish.  David is nice and friendly, but he is reading an english book “Awakening” about vampires, which he does not understand much of.

I am enjoying immersing.  After two weeks of intense environment and encouragement to speak, communicate, we are thrown here, where truly you must be okay with listening and lying back…Which is just as well, because I’ve lost my voice.  Quito-here you come.

Why We´re Here

A two-week training period that is supposed to prepare me for six-months on a foreign continent. While the whiles of South America were waiting for me, Training hit hard.  Standing over my 28 lbs suitcase, I only think “I didn’t pack for this.”  I didn’t have the shorts, the appetite or the expectations for two beautiful weeks in Stanford University, California.

Training hit hard.  It hit with the punch of 56 different personalities from across the United States, all of us gearing up for a year of adventure.  No matter the voices and accents y’all are gonna hear from our cohort, we tried our hardest to consolidate that vivacious driving spirit that brought each of us to Global Citizen Year.  And boy am I glad for each of you who took time to apply.

But training hit hard.  Andre and the rest of the amazing team tried their hardest to destroy our expectations with the widest possible range of possibilities.  We heard from One World Futbol (NGO), Outward Bound, to Farah Sanchez on Diversity.  We had workshops on video-making and teaching English and even a pool party in the beautiful Palo Alto hills.  The longer I was there, the less I knew why, and the more I could take in stride.  I came out humbler, I came out committed and I came out with this one promise, ‘to love the experience and everyone in it.’

So thank you Abby Falik, Andre and Nicole; thanks to all Global Citizen Year supporters, for making Training more than preparation, for making it an experience in itself.

Why I’m Here

Traveling has been always a passion of mine, since those initial bus-rides ‘round the Hydrabadi loop (India), which was all my mother could do to quiet my infant cries.  Even then, the entrancing rhythm of being in motion, underneath the hum and roll of people talking, brought me home like nothing else could, just as I am now in love with the constant roll of the Indian trains, where people are chugged and dragged along through dust and door and urgent stations.  Finally the beggars’ songs and calls of “Coffee! Hot Hot Coffee!” fade out long enough to cause the passengers to introduce themselves, tumbling out of their protective shells to cling to the fact that we are all going somewhere, we all have somewhere to be.

In such a place, even a third-culture child like me is welcome.  But as I broke through culture shock in American high school, I realized that everyone must tell their story;community can only be achieved through personal resolve and a willingness to reach out and be involved in the world around me.  My open smiles and up-raised hand were the beginnings of a living dialogue which melded together our stories to create a class ready to discuss, debate and decide a path most fitting our combined future.  And I know this is true for a much larger world beyond my home.

The trick to being a Global Citizen, as to being a train passenger, is to let yourself be open to dialogue, wherever your journey takes you.  I look forward to the adventures Global Citizen Year will take me to in Ecuador this upcoming year, and I plan to plunge in wholeheartedly as I open myself to a whole new range of cultural experiences.
I hope to watch a new “cultural railway” unfold between the far dispersed and diverse populations of the world, so that others can enjoy, like I have, the extraordinary phenomena of human interaction; and I invite you to join me through this blog.  Though untrained and inexperienced, I enter the world with an open mind, a passion for human progress, and a mentality of solving problems and giving my all to the work I do.

Service, or Purpose

Returning from night-time preparations for Homecoming activities with a bustling group of Seniors: This is a moment I cherish in the flow of seasons of being what I am. Caught between the service to others and explosion of chaotic creativity that causes me to rush at all directions and yet find myself still, in that place where a beautiful world is whirling around in its own rhythm offering us passage to opportunities beyond what our meek imaginations claim. A chance to put up that model-ship mast, decorate that wedding tent in flowers, join my voice in the chorus of a bonding song; all calling me to take part in a bigger piece of art which forms the framework of the world. For in each little stitch, each little step I take, each load I lift, I paint a little more of the monotonous with a stroke of heartfelt interest. The masterpiece of our cumulative un-synchronized efforts begins to weave the path of survival through the tragedies of the past into a way through the future. A million tragedies are met by a billion hopes for the future; in broken homes and fading languages, empty libraries and homeless men, we can find a nascent child, a home to fill, a hand to hold. This is the sketch I see, and in myself I see a tool to begin painting. I am untrained and inexperienced. But I enter the world with an open mind, a passion for human progress and a mentality of solving problems and giving my all to any work I do.

Lotus

He loves me

He loves me not

Beautiful, familiar

He is a stranger in his eloquence

Where is my heart without him?

But when shall he know the heart

that is within?

Our little smiles, familiar sweetness

To cover the distance

of lies.

Lies not to lie, not to hurt,

But to protect

myself

of the terrible unknown

He speaks of love

Have we ever gauged the depth

of one to another?

To uncover we stand

face to face

hope for grace

This transfer of energy

is no easy task,

just hoping that one day

The faces will fall away

The days will melt away

the glances will carry a gift

from one to the other

The man will stand up

The woman won’t back down

We will stand

I love him

I love him not

Fuzzy but fading

funny but failing

Honorable, Gold

in the light

Does he stand in the darkness?

Is this laugh superficial?

That deep laugh, rising from his chest

The realest joy I’ve ever felt

That smile when he just

loses all control of his expression

His joy- do I have the strength to make him smile?

He won’t call, unless there is a reason

I am dying to hear his voice

you think this is a lie?

If not love, its at least addiction.

The eyes, deep black

reaching out to take me in

For once let me sink to my knees

and cry.

You are still there

And you are still golden

And you are still the best

So let me be yours.

I love you.

And am willing to believe

despite the difference

and the futility,

You love me.

16^th July 2010