Musings before dinner...

When day gives way to night
And guards kindle fires
The thoughts of other times
Come alive within me.
- Yoshinobu Onakatomi

I write about simplicity a lot when I travel. Everyone of course can recognize the theme. We leave our homes, we pack the essentials, and we spend our time there rather than here. I think for most people travelling is rather like holding ones breath. Some can hold it longer than others, but eventually there comes a time when you just can´t wait to get home and... ¨ahhhhhhhh.¨

But what happens when you left home 9 years ago and can´t go back?



So inevitably I realize that I think I spend a lot of my life holding my breath. It´s not that I´m waiting for something per se, rather that I never know when I´m finally going to be ¨home.¨ But alas, I´m talking about simplicity. The one connects to the other because when I always feel like I´m moving, I never feel the need to unpack. Simplicity is more of a vice than a virture sometimes.

I hope one day I can stop holding my breath.

In the meantime life down south is going great! I made it through Thanksgiving without contracting any terrible parasties, on the contrary I had some wonderful tofurkey! I have some fun stories to share but I´m out of time to do it, so I´ll leave this post rather incomplete. I did, however, manage to capture a few pics with my ipod. You´ll notice I don´t have too many pictures with other people, and this is not, as you might assume, because I´m a total troglodyte, but because I´m weary of flashing around a piece of equipment that costs more than many people here make in a year.

But I´ll leave you with these...




This here is a friend I made one of the first nights in Chilimarca with Dan and Rachel. I thought we´d be maintain our friendship but after rejecting my facebook friend request and then promptly attacking the pencil I was using in lieu of an olive branch I was forced to swat him with my sandal.

Such is life.









This is the view from my front door. That´s Kodi, looking completly innocent, although he´s probably chewing on someone´s car keys...















This is also the view from my front door. I sleep on the left and study on the right. Aaannnddd I´m one of the luckiest guys I know! That green package at the base of the picture is full of lemon waffers. Emmmm..... sooo good!

(the Hershey pillowcase is a shoutout to... ohh... 6th grade?)









And props to Kodi for making it into TWO pictures! This is him inside my room. He´s super obedient until you tell him to do something he doesn´t want to do, then he pretends like he doesn´t understand Spanish. Unfortunately for him I know that trick.

Sooo Bourgeoisie

Last night I had my first cup of coffee in Bolivia. I was in cross-cultural mode and hadn´t even considered the fact that I hadn´t had coffee in many many years, I was simply following the lead of everyone else at the dinner table and didn´t want to create a scene by turning down this hospitable gift. It was Nescafe, which I hear is one of the finer blends of instant coffee, and it predictably messed up my digestive system the way I had feared. I have to stop forgetting that I´m not particularly a chameleon regardles of however hard I may try.

Doña Mary is the queen of the household. She reminds me of my own grandmother, bustling about the house ensuring that everything is handled correctly and on time. She radiates a tranquility that I find exceptionally comforting, and I have spent several evenings sitting at the table watching Christian television shows with her late into the night. John Hagee is a lot better in Spanish ;)

Her sister, on the other hand, is the epitome of Cosmopolitan. She’s one of those people who greets you, understands you’re a foreigner who is there learning Spanish, and then promptly ignores all of that by riddling you with questions at 2 million miles per hour. She´s from España and just visiting. Spaniards... pah. I imagine she has several small animals at her villa in Spain that she carries around in overpriced handbags. As we ate dinner she continued plying me with questions and like an idiot I continued to respond with “si” and “no” whenever I heard an inflection in her voice. She’s one of those people who assumes because you’re smiling and you’ve responded with one word answers to all her questions that clearly you’re fluent. You can probably imagine the trouble I waltzed my way in to. I’m pretty sure everyone at the dinner table now thinks that I’m a 27 year old Zionist who has been divorced twice, believes in reincarnation, and thinks Obama will win the next election in a landslide. I´m sorry, I tried... I really tried... But you know what? That’s OKAY, because Dona Mary’s sister also thinks I speak perfect Spanish. Mission accomplished.

In spite of my efforts to categorize her as completely bourgeoisie, as we were clearing the dishes from the table she grabbed my hand and held it between hers and said, ¨now you´re part of this family, you can call me Aunt Sara¨ and proceeded to plant a wet one right on my cheek. Sigh. Okay she probably doesn´t own a villa, and i´m sure she paid a fair price for her hand bags, which were of course made using fair labor practices in the local community. Tia Sára is alright with me.

Beginnings

I moved into my new home this week. After spending several splendid days with Dan and Rachel at their place, I finally managed to hammer down some permanent housing, one that allows me to eat well while not getting shanked in the process. After a somewhat precarious bus ride through the city with all my belongings in tow I stepped into the 12x8 room that will be my world for the next several months. All the moving, all the goodbyes, all the indescribable longing that has inexplicably become a part of my soul. And now I’m here. I’ve been trying to be brave about the whole thing ever since finishing classes and leaving Philadelphia. I tried to seem sure of myself while I was home in LA, I tried to be encouraging and give to my parents while I was in Michigan, all the while praying under my breath that God had me doing what I should be doing since I sure as hell didn’t know what that was supposed to be. Thomas Merton was soooo right about that one.

And so here I was, pacing around my new room like a captive tiger getting to know its new cage. This was what I was waiting for and I wasn’t entirely sure if I had made the right decision. But then, quite unexpectedly, it began to rain. Big fat droplets that seemed to bounce when they hit the ground. I opened my door and the smell of wet dirt and the sound of rain on aluminum shot right through me. And that was all the answer I needed. My doubts trickled through me and down into the gutter, the rain pushing them out of my sight. I have so many questions to which I still hope to find the answers, but in the meantime I am going to live here, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, renting a nice little room from a family who treats me kindly and corrects my horrible grammar.

They have a dog named Kodi. He’s a golden retriever. In a fit of elitist snobbery I refrained from petting him the entire first day due to whatever possible diseases he might be carrying, which is odd considering he´s an incredibly clean dog. It didn´t last long and I broke down shortly after dinner by gaving him a good scratching, and now I have a friend for life. While I´m having my Spanish lessons with Alejandro throughout the day, Kodi, with as stealthy an approach as is possible for an adolescent golden retriever, will quietly push open the door with his nose and attempt to gain entry into my room. Alejandro and I will mostly ignore him as he nonchallantly places first one paw, and then the other past the doorway. Eventually he´ll simply go for it and try to come in all the way, which results in both Alejandro and I pretending to be mad by telling him to get out in our respective languages.

It´s the little things, you know?