I feel like blogging!

I don't know why, but today I got all nostalgic about blogging as I was rereading through some of my previous posts. Even though I've had ample topics to blog on having been to a host of different countries and volunteering in some unique and different places, I just never found the motivation to go public with my thoughts. Thinking back, I don't see how I ever had the discipline to religiously blog once-a-week as was my ritual in Richmond and Ecuador.

In a way, I'm glad I refrained from blogging as I bounced around the East Coast, the Pacific Northwest, Southeast Asia, and Spain. I replaced blogging with journaling, and I found myself going deeper into my own thoughts than I ever had before. Additionally, my time away from blogging allowed me to be more present in my experiences; to spend less time tucked away in Internet cafes and more time loosing myself in the Craft Cave of Holden Village or exploring the streets of the Little India neighborhood of Singapore.

When you're hopping from city to city, country to country, making friends only long enough to where it hurts to say goodbye, thoughts of self-doubt tend to creep into your head. I would be lying to myself if I said this did not happen to me more than once. Naturally, I met other journeypeople who regualily undergo similar thought processes. We all get antsy when we are in a fixed location for an extended period of time, yet we crave the fruitfulness of human relationships that go along with putting down roots. What insues is a crazy cycle of making great friendships in a short amount of time, saying goodbye, and then putting in the effort to maintain that friendship over distance. A phenomenon emerges- even though I would be constantly surrounded by people, feelings of loneliness would unpredictibly come and go.

In the end, though, I am glad to have gone through these feelings as they have made me more equipt to deal with more serious relational stuggles that will come with losing loved ones, getting married, and other life changing events. I am also grateful to have learned so much from individuals coming from different backgrounds and living in different cultures- this more than anything fuels my desire to leave this great country again as soon as the opportunity arises.

Considering how many times I've changed scenery over the past 6 months, it's no wonder my anxiety is low as I approach my upcoming 10 month commitment to service in the AmeriCorps NCCC. I find expectations are often put to shame in the face of real experiences; therefore, I enter AmeriCorps simply planning to fully receive every challenge, every struggle, every surprise, and every joy as a blessing. If there's one thing I've learned throughout all my adventures so far, it's that one can learn from everything that comes their way. In AmeriCorps, I look forward to learning from the wisdom of others- my fellow corps members, those individuals that I'll serve, and my friends in family that I will keep in touch with back home.

So if you could put a life in a nutshell, this would be mine at the moment. In transition, I try to make up for time lost here at home, stay in touch with friends so recently departed, and anticipate the friendships I am sure to build over the next year! Ahh, life is so simple.

Guest blogger???

So while I obviously haven't been very active on my own blog, I recently made an appearance on another person's blog through the career information website www.experience.com! Check it out.

What’d you say!?

“Illegal.” Usually it’s a word used to describe an activity. Word association brings about concepts such as crime, drugs, or other suspicious activity. And now people. Seriously?, you ask. How are we actually referring to people as illegal in our society? Even criminals who have committed murder and are locked up for life are not called illegal- their actions are separated from them as humans, and we generally recognize this as their fellow human beings. However, there is a disturbing trend in language usage that is being fueled by our media. Many of us, including myself up to a few weeks ago, don’t even realize the dehumanizing nature of this language to the point where we ourselves use the terminology in our everyday speak. How many times have you used the expression “Illegal alien/immigrant?”

This semester, I have been immersing myself in the Chicano/Latino community through a service-learning class which allows me to volunteer at La Escuelita, an after-school tutoring and leadership program primarily for recent Latino immigrants attending area middle and high schools. This has allowed me to put faces, names, and personalities to the issue of immigration our nation is currently struggling with. The class itself, which meets once a week, sometimes off-campus at organizations such as the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network, addresses our society’s treatment of immigrants with a focus on our education system. It has brought subtle but important things such as the classification of immigrants as ‘illegal’ to my attention.

If there’s one main lesson I learned from working with ex-convicts over this past summer at Boaz & Ruth and now tutoring students at La Escuelita, it’s that behind the criminal label worn by these individuals there is an extremely real and interesting person worth getting to know. Therefore, referring to immigrants as ‘illegal’ is an extremely dehumanizing gesture. Additionally, it feeds into stereotypes that are already incorrect- immigrants don’t pay taxes, they are using up valuable social services, they are stealing all our jobs, etc. When communicated through the power of the media, this terminology becomes mainstream language.

Let’s illustrate this with a comparison that will hit home. The fact is, crossing the border ‘illegally’ is the equivalent to exceeding the speed limit. Most of the time, both guilty parties aren’t caught in the act. If these parties were caught, their crime would be classified as a misdemeanor by the US law. All of us who have driven and speeded are, under the law, the equivalent to someone who has crossed the border without documentation. We all would be ‘illegal drivers.’ Those of us who have written bad checks- ‘illegal check writers.’ How about shoplifting? ‘Illegal consumers,’ perhaps?

Unfortunately, there are many more offensive terms in our everyday language that don’t even fall under swearing. ‘Gay, lame, fag, just to name a few, are rooted in offensive insults. Our intentions in using this language are irrelevant; for example when we refer to an immigrant as ‘illegal’ we probably don’t intend to actually dehumanize or devalue this person or group of people. Nonetheless, the effects are the same.

Under the label, we’re all human beings with a story.

Why I Take the Bus

Hello everyone. I have truly been a pathetic blogger (obviously no posts in 1 month = pathetic), but we’re going to try to get back on track this week.

Your average college student faces many difficult decisions over the course of 5 years- if you haven’t chosen your major by your sophomore you feel like the entire world is pressuring you to choose; you have two groups of friends who want you to live with them and you don’t want to offend John and the boys by not living with them even though you know they’ll never do the dishes; and then there’s that thing called dating. Equally intriguing to me, especially now after living without a car and realizing the benefits of that, is what goes into the decision for a student to have a car on a college campus.

What is it that causes a student, already burdened by rising tuition and Minneapolis rent, to fork over another $100/month to have their car in a heated garage below their apartment building? Even for those that live on the fringes of campus where street parking is handily available, exorbitant parking garage rates and meter fees, not to mention that $34 ticket from the city of Minneapolis when you thought you could get away with that spot, can equate your grocery bill for the month.

Therefore, as not only a thrifty and money-conscious college student, but as a world traveler with an international perspective and now a conscientious objector to a consumption-driven culture, not having a car on campus was a no-brainer to me. From my perspective, this holds many benefits- I reduce my ‘carbon footprint,’ I save money, I get more exercise, and I have the opportunity to thank the kind individuals who give me rides!

But, until I actually made my first trip on the bus to South Minneapolis where I volunteer on a weekly basis, I was totally oblivious to another benefit of public transit. Sure, it may be unreliable, inconvenient, and confusing at times, but for me, the actual experience of a bus ride makes up for all that. All of you who have ridden a bus in the US are probably wondering how this could be. Let me share an example that will help illustrate my point.

It’s Tuesday morning. I board the 22A and take a seat a few rows from the front on the driver’s side. I pull a book out of my backpack, taking advantage of the opportunity to be transported while relaxing, reading, and not being stressed out by traffic or that idiot driver ahead of me (which we have all been at one time or another). As I do so, an unlikely connection begins to happen. A heavier-set white man across from me, slightly balding with a cane, strikes up a conversation with the young black male sitting in the row behind me, curly haired, lanky, and what society would generally refer to as ‘rough around the edges.’

I’m not really sure how the conversation started, but the topic of conversation moved to a subject of common ground. The ‘fat and bald white guy’ turns out be just coming off a night shift- I couldn’t pick up where- and is in great spirits. I gather that he has seen a good variety of jobs and people over the years, living and working in Minneapolis. His comments and simple yet engaging, and the ‘young thug’ is drawn to him and answering his questions. He begins to open up to his older friend. Still in high school, providing for his family has become the focus of life. He is trying to balance a job with school and the responsibility of caring for his younger sister. The man understands, he relates to the struggles the young man is having. He provides words of advice and encouragement.

After about 10 minutes, the young man’s stop is up. His stop is the same as mine. The unlikely pair says their farewells to each other. As he exits, me behind him, I hear the man yell, “Keep those grades up, too!” I was touched. Two human beings, seemingly nothing in common except the bus line they shared, had connected. I was moved. Who knows, maybe this interaction was what the young man needed to find the motivation to stay in school. What if this is the conversation he remembers five years from now for the positive encouragement it provided?

Everyone riding the bus has a story. All coming from different origins, moving to different destinations, but doing so through the same means. And all with something deeper in common.

Putting Your Heart and Soul Into It

There is a little known song that goes ‘all the way till my final day I want to live so I can say “what a ride”.’ At this point, I don’t think anything could better describe my mindset after the last 4 months in Ecuador, not to mention the past 7 months of this life journey. Indeed, what a ride it has been. And while I could fill up pages and pages of text with thoughts and reflections on readjustment, I have recently come to believe in the effectiveness of short and powerful messages. Practice what you preach, as they say.

In this same song, one of the verses goes on to say “I want to elevate joy to an art… see with my soul, hear with my heart.” Again the words ring so true with me- how else could I have learned so much and enjoyed life on a new level when I lived in multiple ‘worlds’ that had completely different visual appearances, cultures, and dialects of languages not to mention completely different languages!? Yes, my heart and soul were at work, and when I listened and saw through them I connected with the hearts and souls of other individuals- individuals with nothing visibly in common with me, just the goodness in their hearts and souls to make that improbable connection.

As I was reading Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Will Meet in Heaven, this internal connection we have with others became even clearer to me. He says through one of his characters, “Everybody is related to one another. You can’t separate the life of one individual from another just as you can’t separate the breeze from the wind.” (rough translation from Spanish as I’m reading it in Spanish, a valid attempt to keep up my language skills…) So as you look at the relationships you have now and the ones you will be sure to form, try to see with your soul and hear with your heart, you may find yourself connecting with people you thought you’d have nothing in common with.

Oh, and there one more thing you’re soul and heart can do for you. They may just reveal to you the secret to eternal happiness. Now admittedly, it’s not hard to enjoy one’s self while trying out new and crazy internships in historic cities or small villages, while climbing mountains or lying on the beach in some of the most beautiful country on Earth, or being introduced into the homes and lives of 3 new families! This is what I had to keep me entertained these last 7 months. Yet when I got down to the root of my happiness; when I ‘elevated my joy to an art,’ I realized that I found joy in the little things- the people I surrounded myself with, nights of great conversation and food, and simply the way I lived my life.

I stumbled across this great quote in an email of ‘daily good’ I receive (follow the link to sign up):

“If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day.” --W. Beran Wolfe

Happiness is not a destination that can be discovered. However, it is what we find when our destination is discovery.

Thanks for keeping up with the blog! I plan to continue my weekly musings because, as we all know, the destination has not yet been reached and there are still more things to be discover. I look forward to keeping the conversation going!

An Amazing Adventure- The Galapagos, Amazon Rainforest, and Everything In-Between

I just wanted to get some pics up real quick before I entered my final post about Ecuador. These are all from the 2 weeks following the end of my program. My parents came down to visit me and we took off around the country, seeing the famous Galapagos Islands, the Ecuadorian Amazon Rainforest while staying at a secluded lodge, my place of internship at Yunguilla, the markets at Otavalo, and spending a wonderful Christmas in Qutio. It was a memorable way to depart such a wonderful country!

The Christmas celebration

It was hard to say goodbye to the people at CIMAS (where we took classes)

We went back to visit my Yunguilla families again

Amazon

Face painting!

Our guides and the rest of our group

Yep, that's a tarantula

Galapagos

You can get so close to the animals- it's amazing

The famous blue-footed boobies

Some Final Reflections on Yunguilla

As I now sit in the comfort of my Minnesota home next to the warm fire, sheltered from the unbearable cold, I find it fitting to close out my thoughts on my Yunguilla adventure. A week-and-a-half back in the United States following an amazing 2 week journey with my parents around Ecuador has given me time and space to properly evaluate not just Yunguilla, but my entire Ecuador experience and the transition back to the States (both of which will be covered in a later post, stay tuned). I applaud your patience and dedication for bearing with me through this long break, and I hope you enjoy!

I left Yunguilla more than a month ago now on December 7, feeling guilty more than anything that I had not become more attached to this community. On my last day, as I signed the ‘volunteer memories book,’ if you will, I couldn’t help but peek at what some of the past visitors to the community had wrote of their experience. Phrases of ‘greatest experience of my life’ and ‘can’t wait to return’ along with ‘I have formed lifelong friendships’ seemed to litter the page, putting a sour taste in my mouth. What had I missed about this place that made it so treasured in the minds of those who had passed through before me? Was the language barrier or perhaps the cultural barrier really the source of my frustration? I was starting to think of this more as just a convenient excuse.

One of the aspects of the community I struggled with the most was the value attached to nearly every service. While the local development projects of ecotourism, etc. were a great benefit to the community, they were also apparently coming at a cost that can only really be measured in kindness. In other words, the development initiatives were taking priceless favors- especially larger ones- out of the community. In our last week in the community, we went camping with one of our better friends who is also a trained guide. Even though we have worked as volunteers in the community for 5 weeks, we are still treated like tourists and have to pay him the full guiding fee for 2 days. Later in December, I revisit the community with my parents, asking perhaps for a discount for our stay, only to receive the $25/night national rate instead of the $30 foreigner rate. These examples tear me apart because on one side of my brain, I know this community could benefit from my money more than I can and I should be glad to support their services. On the other hand, though, in my culture I tend to feel disrespected when 5 weeks of my sweat and energy is not acknowledged by a more significant gesture from the community.

Almost as a joke, on my final journey out of the community in the car of director’s vehicle, we were once again faced with the challenge of the road under construction. I was wondering if I’d ever make it out of this place, yet as I did a wave of guilt and humility swept over me. Once again, my occidental way of thinking had kicked in ever so subtly. The ‘other’- a way of life I wasn’t accustomed to, this Ecuadorian mestizo campesino culture- had suddenly become the ‘bad.’ I was realizing that maybe this inner-struggle was for the best- that is if you choose to measure the ‘good’ by the ‘learning.’

In the end, even though this cloud forest paradise may not be on the top of my list marked ‘places to revisit in Ecuador,’ it may sit at the top of my list marked ‘experiences in Ecuador with the greatest impact on my life.’ I’m not exactly sure how this growth will manifest itself in my own life, but I can already start to feel it take hold. Therefore, in all of this lies a simple lesson. Sometimes our struggles in life have hidden within them some of our greatest opportunities for growth. More generally, in every gloomy situation can be found some sunshine. Have a sunny day!

With parts of both my Yunguilla host families