Place, Time, Friends

Good stuff happens unexpectedly, and the surprise of it makes it that much more enjoyable. I got an email from a friend I knew in Cuenca, Clint, who is from Australia. After posting my friend Lucho’s story last week, Clint found my blog and contacted me. As it turns out, he’s now in Buenos Aires, and has been for a month, but I had no idea. Clint left Cuenca in June, and I never even made it to his going away party because I didn’t know he was leaving. I always felt bad about that, but we agreed to meet up Wednesday night and catch up over a brew. That would make it all better.

So Clint came over to my apartment and we reminisced, caught up, and discussed what each of us was doing here in Argentina. As it turns out, he’s been here several times and is sort of just hanging out and enjoying himself for a couple of months before returning to Ecuador. As you can imagine, our conversation turned back to Ecuador for the most part, and we thought aloud about what the experience was like for us, and how it had affected us.

We got to discussing a point that I’m all to familiar with by this point—is it worth it to continually move around and start all over again, especially if you had something good where you were? Clint is 32, and has been living abroad for the better part of 6 years. His first teaching abroad stint was in Russia, and then on to South America since then. He’s loved to move around and see new places, but he told me that recently leaving Cuenca was the hardest place to leave. Something about the place and time, the people that he was friends with, and the feeling that it’s getting a bit old to start all over again, makes him wonder if he should finally settle down.

He went home to be with family in Australia for 3 months and said that it felt right being home, and since leaving again, something just didn’t feel the same as it had in the past. And that makes me wonder, especially after the struggles I went through in my 2^nd month here, aching to go back to the friends I had made in Cuenca. More recently, thinking about the friends and family you leave behind, and the experiences you miss out on back home as a result. I wrote about that this week with La Vida Idealist, questioning if it’s worth it to miss out on so much back home, for a chance to have a better long term appreciation. If you can make it that far.

These kinds of questions aren’t answered easily, and will no doubt continue to swirl around in my head as I start to make more friends in Buenos Aires. Because I’m sure that I will eventually have to move on and go home again, leaving behind another life. But what Clint said about the place and time resonated with a feeling I’ve held for a long time, and it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Hunter S. Thompson. “But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time in the world. Whatever it meant.”

A traveler or expat must find their place in the world, but always keep a watch on which direction home is in. The farther you go, however, the less obvious the path becomes, and you find that you no longer remember the way back. If you do go back, it seems distant, unfamiliar, and is no longer your home. Home is simply an idea of a time or place that you once knew. Eventually, we all leave it, though it will always be with us in a place where no one can take it from us. Sometimes that’s all you have.

Above:  Photo by microabi

What I Remember

This afternoon I gave the last final exam of the year. I'm not completely done, however, because next Tuesday I need to go to the university to help give a placement test for next year. But for all intents and purposes, I'm finished with my teaching experience at the University of Cuenca, and in Ecuador. I'm happy, but it's still a bit surreal to be walking from the university knowing that it's probably the second to last time I'll be doing so.

My mind has been busily trying to think of where I could travel to this week, and I've been going back and forth from the jungle, the coast, Colombia, and now Peru. I still can't make up my mind, but I think if I go anywhere I'll go to Mancora, Peru for a couple of days. It's 8 hours away from Cuenca, with a stop at the border to change buses and stamp the old passport. Otherwise, I've been thinking about what my return to the United States will be like.

Knowing that my days are numbered, I've been thinking about what I remember about home. Though I've been gone 10 1/2 months, my memory is still vivid. It's July now, so I'm sure it's plenty hot and the grass is probably hard and turning to hay under the baking sun. Though I know how I left my room, I'm sure my mom has added piles of junk all over the place that I'll inevitably throw out the door as soon as I get home. This happened to me every time I came home from college. She always expects that I'll want a bunch of free pens that she got from work.

I know that the family got a new TV, and has been putting in a new rug in the living room, so I will be walking into a place that wasn't what it was before. And I guess that's the definition of reverse culture shock. I'm almost scared in a way to be going home. I'm not sure how I'll be affected, though I'm hopeful that since it's only 3 weeks, I won't get too comfortable. After living in Spain for 5 months I didn't feel reverse culture shock, just boredom from returning to a suburb after living in a European city. I couldn't even drink legally for a couple of months after hanging out in bars all over the continent.

But I've been here almost a year now, and I know things will be different. I know that prices will just blow my mind. I look at a menu and if a meal is $2.50 I laugh at how expensive it is. A liter beer over $1.50 is a rip off. Attitudes towards certain conduct will also be difficult to adjust to. If we don't feel like drinking in bar, we can save money by just drinking in the street. But that will never happen back home. That thought actually came to me today when I realized I wouldn't be able to afford drinking in Boston. I thought, "Oh well I'll just drink in the street...ah crap, I can't do that in Boston. Damn Puritans." My friend told me one night he dropped almost $100 altogether on a night out in Boston. I'm not even going to explain how insane that sounds to me.

In order to get better adjusted here, I emptied my mind of all things American, or in theory as much as I could. I didn't think of home that much to avoid homesickness, and I continued as if this was my life. But now I need to switch back, for a short time anyway. And I'm just not sure if I can do that. I remember how uncomfortable I felt at parties when I'd just gotten back from Spain, not relating to what people were talking about and feeling like I knew something they didn't know. I can almost guarantee I'll feel that way again.

My only saving point is that I'm going to be home for such a short period of time that it will be just enough time to be refreshing, catching up with friends and family. And just around the time I'm getting bored and antsy, it will be time to move on again. And I can be sure of this, after 11 months of living in the mountains, going from the extremes of hot afternoons to freezing nights, always wearing pants and having a jacket on hand, it will be such a relief to just be hot and sweat. I don't even care about air conditioning, at least now. I want to wear shorts and a t-shirt, oh man what a rush that will be. 20 days out.