Home Sweet Home

So after six months of living and traveling in Central America of walking in the shadows of volcanoes and casting shadows on 90% of the people around me - six months filled with chicken buses, pick-up rides, micro-buses and other forms of public transport that would never set rubber on US asphalt, trying to speak, listen, read and think in a language that was not my own and trying to live and understand a lifestyle that was not my own - I am back home in Suburbia, NJ, far away from Mayan women in colorful dresses handlessly carrying impossible loads on their heads and even further away from the "verga" and "maricon" jokes of the La Prusia guys. I'm back in my basement on my couch hiding from the unrelenting rain clouds, listening to the tireless churning of our sub-pump as my skin wishes it was still being toasted by the brutal Nicaraguan sun. I sit here with my mind not quite sure what to call reality, as if I'm stuck between dreams. Everything seems big - my house, the roads, the cars, the food, the people (height and girth).

It's good to be home, though. My friends greeted me at the airport with my "America Reacclimation Kit," complete with a mini-American flag, King James Bible, and an ESL beginner's book, before taking me out for some chocolate chip pancakes covered in syrup, whipped cream, strawberries and bananas. I surprised Julie (well, kinda) on her birthday and got to spend the night with her and her friends playing ping pong, drinking cheap Pabst cans and Korean vodka, grooving to a soul/gospel band, and even squeezing in some salsa-ing between bands. And I'm already all caught up on the Lost and South Park episodes I missed in my absence.

There are so many things I want to remember - walking through chaotic Guatemalan markets with women and their produce sprawled out on the ground, hearing a tree calling my name and looking up to see a 10 year old boy chilling in its branches twenty feet off the ground and calmly smiling, watching in awe as the Nicaraguan sky metamorphised every night as the sun buried itself. Mostly I want to remember the al suave mindset, the laidback and flexible mindset that I think has evolved Latin America out of necessity. But will I be able to? As time goes on my memories will fade, and all I'll have left will be my photos and words, but hopefully the feelings will survive, somewhere, if only subconsciously.

Now I find myself back in the States, for the first time in my life without a next step. Throughout my trip, I told people that I think my biggest lessons from this trip will become apparent when I'm back at home, when however I've changed in the way I live clashes with the norms and expectations of the place I've called home my entire life. I'm looking forward to this uncertainty, though. It's scary, yet exciting; with no guarantees but so much potential. I'm looking forward to the conflict, the discomfort, and the lessons that will ultimately surface. I can already feel old habits tugging at me - laziness, late-night-rerun-watching marathons - but we'll see if I can bring back the ideals and passion that were so easy to maintain in the warm air of Central America.