I headed to Guatemala for a couple months to get the Paso Adelante internship program up and running. Spent the vast majority of my time on the road visiting rural areas and meeting with community members about our work. Really cool experience. Also did something I had wanted to do forever - hike from Xela to Lago Atitlan. We went without a guide which was both an awesome idea and an idiotic one. Got lost, did a whole bunch of unnecessary hiking, crossed a river on foot and through jungle up a mountain to reach the safety of a village by nightfall. Beautiful scenery tho. Made it to the lake.
Then I went home for a couple weeks for some family time and to sort out my Mexican visa. It was nice you know, seeing my family, eating good food, all that stuff. But it feels different now. It hasn't been a sudden change, but rather something that's crept on me for the past several years. I just don't feel like the US is really the place for me anymore. Like sometimes I think back to after my first trip to Vietnam, I spent a month back in the US. Then I went abroad for 7 months and then back to the US for 6 weeks. Then I cut my time in the US to 3 weeks. Then to 2. And now to a handful of days.
It's not that I don't like my friends or family anymore it's just I mean let's face it. We've all changed. And as a result I feel like our goals, dreams, future plans whatever are worlds apart. I work in rural areas making very little money under conditions that most sane people would scoff at. Most of my friends are in serious relationships, have more money than I'll probably ever have and live a lifestyle that would be deemed the opposite of ascetic. Is that wrong? Of course not. I like all those things too. It's just not in my cards right now.
But I can't stand being surrounded by American culture, this constant, omnipresent obsession with money and "career advancement" and increasing convenience. I mean f me, you stand in line at Starbucks in the US and you're subject to three different asinine conversations about the latest app, sucking corporate dick to get that promotion and Lil Johnny's soccer team politics. And everyone's parading around with the utmost self-importance. Hell, maybe that's why so many people hate us. I don't know. And obviously I'm generalizing here but you get my drift. It's simply difficult for me to leave a place where I get coffee in the morning and the day's conversation surrounds the drought that's leaving 500K people food insecure or the murders of local bus drivers that refused to pay bribes to gangs and then be abruptly inundated with discussions about an app to compare and rate your turds.
I'm not saying that the US and first world countries don't have their benefits however. Obviously it's nice that you can flush toilet paper or that 50% of American children are not malnourished. Just that it's not the place for me.
Frankly, I don't feel like I really belong anywhere now. If I had to choose I'd say I feel most at home in Guatemala. But I'm not there right now. And I won't be for at least another year. San Francisco? Used to. This tech bubble has ruined the city for me. LA? Ha.
If this is depressing you, it shouldn't. I view it as a necessary transition phase, something I've always known was inevitable. I loved my time in SF with my friends, living the dream, being loose partying 20-somethings with too much money, an inflated ego and decadence at my fingertips. But I'm much happier now. Working in Latin America with these kinds of projects has always been and continues to be my goal.
I always said that I just had to keep my feet moving. I was dahncing around the world and I would know when it was time to quit and settle down. I had this undeniable urge to travel and experience new things but eventually, I said, I'd tell myself to plant myself. Well it's time. I'm tired. I don't want to do it anymore - crash in a place for a few months, meet cool people, start learning about a culture and then move on again. Nah. I want that word I renounced when I left San Francisco. I want stability.
I want real relationships, my neighborhood bars and restaurants, all those things that come with settling down in a place. And I'm starting to get that now. Just moved to Villahermosa, Mexico to research small-scale aquaculture for the year. LTD'ing. Adios.
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