2013-04-14
Time is a very plastic thing – it is swollen and rich at times, and flaccid and bland at others. As my days in Ecuador become fewer and fewer, I have been thinking about time quite a bit, unfurling it like a fern. I look back through my journey this year, and time seems to...
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2013-04-10
High school for me was mostly a matter of reaction. Test announced, I prepared. Something assigned, I did it. Bell rang, next class. Extracurricular, I showed up. Swim practice, I obeyed the coach. Social event, I socialized. In hindsight, I succeeded mainly because of that system of expectations. I let myself be dragged. I’m no longer in high...
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2013-04-10
“First in roads; Last in education” is a tongue in cheek saying I heard a lot growing up in North Carolina. While the saying refers more to the disparity in taxes doled out by the North Carolina State Government, as a result, many North Carolinians (myself included) grew up thinking that spending money on roads...
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2013-04-08
By the time you read this blog post, I will have already left my home community in Bahia, Brazil. I spent many months of my life there. To be truthful, I am finding it difficult to convince myself that I even did that: I left my city, my state, my country, and left the North...
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The lights are off. I am sitting. I am thinking. I am counting. “Tuesday 1, Wednesday 2, Thursday 3, Friday 4, Saturday 5, Sunday 6, Monday 7 Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9, Thursday, 10, Friday, 11, Saturday…12, Sunday…13, Monday 14, Tue….” I stopped. “15 days” I thought. I paused, I breathed. I began to reflect. I’ve been here for 7 months....
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2013-04-07
It is truly amazing how quickly things can change, how suddenly experiences can be over, how unexpectedly new beginnings can appear. This has been so heavily on my mind over the past couple of weeks as my time in Ecuador has taken an unforeseen turn. Two weeks ago, I moved out of my community of...
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2013-04-07
Guayusa is a native plant to Ecuador that the Kichwas drink as a traditional tea. My past six months have been positively filled with guayusa, both through my homestay and through my work, and, given my proximity to and close work with the stuff, I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to write about...
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