My first real jolt came when I stepped off the plane into Amsterdam Schipol, planning to find a shop in which to obtain a bottle of water. I was then confronted with a drinking fountain. Other things I tripped out on for a few weeks: Toilets. Toilet seats. Toilet paper. Sensor toilets? Woah. Functional street lights. Seatbelts. Cars with insulation (I felt like I was moving through the city in a space-age pod). Youtube. Broadband. Buses that stand upright. Light switches that turn on when you press the upper half. Water pressure. Sharp knives. Orange oranges. All these thing we take for granted, which many people in the developing world have never seen or imagined.
Upon my return home, I spent the better part of a week recovering from a virus I picked up in Lalibela. Whatever was screwing with my guts in Kenya decided to make a reappearance (and at this point I could declare with confidence it was not due to constipation), and I subsequently spent the rest of my two weeks at home in and out of the hospital. A blessedly bright, clean hospital with real technology, doctors who took me seriously, competent technicians and warm blankets. I’m now back in school, and it has been awful. I’ve been told by numerous people that it takes a semester to get back into the swing of things. I hope that’s true. So, seven weeks down, seven to go. Frisbee is my savior. I spent spring break– last week– in DC. Saw some family, visited library of congress, haunted Philene’s Basement for a few hours, had coffee with my senator, ate really good food, and oogled John Kerry from across the subway.
At this point, I find myself still adjusting to more subtle aspects of American culture (I still despise that term; it’s abysmally politically incorrect. In Spanish, we are Estadounidense; why isn’t there English terminology for ethnicity pertaining specifically to the US?). We are obsessed with timeliness. For a year, class started when the professor showed up. You arrived to parties 20 or 30 minutes late. “Dinner at 7” meant “Beginning to peel potatoes at 7.” At home, we arrive in class early. We meet and eat and work out and drink at agreed-upon times. Unless it’s a dance party, where it is universally understood that no one will ever, ever show up until at least midnight. In Kenya, buses waited to fill before moving. A five minute car ride into town took a half hour by bus, idling at the curb as conductors called to each and every passer by. At home, buses do not wait. If I’m the only one on the bus, I get a private ride. If you’re running late, it’ll leave you behind. (Actually, that’s how buses ran in Ecuador, too, but it still feels strange.) Water is free. I don’t even have to buy something else for it to be free. Not only is water free, but it’s clean. I still find myself asking people if it’s safe to drink out of the tap. And the amount of money we pay for food is beyond shocking. The $4.50 or so I spend daily on lunch would have held me over for multiple days in Kenya. Shoving my cell phone in my back pocket leaves me tense and anxious: I’ve become accustomed to keeping it safe from the hands of pickpockets. Oh, and the whole trusting the police thing? That’s taken a little getting used to as well.
Since my return, I’ve found there are people who I used to consider among my closest friends with whom I now seem to have nothing to talk about. This is definitely the hardest aspect of my return– we keep in touch, we talk while I’m gone. But while I’m away I change, whether or not I recognize it. At the same time, life continues at home without me. We grow and we diverge, and reunite as different people. Maybe the fact that this has happened before, and that I tried to prevent its reoccurrence, is what makes it so difficult to accept. Some people who I barely knew before I left welcomed me back with excitement (weird, but cool?) and there are people with whom I have the same cordial, friendly relationship as previously. I love the freedom I feel with new friends. There are no expectations based on who I was, designating who I’m supposed to be. I have nothing to live up to and no one to disappoint. I can be entirely myself, and people appreciate me for who I am at present. Maybe being abroad has also helped me to discover who my true friends and family are. They are those people whose love and support I felt no matter where I was. People who welcomed me home with giant hugs and respect the person I’ve become; who I know without a doubt I can trust and turn to for advise and support, and with whom I feel entirely at home and valued.
What I’ve taken pleasure in catching up on, after its notable yearlong absence from my life: Trashy magazines. Trashy TV. (I know, I’m classy). Chai. Salmon. Family. Friends. Apples. Streaming music.
What I’m currently boycotting: Potatoes. Rice. Anything involving mixed beans and corn. Spaghetti. Also, my Ethiopian infatuation with coffee was short-lived; chai is truly where my heart is.
I don’t feel the need to insert a “What I Will Miss” section pertaining to Kenya. I did a fairly decent job of that while I was in Nairobi.
My goal approaching my year abroad was to focus on the positive aspects of my experience. I’d seen a particular classmate’s progressive Facebook posts over his semester in GAIAS, and how they devolved slowly from elation to disgusted haste to leave the islands. I was determined to avoid becoming that person. I wanted to remember how profoundly lucky I was to have this opportunity.
I do not believe either experience had a stronger impact in the long run. I can state without a doubt that in the short term, Ecuador was more rewarding. My studies drew me in; they catered to, fed and shaped my passions. I was free to follow my interests. I had brilliant, passionate, interesting, well-rounded classmates. The Ecuadorian and Galápagueño culture was easy to adjust to, and I was able to communicate with relatively little difficulty. I truly felt like a member of my Quito family.
Kenya, in the short term, was frustrating. I found myself in an alien culture, fumbling with my family due to misplaces assumptions, unclear expectations and lack of communication from all ends. Rather than drawing me in, my studies convinced me this was absolutely not where I my life was headed. I did not find connections with my classmates. I had paranoid program staff and often felt like a kindergartener on a leash. The program’s greatest drawback was a lack of Kenyan classmates– I had no avenue to make Kenyan friends my age and consequently through which to better understand the culture. Kenyans, as a populace, were rude and unhelpful. My rewarding experiences were found on weekends, when I left Nairobi and my class behind to explore national parks, Kampala, and the Nile. Unquestionably, I gained the most by ditching class to climb Mt. Kenya.
In all fairness to the eastern hemisphere, there are definitely uglier aspects concerning the islands that I failed to mention. Like the fact that islands’ unfiltered sewage is dumped into the oceans adjacent to popular surf and snorkel sites, and tour boats simply dump waste into surrounding waters. Like the fact that, although the islands have recycling centers, the government refuses to pay shipping to return it to the mainland, so packaged bottles and boxes sit covered in dust until a cargo carrier offers free shipping, no pun intended. And like the fact that the islands’ surrounding oceans are sadly overfished, and prominent international (illegal) billfishing tournaments take place beginning on earth day. However, overall, Ecuador simply set a bar that Kenya was unable to match.
When it comes down to it, I would absolutely return to Ecuador. Given the opportunity to return to Africa long-term, I would not go back to Kenya.
As to my future, that particular minor tidbit currently falls under the category of Very Big Question. (Insert note to family here: Please, please do not turn every future conversation we hold into a Gavrila Post-College Life Coach Session. It will not be met with appreciation. I will experience ridiculous high school déjà vu, and you will find yourself conversing with a clam. The When, Where, What and How of my future are YTBD. It’ll make itself known when it feels ready; let’s not force it, please.)
Here’s what I have for you, as of now: In four words: I Have No Idea. In a bit more depth: I’ve discovered without doubt that some things I thought I was passionate about are most definitely not the path I want to follow. Por ejemplo: Blood and gore used to be my deal. Not so much any more. I have no intention of getting mixed up in all the political bull that I have discovered accompanies development in a package deal. Instead, I’ve found myself drawn to exploring how everything in the environment is connected, and how the environmental impact of human actions affects ecological and human community health. A couple examples: the oil fiasco in the Ecuadorian Amazon due to improper waste disposal, and effects that environmental impacts have had on indigenous populations (think river contamination, fishing, and all else that follows). Or on the marmosets, cause they’re pretty awesome too. Another example is glacial melt due to climate change, and effects of changing landscapes and landscape properties (biological, hydrological, chemical, geological) on local communities.
There are currently three options running circles in my head as to what I may or may not find myself engaged in post-graduation. (Which will be this December, which means I will not be Walking this May due to the extreme poser qualities of said proposed situation, which means we can have a party with decent food in glorious Ptown instead of dragging people through miles of cornfields to the industrial boonies of WI to watch me amble across a stage and shake the hands of people I’ve never met). Said options are:
1: Join the Peace Corps. Take two years to make myself more worldly by running around a developing country and gain more multilingual skills to add to my semi-bilingual Spanish and work with NGOs. Insert grad school into equation somewhere in the future too far to see.
2: Return to my dear beloved Ptown, find a job (unlikely) for a year or two, relax and enjoy people I love and miss, then find myself a grad school through which to continue climbing the ladders of academia.
3: Do something with myself for a semester and then find myself a grad school through which to continuing the ladders of academia. Most likely in a track relating to environmental biology, or ecology, with some sort of community health thrown in. Possibly back down at USFQ in Ecuador. Where I might then run around the Amazon for eight months under the pretense of researching my thesis.
So, we’ll see where this takes me. It’ll figure itself out, I think. I’m not worried.
And finally: my dear statistics feature informs me that my recent life has been followed from the USA, Kenya, Guinea-Bissau, South Korea, China, France, the Netherlands, India, Peru, Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Croatia, Iceland, Germany, Ecuador, Japan, Bulgaria, the UK, Canada, Egypt, Slovenia, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Malaysia, the UAE and Belgium. I most definitely could not point to all of these on the map, so label me impressed. It would be super awesome to know who you all actually are, whether I know you or not.
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