inspiration

inspiration can bring out the best and the worst in people, i think. we usually think of inspiration as something uplifting, something that drives you to strive for something greater, to look beyond a point to which you might have limited yourself before. but what if all of this vision goes in the wrong direction? i mean, i guess it's a matter of perspective, but generally a direction that hurts, destroys, and pillages...no bueno.

tonight, as i reread some of my blog posts from when i was in brazil, i was struck by how not only the place itself awoke inspiration in me, but also social situations, personal relationships, and the perceptions of those around me - sometimes i was angry, sometimes exhilarated beyond words, sometimes frustrated beyond tears - and all in the span of 3 months. i learned more about myself in that 3 months than i probably learned about myself in all of 2006, which is incredible. but it was also a little frightening. looking back, the very situations that drove me to tears, irrepressible laughter, and the simultaneous feeling of belonging and feeling like an outsider came out in so many different ways through my writing and inspired me to experience so many different feelings. amazing, incredible, ridiculous...and after all of this, i'm still me.

this past weekend was incredible. i got to hang out with people from all different circles of friends, some at the same time, all in unfamiliar environments. it feels new but always familiar, kinda like how it felt to return to the u.s. after being in brazil for 3 months...so short of a time, yet so long. i met one of these people last summer in france. he stayed in germany for a year after that, and we're just now getting the hang of chillin in the U.S. together...but even after a year, he's still the same, well to me anyway. did 11 months in germany not change him? or am i not looking hard enough? and if i hadn't told him would he even know i ever went to brazil based on how i act? sometimes i feel that my perceptions of my actions and the ways in which others perceive my actions are not the same...so really, all this changing that i thought i did in brazil, and the revelations i expressed through this very blog, are they only in my mind?

i'd like to think that something more happened than a bunch of stuff in my head. but as time passes here more brazilian mannerisms, perceptions, and portuguese words slip through my brain, no matter how much i try to stop them. i don't want this to just be a string of distant memories and a folder of photos on my computer. i want to keep this real, i want to feel all of those ways that i felt again. and that won't happen here. que pena...

once a nomad, it seems, always a nomad.
you never go back...well, not willingly anyway :)

...on being a nomad

i´ve discovered a lot over the past 3 months...well, that´s an understatement really, ha ha :) and with as much as i´ve learned, i´ve further discovered that i know basically 1/5654165456465456498786465486 (or less) of all i could possibly know about in this world. wow.

the full realization of that hits pretty hard, especially since i just spent the last 18 years of my life getting educated, and after graduating with a college degree, i´m now realizing that i know basically nothing, ha ha :) it´s liberating in a way, since you still have such a far way to go, so many things left to explore - but it´s frustrating in a way too, since you still have such a far way to go. depends how you look at i guess, like with anything else.

kinda like my time here...3 days. i can´t believe it, it´s gone by so fast! what have i been doing with myself for the past 3 months? ok, working obviously, and hanging out with amazing aiesecers and other incredible people i´ve met here. but really, what have i done? in some ways i feel like a completely different person, but i don´t know why exactly, and i couldn´t tell you what about me has changed. maybe nothing´s changed, it´s just my perception. who knows. in some ways, though, i feel more like myself than ever...not an old self, necessarily, just a self, and i´m comfortable with that, maybe moreso than ever before. sweet.

well, regardless of what may or may not have changed over the past 3 months, this fact remains...i leave in 3 days, and i think i´m now starting to get my first taste or what it truly is to be a nomad. for a nomad, the world is your home, or nowhere´s your home, depends how you look at it. when i return to the u.s. for a little while i´ll be a stranger in my own country, which is good, that´s the point. i´ll be doing all over again what i did 3 months ago...leaving my home. except this time, i´ll be leaving friends here that i may realistically never see again (which i´ve been trying not to think about) and a place that even when (yes, when, i´m coming back one day :D) i return, will never quite be the same. it´s hard to think that this one piece of your life will never return, or at least not in the same way. but that´s how it is for a nomad that hangs out with nomads.

in the past year, i don´t think all of my aiesec friends have been in the same country at the same time. but that´s what aiesecers do...nomad...and somewhere along the way you have to accept that with this lifestyle, goodbye is hello and hello goodbye as much as i´m american-born and bred but can still be a stranger in my own country. a glorious paradox...frustrating, elating.

lately, i haven´t been able to stop thinking about atlanta and the people there that i´ve missed for the past 3 months, especially since i´m soooo close to seeing them. at the same time, though, i know i´m going to miss brazil and the people here too and want to live it up. so as a result, i´m crazy confused and torn all the time. it´s easy enough to say to concentrate on living it up here while i´m here, but when you´re down to 3, there´s no avoiding departure and thinking about what awaits you on the flip side. and there´s no shame if what´s waiting there for you gives you a huge smile just thinking about it :)

because after all, hello and goodbye are really one and the same. the italians, hawaiians, and everyone else that has one word that means hello and goodbye in their language had the right idea :D so really i guess in this case, my first taste of what it truly is to be a nomad, it´s all in my perception...hello or goodbye?

i´m indecisive...maybe i´ll just settle for ciao.

touristy, but not...and we´re tourists, but not...

oh, the craziness! so this past weekend, me, david (the canadian trainee), lisa (former american bh, brazil trainee now studying in salvador), and shaynee (american studying in salvador) set out for morro de são paulo, an island off the coast about 2 hrs by boat from salvador. well, 2 hrs if you pay r$60 for a 1-way ticket on a catamaran...i don´t think so. we decided to take the "road less traveled," or maybe more traveled really since it´s the way that the locals all go when they want to visit this beautiful place...yay for living with and hanging out with locals :D

so our voyage looked like this...bus #1 from home (and we all live in different neighborhoods so this was solo) to the ferry boat place (pronounced fe-hee booch)...ferry boat (approx. 45 mins) to itaparica, an island off the coast...bus#2 (approx. 1.5 hrs) from bom despacho, itaparica to valença, a city back on the mainland...boat #2 (approx. 30 mins) from valença to morro de são paulo, our final destination. we paid a total of r$25 each way for this trip, less than half of the cost for the direct catamaran! aaaaand, since we didn´t go through as much open sea, the boat rides were much calmer and didn´t have ppl hanging over the edge puking the whole time (from sources on the catamaran, this was the case, eek!). anyway, so that´s the how. but what did we do there, you might ask?

relax! while it rained in salvador all weekend (normal this time of year), we enjoyed sunny, hot weather perfect for hiking to the lighthouse at the top of the morro (hill in english), swimming in the ocean, intending to just chill on the beach but actually passing out, enjoying caipirinhas with freshly blended fruit, eating delicious traditional brazilian food, always a meat with rice, beans, farofa (kinda like this powder stuff that you put on your food to give it more weight, i´d never seen it before i came here), and small salad, and in my case, guaraná (best soda ever :D)...anytime you´re in a beach town you can probably do the same kind of relaxation things, but here´s the thing about this town...it was touristy but not. everything was appealing, the way the shops looked, the things they sold, the way the town was set up (streets made of sand, no cars, everything walking distance, ppl walking around in swimsuits and cangas, music everywhere, etc) - it had to have been planned at least a little. it didn´t feel fake though, like how disney world is almost too clean and perfect to be true, you know? things had character and seemed authentic and personal...the people were nice and loved talking to you (if you could get your portuguese together, of course, ha ha) - it really felt like a paradise, the whole package. i´ve never been to a place quite that authentic-feeling and perfect at the same time, like i said, touristy but not. there are pictures on my facebook, but i´ll try to put some here too later :)

and then i got to thinking...how perfect for us! as a trainee, you´re like a tourist but not, definitely not. we didn´t pay extravagant amts of money like a lot of tourists would do (like for the catamaran for example) because we´re a little more than that here, we live here. we take the bus to work/school like all the of the brazilians, i go home and eat home cooked food in a house in one of the more residential parts of town, i go to the bars and clubs that my friends here go to and pay what they pay...it´s different, yet i´d never been to morro de são paulo, which is one of those places that lots of ppl from salvador have been to, at least. i´d never seen pelourinho, the beautiful old part of salvador when i first arrived, and before i leave, i have to return to buy gifts to bring home and take some last meaningful photos :) there´s still so much i haven´t done here and so much that i have more to learn yet i´ve learned and now know so much already. so i´m not a tourist then. but i´m not a native nor a local.

so what does that make me? to be honest, there´s so much of my own country i still haven´t seen. so am i the same here as i am there? no, but on paper who would know?

they say that home is where the heart is...i think that´s true. but i also think you can have more than one home.