A traveler and not a tourist

Please be a traveler and not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people, and look beyond what is right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in. 
-Andrew Zimmern

As I sit enjoying my last few hours in Lima, I can't agree more with this quote. Not that I wouldn't consider myself a tourist (which I definitely am), but that the most amazing thing about our world is that we get to live in it. It's not a stagnant mausoleum meant to be passed through without touching. 

It's a messy, glorious slop of human life that is never repeated and can never be captured in a few still frames or blog entries.

We are meant to be travelers in this life, actively taking part in whatever comes and not shying away from the difficult, the awkward or uncomfortable.

A tourist would surely avoid such occurrences in a foreign country. Trying desperately to feel as much "at home" as possible, the tourist would stay only in the well-ranked hotels, visit each place dictated to them by the author of their guidebook, and only see what they planned on while ignoring everything else.

And isn't that just what I have been guilty of in life? Consulting my itinerary instead of God's, always searching for what is next instead of relishing in what I have before me and never taking the time to look up from my map long enough to realize that although I may have gotten lost, I've come to an even better destination?

My trip, which was spent doing mostly the same things I do back home in Denver (going to work, intending to get up and run but oversleeping instead, being somewhat awkward at social events), would probably be considered a failure according to most travel guides. But, nonetheless, I visited a place I never thought I would and met people I would have never known otherwise. And to me, that is the best kind of journey anyone could ask for.

I never made it to Machu Picchu, but I began to recognize some patterns in the otherwise chaotic and random Lima traffic.

I didn't take a million pictures, but I did memorize the routes to the park and coffee shop.

I still speak barely any Spanish, but I know some of the faces of people I passed daily on the streets.

I went to the birthday party of someone I didn't even know (or speak the same language as) and actually danced.

I rode in multiple taxis, one bus and discovered I am braver and more capable than I realized.

I took a risk a met up with someone I barely knew (and had next to nothing in common with) for coffee.

I was called “mi hermana” by the little girl whose room I was borrowing for two weeks.

I consistently embarrassed myself by using the few phrases I thought I knew in the wrong context and learned that a smile can speak more than perfect dialect and vocabulary.

And, above all else, I realized this world is a hell of a lot bigger than I'd ever imagined and I've only just seen a fraction. 

For whatever reason, I have a place in it right now, and that is a gift from God. 

Upon further reflection, as usual

Quite possibly one of the most awkward, but refreshing, dates I have been on in a while (OK, I don't date a lot [read: at all] so let's call it ever, just to be fair).

I met up with an acquaintance I'd met at a friend of a friend's birthday party in Lima last week. Our first encounter was him trying to teach me how to dance and saying that I needed to move my hips more.

Except, he didn't know what the word was and even though I told him, he kept pronouncing it "tips."

So, Miguel spends the evening telling me I needed to move my "tips" more for Latin dancing and I tried my best to comply, but mostly I just stared at his feet and tried to match his steps.

Later on, he pulled me over in front of his friend with a camera, so thankfully the whole disaster was documented for posterity:

Nice shoes, hombre.

Before I left, he called me over by gesturing with his hands in a way that usually means, "Shoo! Go away!" But, he kept saying, "Come, come!" So I walked over to see that his friend has already uploaded the pictures to his laptop and Miguel wanted to show me because he was "so happy that I have pictures of you now!"

Yikes.

Despite my better judgement, I told him my actual name so he could find me on facebook and, lo and behold, I had a friend request from the guy who kept telling me I needed to move my "tips" more and was so happy to have pictures of me.

I met up with him for coffee (in broad daylight and after telling Ursula a million times where I was going and exactly when I would be back) and it turns out most of the phrases from our facebook messages that I took to be awkward were so mainly because of the language barrier.

We got to talking and he asked me whether or not I had a boyfriend. When I told him no, he asked why not, which I took to be a cheesy pick-up line, so I laughed at him.

But, he insisted that he honestly wanted to know why not.

I resisted every urge to roll my eyes and appear as the superior sex and then began my well-worn (but slightly politer, for purposes of international relations) tirade against single men in general, but found that the more I tried to explain their issues, I was faced with a blatant avoidance of my problems.

I tried to explain how men just don't know what they want and never take the initiative in relationships. Fair enough, but do I even know exactly what I want? And when have I ever gone out of my way to actually invest in a relationship (to an appropriate extent, of course) with a man for interests other than romance?

At one moment, he asked me point blank to tell him something about myself and I just came up with nothing and changed the subject. Sure, that could be chalked up to prudence, but, more likely was a result of fear. (Perhaps this point will require a separate post later).

Then, I went on to realize that even now, when someone was asking me to tell him about myself, I was avoiding talking about, duh, myself. I realized that even though I want to be known, I have a very hard time letting anyone in for fear of you name it (rejection, judgement, misunderstanding, pain, all around awkwardness in general) to the point that I will only let anyone in once they have proven they are absolutely-without-a-doubt-totally-100%-trustworthy to me.

So, Miguel, to answer your question honestly, I am not seeing anyone somewhat because of outside circumstances (travel for work, just haven't met the right guy), but mostly because I have operated from a position of mistrust of others for most of my life and am still trying to break out of it (and probably always will be).

Furthermore, I have an extremely difficult time being vulnerable (I should probably note that "vulnerable" for phlegmatic melancholic introverts like me is probably the same thing as daily interactions for extroverts ... or so I imagine) with anyone save a few close friends and family members (and now apparently anyone reading this blog ... double yikes) which makes it, in turn, difficult for others to open up to me in a way that goes beyond surface level.

So, thanks for the cup of coffee and self-revelation.

India calling

I wish I had been better about blogging while in, or immediately upon returning from, India. Already the most of the memories have faded and only the ones that are documented with photos have been firmly implanted in my mind.

I wanted to be able to take every person I know on my journey, to be able to recall every single detail: every smell, every smile or stare from people in the slum, every heart racing car ride through the major cities. But I also know that there is no way I can put into words what I saw and felt because I have no context in which to place it.

I went to India, a land that, as one woman on the trip said, "was just a place on the map before." Seeing that land alone would have overwhelmed even the most seasoned traveler, I am convinced. But on top of that, I also saw a part that many would consider rude to talk about in polite Indian society; the slums, the Dalits, the poverty that was so extreme, yet so much a part of the country, that it wove in and out of even the most wealthy neighborhoods in a way that could not go unnoticed unless it were intentionally ignored.

How do I categorize this trip in my life? I have nothing else to compare it with. As my 10 days there drew to a close, I convinced myself that my journey would be a starting point, a foundation on which to build my life. Somehow, I thought, I would get back to India and make a difference. Either as a journalist or a missionary or a teacher, but the more days that wedge themselves between then and now, the less that thought seems like it could be a tangible reality.

I promised myself that I would make people care about what is happening over there. People who could, in turn, also make a difference. But now, I find it hard to even care myself. In a country that is so addicted to comfort, I am sadly, very content continuing on in my life as it was before India.

I can see friends and family, and even myself, growing tired of talking about India. And for that I feel like a failure. I have not been able to fully describe what I saw in order to get people to care. I am even beginning to doubt myself about what I saw. Is there really an entire group of people who are treated as garbage because of they fall outside of the caste system? How could it be that a country that is growing so rapidly in business and commerce could still hold on to such archaic ideas?

And then I find myself questioning how I, as a foreigner, could be qualified to pass such a judgement. Didn't I only spend 10 days there? How can I be informed enough about their culture to even be able to make such an observation? How do I know I wasn't just listening to the rants of some pseudo-political/religious NGO leaders?

But then I am faced with the images of the young men on the street corner who had a look that I had never seen on anyone's face before. They must have been close to my age, but they already looked as if they were facing death. Their lives had no value. Or the little girls who clung to my fingers in the slums, who I had to peel off my hands and place back with their parents before I could leave left. Or the old man who gratefully accepted the small piece of fruit from me as if it were a precious jewel.

This is desperation, this is hunger, this is heartbreak. And while I know that it exists in every shape and form in every corner of the globe, I saw how it takes exists in India. Now that I have seen that, I have a responsibility to God and those people that I may never see again to do something about it.

I just need to figure out exactly what that means.

Sometimes you just gotta suck it up

After attending the world's most depressing Theology on Tap the other evening, I was going to write a post about how there is empirical evidence that right now really is a crappy time to be a single lady in search of a good man.

It would have sounded something like, "Waaah, wah wah. It's society's fault I'm single," or, "Boo hoo, I have so many problems," or even, "Noo, now I have to adopt cats and raise them as my family."

Then I realized that I probably wouldn't even be my friend after reading such a shameless display of self-pity.

But concern for social acceptance aside, I realized I really was thinking like a self-centered little snot.

You see, life is never just sunshine and lollipops (or a perpetual honeymoon as I imagine married life to be). It is work, no matter what one's marital status is. Yes, it is often filled with great joy, but right alongside that is pain and suffering.

Yesterday, as I was thinking out my pity party post, a friend of mine found out his friend's father passed away just a few months before his son was to be ordained a priest.

And there I was, trying to come up with witty ways of using cultural woes to explain away my marital status. (Please insert lengthy eye-roll here)

So, yes, it is hard to be a Catholic single woman in such a secular culture. And yes, it does often seem like men who share my values and morals don't exist (or are already taken or are not interested). But, at the same time, it's always going to be hard to be a Catholic anything in this world. Priest, Nun, Parent, Spouse, you name it.

You see, as Christians, we are not made to find prefect ease and comfort on this earth (I mean, I still want to just spend my life sitting by the pool drinking wine while listening to a live orchestra play Beethoven, but Heaven will infinitely more awesome even than that).

We know that this life is fleeting and just a preparation for eternity. We are given this time to fight and  prepare ourselves for Heaven. And God gives us the opportunity to do that everyday of our lives, with whatever he puts in front of us.

As Papa B said, "The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort; you were made for greatness."

 

You said it, Papa B.

So, on the one hand, I could just give up and give in to our culture's dating standards. It would be much quicker and easier to find someone for sure.

On the other hand, I could suck it up and just enjoy being single while it lasts, knowing all the while that I'm saying no to instant gratification now for the sake of a deeper and more lasting joy later.

Sometimes I just go with the flow

I didn't want to admit this, but I feel I must. I am passive.

Very passive.

Pretty much up until just a few months ago, my whole life was just planned out and I followed it accordingly.

 Go to grade school, pass grade school. Go to middle school, survive middle school. Go to high school, graduate high school. Go to college, pay for college, graduate college. 

This kind of routine and monotony can be very, very comforting to a phlegmatic melancholic like myself.

However, at the same time, it can be unimaginably debilitating when faced with things like, oh I don't know, life. Imagine living life as someone else tells you until they stop telling you what you need to do. Then what?

Then you live on your parents fold-out couch for 3 (ok, more like 5-- fine, it was actually 6 if you include Christmas, but who would move during Christmas anyway?) months after graduation while working at the same job you've had since your freshman year of college. Then you have a series of emotional breakdowns (about once a month, then becoming more frequent until you move out) because you feel like a failure at life but are at the same time terrified about living on your own and falling flat on your face.

Or at least that's how it was for me.

Then, thankfully, God reassures you of his plan for your welfare by dropping a job that you love in your lap via your sainted brother-in-law.

Wait, you might argue, this job just fell in your lap? How does that help you try to be more assertive with life?

Well, that's what I thought at first too. Then I realized that I just needed to swallow my pride and thank the good Lord for his divine intervention in my life. Yes, I had to admit, I need help in my life and I am not always in control.

And that is a good thing because if I was, I'd probably still be on Mom and Dad's couch.