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2012 Essay Contest Winners

1st: Remembering the Taste of Senegal

by Arielle Ramberg

As James Beard says, "Food is our common ground, a universal experience." When I prepared for my semester abroad in Dakar, Senegal, food was not a major concern for me. In my opinion, food was a given: we all have to eat and I knew I would be eating many meals in Senegal over the months that followed. As a result, I did not think specifically about what food experiences awaited me outside of the expectation of cultural differences in dishes and preparation methods. However, despite it being a relatively mundane aspect of culture, I soon found that food provided great insight into Senegalese culture and was incorporated into many of my most memorable experiences.

As Linfield's pioneer group to Senegal in the fall of 2010, we did not know quite what to expect of the semester ahead when myself and four other girls were dropped off at apartments at 5 AM shortly after our arrival. As we unpacked our bags and settled into our apartment to take a nap, we were intrigued by the sights from our balcony and the sounds of sheep baaa-ing, people conversing in Wolof - the local African language - in the streets, and the morning call to prayer. With our first meal delivered to the apartment by our hosts at the Baobab Center came the realization that we were really in a different country. Lunch included a pan of delicious caramelized onions and a platter of whole fried fish, with eyes, teeth, and scales intact. Though we were hesitant at first, we were fascinated by their sharp fangs, decided that they were piranhas, and enjoyed playing with them more than we enjoyed eating them. While we soon grew to love and look forward to this dish, called yassa jen, the first few days of food experiences reaffirmed that we were far from the culinary world that we recognized.

Orientation involved our first lessons in the art of eating around a communal bowl. We learned how to comfortably sit on a mat on the floor around the circular platter, to respectfully stay in our own "piece of the pie" and tidy our area when we were through, to eat with our hands or expertly scoop rice up with a spoon, and to share the communal vegetables and meat in the middle that are separated out by the host. We learned about the expectation to eat more than we had ever eaten before, as our host families would continue to insist that we stay to eat - Kaay! Lekkal! ("Come! Eat!" in Wolof) - until we absolutely insisted that we were full and satisfied - suur naa, neex na, bari na (I'm full, it was good, it was enough). We were told to expect teranga, meaning hospitality in Wolof, but nothing could have prepared us for the invitations always extended to guests arriving at mealtime, the instant acceptance of last minute friends around the communal platter, and the demands to Kaay! Lekkal! from complete strangers in markets and other public places.

I sat around the communal platter with my host family for at least two meals a day throughout the semester, carrying on conversation, hearing the latest family gossip, and watching Bollywood soap operas and Colombo reruns with my host mother. I learned through observation, immersion, and trial-and-error. Seated on a short stool in the kitchen, I picked up new vocabulary with the help of Ndeyekane, the domestique (maid) of my house who only spoke Wolof and enough French to tell me with a shy smile that she thought Barack Obama was very handsome. Using gestures and the little knowledge of Wolof I had, we chatted nearly every night as she expertly sliced onions in her hands, chopped up potatoes for homemade French fries, and laughed at my attempts to speak the language. My host mother bonded with me as she complained about my 30-year-old host brother Mouhamed never cleaning up after himself, realizing mid-rant that she was sitting on a half-eaten ear of corn he had left tucked in the couch cushion. It was in the kitchen and around the communal bowl twice a day that I began to fit in, developing my language skills and bonding with the members of my household.

Every cultural experience that stands out in my mind is somehow associated with food. My host cousin taught me to brew traditional tea (attaaya), and I taught him the macarena as the rainy season trapped us under the shelter of the patio, flooded the yard, and drenched the clothes hanging on the line. Between mouthfuls of Senegalese hamburgers which featured more egg and fries than burger between the buns, we introduced our Senegalese friends to "Je n'ai jamais..." ("Never I have never...") and stayed up laughing until 4 AM. Sitting in the cool breeze on the roof of another Linfield student's host house as the sun set, we played cards, listened to songs by Bob Marley and Rihanna, and discussed our different yet similar cultures over three rounds of attaaya, ears of charcoal-grilled corn on the cob, and handfuls of freshly roasted peanuts. Accompanied by neighbors, I cheered at soccer games and enjoyed small bags of frozen fruit juice that cooled me off as I continued to sweat through my clothing. I tasted refreshing juices made of ingredients I knew, like mango, tamarind, ginger, and hibiscus (called bissap), and others I had never heard of before - baobab fruit (called bouye) and ditakh.

We enjoyed ripe mangoes, coconuts, bananas, and oranges from familiar fruit stands on the walk home from school each day. In a true Senegalese fashion, this was always a leisurely stroll involving chats with the locals who grew accustomed to seeing us. We knew the woman who made hot beignets dusted with sugar that melted in our mouths, and the men in the tent down the street from the Baobab Center knew our names from our frequent visits for egg sandwiches and Touba cafe. Rather than rushing from place to place in an American manner, we were encouraged to take our time and spend it with people.

We discovered delicious snacks at the boutiques, small shops on nearly every street corner. The experience of making food purchases emphasized once more that we were far from the United States. In my quest for a bag of yogurt at one boutique, I experienced the shortage of coins in Senegal firsthand when a shopkeeper did not have change for my large bill (10,000 CFA=$20). He allowed me to come back the following day to pay him the 250 CFA (50 cents) that I owed him. Weeks later, I trusted him in return when he owed me 1000 CFA. When I learned how common this practice is, I was in awe of how trust worked in Senegal in ways rarely seen in the United States. Furthermore, the value of respect was emphasized in encounters in grocery stores when I utilized the extensive traditional Wolof greetings to chat with the cashiers. By asking about their well-being and their families, I recognized the humanity often denied to employees in the United States as we simply wait in silence to hand over our money so we can move on with our lives.
In addition to adapting to these cultural customs, we developed food habits of our own. There were the late night walks to Chez Joe’s to satisfy cravings for hamburgers, the early morning stops at the best bakery in town for a chocolate croissant after a long night of dancing, and the frequent trips to buy ice cream bars between classes while Senegalese onlookers laughed at us silly toubabs (white people) who still enjoyed such sweets past childhood. For me personally, there was the obligation to try the Barack Obama flavor at every ice cream shop, the strategic skipping of Friday lunches to avoid soupe kandja— a okra gumbo with a mucous-like texture that I always dreaded, and the naming of the sheep who I chatted with daily in my yard as I fed them leaves and watermelon rinds through the windows in their pen until they disappeared and our fridge was restocked with meat.
As I adapted to my Senegalese life, there were, of course, difficult days. My food experiences were not always pleasant, but there was always a lesson involved. Having the stomach flu during a bread strike taught me about medical beliefs in Senegalese culture as everyone I knew pushed me to eat as much as possible, conflicting with my American medical beliefs of sticking with small helpings of bland things. One of my first cultural lessons came after I was kept up all night by gnawing sounds when my forgotten stash of comfort food had been discovered by mice. As terrible and homesick as I had felt throughout that night, it did not compare to the guilt I felt when I had to take the contaminated food out to the garbage and realized that I should have shared it with my host family while I had the chance. In Senegalese culture, food is always shared; whether it is a bag of cookies or the last two inches of a can of soda, everyone in the house is asked if they would like a bite or a sip. From then on, whatever I brought home or received in the mail was eagerly passed into the hands of family, friends, and visitors.
With the arrival of care packages from the United States, certain foods became more precious and brought more joy than they do when they are readily available at the grocery store in the U.S. Every last M&M was savored, boxes of Kraft Easy Mac were rationed for the occasional homesick lunches, and snacks were stashed away to share at a later date. Candy corn became a plaything for our Senegalese friends when it was deemed too sweet to consume and used instead to make vampire fangs. My host cousin Abdullah’s terrible two’s were cured when I treated him with a lollipop during each Sunday visit. Another Linfield student and I unintentionally deterred a persistent rapper who loved to strike up conversations with Americans in the streets when we greeted him with smiles displaying purple teeth thanks to dried blueberries. In this way, food I was familiar with and could usually pick up at my neighborhood Trader Joe’s took on new meaning for me in an unfamiliar place.
Most of all, my experiences surrounding food made me feel like I belonged. When another Linfield student’s mother and my host aunt returned from their pilgrimages to Mecca, I helped prepare for and clean up after two different parties. Wearing a pagne, I sat outside on the patio and cut onions for eight hours while talking with my host mom’s friends and relatives; then I walked across the neighborhood with all the women to feast and celebrate. The fact that my hands smelled like onions for a week afterwards only added to my pride since they signaled that I had finally gotten to know Senegalese women after months of hanging out with the college-aged men in my neighborhood. Then, while washing dishes in a Senegalese fashion outside of the other Linfield student’s host house after the second party, we noticed that her host brother and his friend were laughing at us and taking photos of us on their cell phones. Apparently they found it hilarious that us toubabs had volunteered to do dishes since it went against their expectations. Domestic tasks were definitely a way for us to gain access and respect by proving that we were willing to participate in the culture as any other woman would. Since hospitality is so highly valued in Senegal, I knew I had become a member of the family instead of a guest when I was sent down to the shop on my own to buy the day’s bread and when my host mom finally allowed me to tidy up after dinner.
It was also around mealtime that I finally felt that I had adapted to my Senegalese life, at least in terms of my language skills. One evening, I overheard the words “muus bi” and “bunt bi” (cat and door respectively), recognized that my host mother was describing her daily struggle with keeping the stray cats from sneaking inside while we ate, and got up to shut the door without a second thought. This stunned my host mom, who exclaimed a phrase equivalent to one that all of us Linfield students had joked about but yearned to hear: Laayilah, toubab bi degg na Wolof bu baax!— My God, this white person understands Wolof very well!
Then the day came when it was time to go home. Upon landing at the airport in New York and taking our first steps back onto American soil, we were bombarded with differences—the pristine restaurants and bright, spotless shops; the high prices; the outrageous portions; and the mechanical way in which we were processed through lines with speedy transactions and minimal human interaction. We gorged ourselves on foods that we had missed. As I tasted the difference in gummy bears, greasy pizza, and sugary frosted cookies, I regretted it almost instantly. Our stomachs and teeth ached after months of eating healthy in a country where high fructose corn syrup does not exist. With the physically sick feeling came the feeling of farsickness. I longed for chatting with my host mom over a cup of Nescafé, walking to Chez Joe’s with my closest friends for a hamburger, sitting with Ndeyekane as she cut potatoes for fresh French fries, and joining my family around the communal bowl. But in the United States, mealtimes are lonely, private, individualized, and a means to an end. It was a hard adjustment coming from a culture where “each person is another’s remedy” to another where time is money.
Now, over a year after my return, I have managed to keep a bit of Senegal with me. Food has played a major role in my coping process. Armed with my Senegalese tea set, I revel in the faces family members make when they taste the first bitter round of attaaya and when they are finally won over with the third sweet minty glass. I prepare Senegalese dishes for my friends and family to enjoy around a communal platter with me. I introduce my roommates and classmates to richly flavored yassa and creamy thiakri, a mix of yogurt, millet, and cinnamon. Each food comes with a story, a meaning acquired from my experiences. I describe the challenges of eating around a communal bowl next to a two-year-old, the deep conversations I had while drinking tea, the hours spent cutting onions, and learning cooking vocabulary from Ndeyekane. I tell of the laughter and the tears, and I heal. As I cook, I am transported back to Senegal and, by sharing my creations senegalaisement (in a Senegalese fashion), my friends and family travel with me.

2nd: An Interesting Interview and Two Nights in Nikko

by Leah Sedy

An Interesting Interview and Two Nights in Nikko
Nikko—two hours’ train ride from Tokyo in the heart of Tochigi Prefecture; the retreat of ascetics, mentally unstable emperors, and city-weary Leahs. But I get ahead of myself.
Before coming to Japan, I was able to receive the Boren Scholarship—funds for a year abroad from the National Security Education Program (NSEP) of the U.S. State Department, in return for a year of service in the government after I graduate. About a month after arriving in Kyoto I received a surprising email from Mrs. Suzanne Basalla, senior advisor to the current Ambassador to Japan, John Roos. “In my last job at the Pentagon we hired a former Boren scholar,” she wrote to all Boren scholars currently studying in Japan, “And I was so impressed I took the liberty of getting your email addresses from NSEP. If any of you ever come to Tokyo, feel free to drop in at the Embassy and we’ll get together for coffee.”
It’s not every day I get invitations to coffee by the Ambassador’s senior advisor, so I decided during Spring Break to make a special trip up to Tokyo to meet with her. To be honest, I heartily dislike the sprawling metropolis. I had visited earlier in the year, and it was then that I realized how rather than Japan in general, my heart is given to Kyoto—quiet, sweet-smelling Kyoto, lovingly circled with modest green foothills (as someone who grew up in the shadow of the Cascades, I couldn’t quite call them ‘mountains’).
So I thought I would endure the 6-hour ride to Tokyo on the overnight bus, meet with Mrs. Basalla, and then return to Kyoto the same evening. But then an idea came into my head: “Nikko. You’re going all the way to Tokyo on that awful night bus; you might as well make use of it! Why not book a few nights at a hostel in Nikko?” The name brought to mind images of dark forests, cold, clear air; mountains. Yes, I was very much in need of some mountains.
I was just a bit nervous about traveling so far alone.
“You never know,” said my dorm-mate Stacey in her Yorkshire accent, “You might meet some cool people.”
I snorted. “I’m not going there to meet people, just to get my mountain fix and tree-worship in,” though when I said it I thought I’d never done something so utterly self-indulgent as traveling someplace with the sole goal of enjoying. Well, I defended myself, I’m in Japan, I have to be a good exchange student and step out from time to time and explore.
On a crisp, grey morning, at a Starbucks near the Embassy (I had a cherry-blossom-flavored latte) I met Mrs. Basalla. She was very kind, and talking with her was like talking with a professor from back at Linfield. She was interested in my life at Doshisha and told me stories of her own experience studying abroad in Japan. She also sprung an interesting question on me. “It’s really dismal how few young Japanese are studying abroad. The Ambassador and I are trying to brainstorm creative ideas for attracting more Japanese students to the U.S. Do you have any ideas?”
I realized how difficult her job must be, appeasing pressures from Washington to advance national interests in the face of a foreign country not always very interested. Hmm, I thought. Did I really want to go into government? The world was suddenly looking entirely too big and serious for me. Time to escape to Nikko!
When I got off the train in Nikko, I noticed instantly how clear and delicious the fresh mountain air was. I gulped it in eagerly and set off to find the hostel I would stay in for the two nights. It was a tiny Japanese-style place. From the booking website I’d gathered it was run by a friendly married couple called Sato. When I opened the door Mr. Sato, in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, was lounging with his legs in the kotatsu (a wonderful Japanese invention consisting of a low table with a heating element under it and a quilt spread over the top).
“Oh hey, Leah-san! It is Leah, isn’t it?” he called. He set me up with tea in the toasty kotatsu before showing me my tatami-mat room.
The next morning I gasped as I stepped out of the hostel at the view of the mountains that I hadn’t seen in the dark last night. I set off for what turned out to be a magical, but weary day of hiking through snow and shrines and silent cedar forests. In late February, the snow was still deep, but the trees dripped and whispered of spring, and the streams flowed loud and fast. I made a new friend: a tiny cinnamon-colored stray cat. She came running out of under a temple building mewing at me, and when I crouched down to her she jumped right into my lap, and gave me a kitty-hug by putting cold little paws up to my neck. I think she also gave me a few fleas.
I went back into town for lunch at a little place that advertised yuba-udon. Yuba is a specialty of Tochigi but I’m not exactly sure what it is. It seems to be a by-product of the soymilk-making process, but it was delicious. I was the only customer, so I tried chatting a little with the owner, an old man with a toothless smile. I often have a hard time understanding older folks’ Japanese and they seem to have a hard time understanding mine, but we got along. I asked him what his favorite season in Nikko was. “Tashika ni (certainly) Nikko is famous for the fall leaves. This shop gets really crowded then. But I like early spring, when there is new green on the hills. You should come again then, or stay longer,” he chuckled.
I spent the remaining daylight, which fades quickly when the sun drops behind the mountains, walking along the Daiya River. I had read somewhere that the Taisho Emperor who came to Nikko to escape Tokyo summers loved the river and wrote a poem about it that is inscribed on a rock somewhere nearby. I never found the rock, but it was indeed a beautiful river: clear as light in the shallows and deep turquoise in the pools.
That evening four more guests came to the hostel, German girls visiting their friend Juliane who was studying at Keio University in Tokyo. They were very friendly and when they saw I was alone they invited me out to dinner with them. Living with three Germans in my dorm I’ve gotten used to their pert, direct style and dry sense of humor—if Americans are notorious for talking straight I think Germans deserve the reputation as well! I spent the dinner laughing at their banter. I learned later in the evening that the girls were planning a trip to Kyoto the next week—I offered to meet them and show them around for a day or two. Juliane and I stayed up late exchanging stories of study abroad. She had arrived at Keio the same month I had come to Doshisha, and was also staying for a year. “Once I went to a host-club,” she said, “But it was so weird to pay for flirting. I asked one boy “Do you have plans for your future?” but he just kept saying I am so pretty. What a joke!” I tried not to laugh too loud. I could just see the practically-minded Juliane ruining the mood by asking the host about his future.
In the morning I got up early to set off for a soak at Yumoto-onsen, a tiny town in the heart of the mountains built around natural hot-springs. The two-hour bus ride was breath-taking, especially the morning brilliance reflected in the white snow and powder blue of Lake Chuzenji. Then came the Senjogahara Plain, in winter a white expanse dotted with elegant birch trees. Yumoto-onsen was deep in snow, with the plowed piles at the sides of the narrow roads reaching almost double my height. The sky was a brilliant blue and the wind roaring in the pines seemed as loud as jet engines. A sulfur smell hung over the town. It was empty at midday and the first onsen I entered I had to myself. My favorite are the outdoor baths; this one was built against a snowy hillside and the bitter wind flowing under the black pines blew tiny ice crystals across my bare shoulders.
In the next onsen bath I visited, a young Japanese woman was also enjoying the mineral-rich pools. I felt it was a little awkward to be naked in a small bath with a complete stranger without saying anything, so I said, “It feels good doesn’t it?”
The woman’s face lit up. “Yes,” she said, “My husband and I came from Yokohama to visit Nikko’s onsen.”
We chatted a bit about the joys of onsen, and then she said, “Were you born in Japan?”
This question was so different from the usual, “Which country are you from? Your Japanese is very good!” that I was immensely flattered.
“Oh no,” I said, “I’m from America. I’m just studying abroad.”
The conversation left a warm feeling that lasted long after the warmth of the mineral water had gone. Enjoying myself in the Japanese context of an onsen, talking freely in Japanese, I had been mistaken for (almost) a native. At the 6-month mark of my stay, when I was frustrated at not seeing progress either in my Japanese skills or in my ability to connect with Japanese people, I felt a change in myself, as if a string, lying quiet all this time, had been plucked suddenly and vibrated now with new confidence. Yes, spring was coming.
All too soon I had to return from Yumoto to the hostel. I must pack up my things and take the evening train for Tokyo to catch the overnight bus back to Kyoto. The time in Nikko had been entirely too short. The merry German girls I would meet again in Kyoto, but the Satos, the woman I had met at the onsen, little brown cat, the places I had wanted to see but didn’t have time for, the morning view of the mountains…I would miss it all so much. Even Mr. Sato appealed to me.
“Do you really have to go so soon? Won’t you come tonight to a full-moon party?”
I wished he hadn’t invited me. It made me sadder to leave. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I really have to catch that bus. But is tonight a full moon?”
When I had the leisure to sit quietly in my seat as the train pulled away, a few tears started swimming in my eyes. For the first time I was returning to Kyoto reluctantly. I looked glumly out the window as the moon rose, round and golden as a 500 yen coin in the purple sky. I was already thinking of when I might have a break long enough to come back—May? I could see the “new green” that old man in the yuba shop had mentioned. End of June? Senjogahara would be waist-deep in wildflowers. But oh dear, there are still so many other places in Japan I wanted to see, and the train was trundling inexorably back to Kyoto, to a new semester of life abroad in Japan.

3rd: The Beauty and the Pain of Leaving and Coming Home

by Sarah Korn

I cried three times, the day I flew home. The morning felt like any other morning, just colder, since I was up at 3. Like the time I woke up so early for my terrible trip to England, the cool breeze from the Neckar coming in from my open window, greeting me, curious as to why I was awake so early. I was awake, checking everything twice, and then again. The walls were bare, all my photos, calendars and flags, the license plate I’d found on the side of the road that night I took a walk with Krista, the coaster Cory wrote me a poem on, the letters from friends and family I’d received while abroad all packed neatly in my two bags. I just didn’t think it could be true, I didn’t believe I was leaving. Not that the Wartburg was a particularly nice place to live—fraternity-owned houses rarely are, and I was definitely looking forward to not sharing a bathroom with 4 other men, but it had been my home for 11 months, and I cherished so many memories that had been made in it. Getting to the airport was perfectly hectic; I would have been worried if it had been too easy. Cory and I had to sit with the luggage while Brock and Haleigh sat in a compartment, but I didn’t mind.
We checked our luggage, then said goodbye to Cory, whose departure time had snuck up on us. A few minutes later, we realized Haleigh needed to go to a different terminal, than I did, and we realized we were saying goodbye. It was not like I imagined it, in the middle of the escalators between the upper and lower train station, crying as I hugged my best friend of 11 months almost to the day, doing my best to hold back as much as I could, knowing how she was not prone to emotional outbursts as I am.
The hours passed slowly, as Brock and I read the paper and talked about what it would be like to be back in the United States. “I’m going to go to a grocery store and lay down in the aisle spread out just because there’s so much space, and nobody is going to yell at me for it” Brock said. Imagining this made me laugh, as I had no doubt this was a possibility. We played chess and napped, waiting for it to be time for us to part ways. When we did, it was with a hug and a promise to stay in touch and that we’d see each other at the 20th AJY reunion, wherever we ended up planning for it to be.
I went through passport control, and felt so proud when I was able to easily converse with the border policeman in German, and he looked up in surprise and told me “wie schön, dass Sie Deutsch sprechen.” After I bought my last purchase in Germany (three Ritter Sports of course), settled in on the plane and began to realize what was happening, I silently began to sob. I tried not to alarm my seatmates, or the stewardesses and other passengers, but nobody seemed to notice me, which I counted as a plus. I cried for all the things I knew I would miss and all the things I would find out only once I returned to the US that I missed. I know the sleep deprivation was also a part, but it was my farewell, and I was so sad to go and so happy to be seeing my family again. It was a time of very confusing tears.
I had a layover in Chicago of just an hour and a half, during which I needed to go through customs, move my bags to the new carrier, meet up with a friend I knew through AJY who lived in Chicago, get to my new terminal, and get on my next plane. It was a teensy bit stressful, but I got through customs (lied about the sausage my host family had given me that I was giving to my real family) and got my bags on their way and found Mark. Seeing Mark not in Heidelberg was incredibly weird. We construct these ideas of where we know people from, what world they belong to, and when those are shifted, it takes an adjustment. Mark and I talked about Heidelberg, crammed in as much about what had happened in our lives since December in a half an hour, and then I said goodbye, and promised to keep writing. I was sort of in shock the whole line through security- everyone was talking all at once it seemed, a cacophony of words that were familiar and unclouded in my mind, the way German words sometimes are. Strangers were talking to one another, but the strangest part was when I was in line to get on my last plane, the one to Atlanta, and someone said “go ahead, darlin’ ”to me. “Darlin’?” I thought, “Did he just call me “darlin’ ”? BUT I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM!” I forgot that we Americans talk to one another as if we know each other, as if we’re long lost friends, or family. It was something no German would have ever said to me in that context, and I was flummoxed as to why he was talking to me.
Before take-off, the tears started up for the third time—I asked myself if I would ever be able to get on a plane and not cry— but this time they were more of an overwhelmed kind. I was back in my homeland but I was confused by my own countrymen and women. I missed Germany already, I didn’t want to be on an airplane for one more second, and I wanted to go home to Heidelberg so I could go to bed because I was exhausted. I fell asleep before we even took off.
The terminal in Atlanta was empty except for my flight, and I made my way through, following all the exit signs, not knowing exactly how I felt. Then I saw my sister, in her slippers and pajamas—it was 1am, way past her six-year-old bedtime— and the smile that broke out across her face made all the tears I’d cried that day completely worth it; I had forgotten what she looked like in real life-her missing front teeth seemed more real than they had on Skype, and as I scooped her up, my heart squeezed with how much I had missed that. I hugged her close for a very long time.

4st: A Moment in Ecuador

by Rosa Gimson

This Moment in Ecuador
Rosa Gimson

The ache that I feel knowing that this moment is passing. The surreality of my life here, laying in this bed, studying the painting that my host-mother has painted. I look around my room, the picture of my host-sister and her boyfriend smiling at me, my closet emptier than I’m used to, the mounds of books I thought I would be reading. And I look at myself, my body sprawled and exhausted from my Modern Dance class, my hair fried from days in the Ecuadorian sun. My phone buzzes and I look to find a text from my amigovio (friend+boyfriend in Spanish)...how to I respond to this message? He wants to go out tonight, a Monday, at 9 pm, and I have a test tomorrow. Plus, I don’t quite know the protocol that my family wants in terms of going-out notice. As I think about what I want, I sniffle and my head pounds. Too many nights of going out with friends, exploring the city and surrounding areas, and learning how to salsa. I need rest.
My life here is unexplainable. A whirlwind of buses, long Spanish conversations, alone time, too much time with people, decisions about what to do, spur of the moment activities, traveling, breath taking beauty. I need it all to slow down. I continue to tell myself to take it one moment at a time, to soak it all up, but I feel that I as a sponge am leaving some liquid behind. How can I take in all of the adventure. From Mindo’s cloud forests, to Banos’ bridge jumping, to the indigenous market in Otovalo, to the time I was stranded at the Ecuador-Peru border. To the incredible warmth and security that my family has shown me. I am sure that I will not be able to take it all in. I am overwhelmed--knowing that I love every moment of this experience, knowing that I am blessed to be a part of this rich culture. I want every moment to continue forever so that I can walk along the cobble stones of Guapulo and examine every aspect of the graffiti on the ancient walls. I want time to pause when my bus stops just long enough for me watch a man walk on a tight-rope from two light poles in downtown Quito. So that I can understand what I’m seeing. So that I can laugh a little. So that I can truly appreciate the situation. I wish that the smell of bread from the bakery down my street, Mañosca, would always be just a few blocks away.
And then I think about a moment in which time did freeze. As my friends and I were driving away from Papallacta, a hot-springs resort outside of Quito, we stopped to look at the stars. In Quito it is utterly impossible to see a star because of the smog, but here they clutter my vision and throb as one giant, glittery amoeba. Surrounded by the Ecuadorian paramo I took a deep breath and looked skyward. At that moment I felt incredibly small, and accepted my life as certainly insignificant. I closed my eyes and thanked a higher power for this moment, and every moment after. And laying here in my bed, knowing that this moment is passing, it’s okay because life will pass but I am here. Right now. In Ecuador. Living a reality that I could not have imagined. And so with this acceptance I pick up my phone and respond to my amigovio, “see you in 10 minutes!”.