Yay, Finally Another Post!

Originally Written December 15, 2009
Dear Readers,

The month of November was busy with travel since it was Thanksgiving as well as our midservice point, which meant we all had to go get medical check ups in Lima. And now more travel is coming up, since I’ll be heading home for Christmas to see my family and friends for a couple of weeks. This will mark the longest I’ve ever been outside of the United States: fifteen months at one hit. Previously, this record was held by my 11-month exchange trip in Mexico. After a year of being in site, I’ve finally settled down about in my adjustment. This past week at site my spirits have been high, despite a few days of no electricity, illness, and a latrine project that is quite behind the schedule I had envisioned for it. I imagine that I feel more at rest because, for one thing I’m looking forward to being home, and eating pizza, and drinking awesome beer, drooling over all of my books and dictionaries and grammars I couldn’t bring with me, and taking baths, and of course seeing my family and friends and my dog. But the other reason I’m at peace right now is because I’ve finally gotten used to the pace of life here, and the fact that people do things on their own time. For example, I asked Teofilo to help me pour the cement for my latrine, which he agreed to, although it took him about four days to get around to it. It’s something you just have to take and roll with.

Other than work related materials, I’ve been considering learning Dutch so that I can go visit Suriname after my service is over. From what I’ve been able to read about Suriname, it’s a polyglot country with several different official languages. I’ve been staying up researching several different language profiles from Wikipedia articles I’ve copied into my computer.

I’ve also been watching lots of movies that I’ve never seen but have meant to for a long time. Movies like “Face/Off”, “Broken Arrow”, and “Phenomenon”. I don’t know why the first ones I watched all happened to be John Travolta movies since I’ve never really been a fan of him, but after my unintentional Travolta binge, I’ve concluded that I may have under-appreciated him.

Backtracking a little, Thanksgiving vacation in Ica included riding a dune buggy to the middle of some sand dunes to go sand boarding down them. I’ve barely skied, and have never snow-boarded, so barely had a clue what I was doing and ended up riding down on my stomach instead, which helped me get more speed. Interestingly, even when you are on your stomach you can still lose your balance and get flung down the face of a sand dune. Even today, eighteen days after the wipeout, when I lift my right arm I can still feel where I rolled over it several times, where I was left with sand in my eyes, ears, mouth and nose, stunned from the crash and due to the fact I didn’t break anything, not even Lim-Ed sunglasses, which flew off but somehow were lying next to me unharmed in the sand.

I met a lot of the new WatSan volunteers who seem like a cool bunch. One of them drank a mite much and prodded me all evening to say something offensive.
Med-Checks also went well. Especially so since Dr. Jorge told me I was in excellent health. A couple of friends and I went to a sports bar where they showed American football, and even I felt a little homesick from sports, something I usually try to avoid.

There is one thing I’ve thought about recently, and this is probably the only bit of philosophy I’ll write this evening, but after the comforts of Lima (and its expenses) and the rougher-edged living at site, I want to comment about the idea of materialism. Personally, I find that when I have a lot of things, I feel cluttered even in my soul. But I think there is nothing wrong with comforts in life. It’s a fact that most people probably don’t need a huge house or a fancy car or an iPhone or even hot water. But I guess if it helps improve the quality of your life, there isn’t anything wrong with it. Little things have helped here: a blanket to through on the ground to simulate carpet, a hot water boiler for tea and hot chocolate, and even really week cell phone service to make me feel a little less isolated. I don’t think I person needs to live a Spartan existence to grow or find enlightenment or whatever the goal is. I think too much “stuff” isn’t necessarily healthy, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being comfortable either.

On the other hand, there isn’t anything wrong to see what you can go without, either. Both are helpful when used prudently.

Alright, that’s about all I have for tonight. The next time I write, I’ll probably be on another continent. Have a Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to all!

Till then!
Tristan

An Eternal and Endless Ocean

Dear Readers,

I apologize for my absence from writing. It has been a hectic month, this past November. There were a lot of people who were leaving, and family developments, and Thanksgiving traveling and things like that. Currently I’m in Lima for mid-service medchecks.

I’m going to see if I can keep this short since it’s late right now. I was just down looking at the ocean from a place called Larco Mar, which is an outdoor food and shopping mart, and I wanted to briefly write about some of what I reflected on out there. It was around 11 PM and the see was all dark and there was dark clouds stretching off to where the water and the clouds met. It just made me feel calm. I’ve been feeling swarms of doubts and negativity tugging at my insecurities, infecting me with their pollution and deceits. Yet tonight when I looked at the water there was a peace of things just being still, and that’s what I believe is in all of us. Often we can feel like we are caught in a storm, and that is perhaps very well the case. I think though that many of us (and definitely in my case) it’s easy to forget that storms don’t reach down to the depths. Even the worst ones can still be storms on the surface of our lives. This is not to downplay serious challenges or problems that people have to face from time to time: illness, family emergencies or crises, financial problems, and so forth. If there are problems, of course they should be dealt with if it’s possible. But they need not consume us of all our energy. We don’t have to dwell only on the surface of our life, when there is so much more underneath. Often things aren’t as major as we make them out to be. A comment or an action from someone that triggers insecurities or doubts may have been nothing at all: when you are on the surface of the ocean, waves can appear and feel huge and devastating. But in the whole of the sea, they are usually not much to get worked up about.

Most of this I say because I’ve found that in interacting with other people, I usually cannot tell how they feel, and reach the wrong conclusions. But sometimes you just have to let things wash over you, and not stop and analyze them.
I’ll have more to say next time, but right now I’m tired and off to bed.

Peace,
Tristan