Two weeks into my adventure in Quito and I have begun to realize that my year of Brownie Badging has done me wrong... I am prepared for (almost) every calamity, for (almost) every bout of loneliness, intestinal wavering, insomnia and language mishap. I have read all sorts of books and ha
ve brought all sorts of books on how to be in Ecuador, how to speak like a native (still working on that, whew), how to order, how to ask how tall someone is and how to greet and say goodbye to folks. In the sanctuary that is my brightly painted (sunrise orange) bedroom, my months of preparation sits around me in cheerful piles... my stack of books for my independent study, my jumbo box of brown sugar cinnamon frosted poptarts for my days of crashing, photos of my family and friends and a small yankee candle that smells like Gram's house.
It is when I leave the house that I realize how insignficant and Global North all this preparation is... how I am really insolating myself in a space that is not allowing me to be in the present, to feel as if I am free to move about without a sense of restriction, without the weight of owning (and having on me, at this particular moment) THE right things. I have traveled twice now with my co-workers and both times I arrived with my Eagle Creek Travel Bag, stuffed to the brim, wobbling on my back, eager and... prepared. Both times I have had to stop the urge to hightail it back into my house to clean out the ridiculous amount of extras in my bag... my huge Spanish-English dictonary, my industrial size can of natural bug repellent, the 8 billion coins I have gathered from various transactions.
I have the Poisonwood Bible on my bedtable, and once I get some of these environmental ethics books read, I am going to reread it, if only to remind myself of the Betty Crocker cakemix that the frantic mother sews into her daughters' petticoats as they prepare to fly to Africa for a year. How much cakemix have I brought? How much does it weigh? How much do I really need?I will let you know after I eat those dang poptarts.
I hope you are traveling well, treading lightly, and living in the present.
ve brought all sorts of books on how to be in Ecuador, how to speak like a native (still working on that, whew), how to order, how to ask how tall someone is and how to greet and say goodbye to folks. In the sanctuary that is my brightly painted (sunrise orange) bedroom, my months of preparation sits around me in cheerful piles... my stack of books for my independent study, my jumbo box of brown sugar cinnamon frosted poptarts for my days of crashing, photos of my family and friends and a small yankee candle that smells like Gram's house.It is when I leave the house that I realize how insignficant and Global North all this preparation is... how I am really insolating myself in a space that is not allowing me to be in the present, to feel as if I am free to move about without a sense of restriction, without the weight of owning (and having on me, at this particular moment) THE right things. I have traveled twice now with my co-workers and both times I arrived with my Eagle Creek Travel Bag, stuffed to the brim, wobbling on my back, eager and... prepared. Both times I have had to stop the urge to hightail it back into my house to clean out the ridiculous amount of extras in my bag... my huge Spanish-English dictonary, my industrial size can of natural bug repellent, the 8 billion coins I have gathered from various transactions.
I have the Poisonwood Bible on my bedtable, and once I get some of these environmental ethics books read, I am going to reread it, if only to remind myself of the Betty Crocker cakemix that the frantic mother sews into her daughters' petticoats as they prepare to fly to Africa for a year. How much cakemix have I brought? How much does it weigh? How much do I really need?I will let you know after I eat those dang poptarts.
I hope you are traveling well, treading lightly, and living in the present.
I am glad you are working through your growing pains of being a gringo from the north. It's part of the process. I hope you can post some of what you experience with your work. I would love to see the cross over:) Love you! ~clare
ReplyDeletegreat thoughts, Em. reminds me of the rediculous amounts of stuff I brought with me to Australia. I justified it because I was going for a year - like going away to school... but that stuff became in encumbrance (literally) to being THERE. I so feel you. I hope you can unload a little!
ReplyDeleteditch the dictionary!!! It's so much more fun to ask questions like, "eh, no se la palabra, pero como se llama esa cosa en que se sienta al lado de la mesa??"
ReplyDeleteReally, though, I get what you're saying. It's really hard to just be sometimes, especially when you're thinking about making the most of your experience all the time.
Thanks for sending me your blog!