South America

The Do-Over

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I’m back in a place that pulls the rug out from under me while simultaneously tugging at my heartstrings.

The last time I was here, I was terrified, overwhelmed by the known unknown. The mental space to contemplate the unknown unknown came later. I’d landed in Bogota with bad Spanish, a 6 year old copy of South America on a Shoestring, a 4-night reservation in a hostel, and two weeks to get to Bolivia.

It sounds like the beginning of a great adventure, and it was. It was also the start of a 4-day panic attack that I mistook for altitude sickness: difficulty breathing, upset stomach, lack of appetite. I was frozen by fear of the vast openness of my life. I had no commitments, save a few meet ups, for months. I had no place to be. There were endless details to be addressed – where to sleep, to eat, to go, and how to get there (and what language was spoken or currency used once I did) – but no requirements, other than those I created for myself.

And then there was the city. Nestled into a lovely colonial, though basic, hostel in la Candelaria, I was surrounded by colorful two-story buildings with tile roofs and travelers. I could walk easily to many museums and the funicular, to the transmillenio to explore farther. But Bogota is as imposing as it is welcoming, and the security admonitions abounded.

My feet were cemented by my fear. Each day, I set a new target – a museum or sight just a tiny bit beyond my comfort zone (a relative statement, since cities have never been my thing) and eventually I found my way. It took more than one town, more than that first week, but I was soon able to balance unfettered glee with rational fear, for months on end.

Back in Bogota just over three years since I first arrived, and with only a day to play before moving on, I was nostalgically endeared to my poor, terrified self from that October. It’s a huge city, and exploring a new part of it with Spanish that seems to have completely escaped me, the challenges are real and many – language, altitude, safety. Aside from the arrivals hall in the airport, nothing is recognizable, and that fear comes back. When I set out to explore, the sky intermittently dumping water on my plans, air chocked by exhaust, there is much to be reckoned with. So I think back to what it is that tempers the fear: a manageable, bit-sized goal. Find just this one church, if there is time add just this one museum, and get back before dark. Sticking to that plan, the fear is gone.

It turns out the church isn’t so amazing, and I give up on the museum, as it is farther than I thought, and not walkable, and the altitude had given me a headache. But I have, once again, found my travel legs, my giddy love of the ridiculous impediments chance throws in our path and the encounters we greet in surmounting them. They are all little chips off this giant gem of life that gleams before us, and one by one we collect them, piece them together and make our own valuable stone.

 

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Dallas

This One Time, In America

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The first week I was back in the country, I was determined to make domestic life the same adventure I’d created in the rest of the world. Was I not seeing the US through new eyes?  Didn’t I want to be able to tell stories about home that sounded just like stories I could tell about every other country? This one time, in America…

I made a list of sites unexplored by me prior to my Dallas departure, and took a stab at one: The Bush Library.

The library is situated on the edge of the SMU campus. I followed signage that pointed me in the general direction of the library but not directly to it, or its parking lot, and eventually found what I was looking for. I have navigated the world’s museums and monuments in languages I don’t speak or read, but I literally got lost going from the parking lot to the museum, and accidentally ended up here, where an armed guard redirected me.

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I’d feel like my lefty impulses had led me astray, but two guys wearing OU shirts came up right behind me. “Turn around,” I told them. “Follow me.” They proceeded to believe I was a tour guide, until we got here, and I sat on a bench in the sun to wait for my friend Vivian. IMG_6821

I’ve never been to a presidential library, so I have nothing to which to compare this one. I’ve also never voted for a Republican, which I confess by way of saying, I went in with open eyes – been all around the world, seen a lot of things, like to absorb without judging – and this is what I saw, which I’m sure is partly impacted by my political beliefs:

George and Laura love each other – it sounds silly, but it’s true. The pictures of their early life together, the building of their family, may be propaganda, but they seem filled with love. I doubt the Clinton library could make so genuine a montage.

The exhibits start off feeling less than substantive. One big day-care-like room has information on education – No Child Left Behind exhibits and a display of books (Laura Bush is the creator of Texas Book Fest, an annual festival of authors, publishers, agents and books in Austin) aside a tax relief display without a hint of irony that the latter gutted any possibility of the former being successful. But then, we forget all about that, because 9/11 happens. IMG_6825

A narrow entrance pulls you into a circular path around the remnants of an I-beam. Lights are dimmed. The walls are lined with engraved names of the dead from both towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania flight, while televisions play news coverage of the attacks. It is emotionally overwhelming, but visually simple; an impactful, respectful display.

But then, there are the docents. In 15 feet of walking this exhibit, I was twice approached by women who may have been 55 but looked 75. While I was wiping a tear from my cheek, one said to me, “I saw you looking for someone’s name; did you know people in 9/11?” Another one approached me toward the end and said, “were you near New York on 9/11? Do you want to share your experience in our digital visitor book?”

I was tempted to ask, “are you a therapist? That’s so great that the library provides therapy with this exhibit!” Or, alternately, “are you a moron? You have NO IDEA what I could say right now. Are you prepared? Are you ready for me to tell you my mom jumped from the 44th floor? I didn’t think so.”

I just smiled, and moved on to exhibits on terror prevention (or deficit creation) and a beautiful display on action against HIV, with, of course, no hint of irony that the man responsible for re-establishing the global gag rule (and as a result, the loss of donated, HIV-preventing contraceptives by more than 20 developing nations around the world) would also give $15 billion dollars to combat AIDS.

Global AIDS Map

Global AIDS Map

The faces of HIV

The faces of HIV

Though everything pales in comparison to the 9/11 exhibit, the library makes excellent use of technology in Decision Points Theater, an interactive activity on decision making, in which participants get to participate in global diplomacy based on the limited amount of information a president would have had at any given time. Results are based on the majority vote of people in the room – exciting during a classroom visit, not so much when Vivian and I are two of five people in the room.

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By the time we had lunch (delicious) and were ready to leave, I was contemplating voting for Laura Bush, should she happen to make a presidential bid – 

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and feeling like this gift shop offering was a little redundant. 

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South America, Tourist, Traveling

The Terror….the Terror

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No one tells you about the terror. Everybody talks about how exciting it is, all the places you’ll see and the people you’ll meet. They talk about how your life is will change. They don’t talk about being nauseous, shaking, and feeling like you may pee your pants, simultaneously. No one warns you that you’ll get so anxious you’ll barely be able to say goodbye to your family without crying, even over the phone. Finally, I understand what people mean when they’ve been telling me for months, “you’re so brave!”  Apparently they all knew something I didn’t: this is terrifying.

Who in her right mind gives up a perfectly good job and an apartment and drives around the country for three months, then ditches dog and car and leaves the country for six? Who gives up the comfort of clean air and cotton sheets for diesel fumes and polyester? Or a nice deep tub and clean bathroom counter for a communal bathroom the size of a pea? Instead of telling me I was brave, I’m beginning to think people should have told me I was crazy. What is wrong with you people for not stopping me?!

Like all dreams, this one is currently suffering from a dose of hard reality.  The business class ticket was a good sendoff (and, dare I say, by the time I board that plane to Sydney, will be a welcome relief), and the free champagne went a long way to calm my frazzled nerves. Even Miami, which I recall being the armpit of airports, looked all spiffed up when I went out to the ticket counter to pay for a change to the Chilean leg of my plane ticket and came back through security. And Colombian customs? Uneventful, thank goodness. And then I woke up.

Now, while I walk around Bogota, the fear whispers at me like a Marlon Brando Apocalypse Now nightmare, only instead of “the horror,” it’s “the terror, the terror.”  In the newness of this one city, I am gleaning what the next six months of my life will be like: unfamiliar. Nothing to be taken for granted.  No landmarks by which to measure position or progress.

In a ten day vacation, I revel in this. Who cares about familiar food or your own bed for short periods of time? Or for that matter, being able to communicate fluidly? Isn’t half the fun of a foreign place the interaction you have while trying to engage in the completely, totally unfamiliar? Isn’t that why you leave the country?

Yesterday, negotiating something in my barely passable Spanish, I started panicking about how I will make it around Southeast Asia, where I can neither read nor speak the language. You got it: on day two of my 180 days, I started worrying about something that won’t happen until  the end of the second month. That’s day 60, for you math whizzes. And honestly, it was a pretty great day two (which I will write about later).

And so, this is how the transition goes. It is the challenge of a journey this length: how do I open my heart to this adventure without letting in too much of the fear? How do I balance the new and exhilarating with the exhaustion that comes with it? How do I learn to see today for today, and not for what it means for the next six months? My goal for Colombia is to bring myself to a place I can find comfort in being lost. I’ll let you know how it goes.