PREFACE: I wrote this a few weeks ago and it was meant to be a personal venting I didnt plan to share here. But I think I would be doing a disservice to myself and my readers to only sugar coat my experiences here and pretend that everything is always perfect. As expected, this trip has presented its challenges, which are often manageable but at times gets a bit overwhelming. What follows flowed forth during an overwhelming moment. So it goes. This place will make me stronger.
9/20/08
Aptly, one line from an Eminem song keeps swimming through my head this afternoon: “and when your run is over just admit when its at its end.” On more challenging days like this, I can’t help but think that maybe my strange affair with Lima is reaching its end.
This place is bad for my health. My lungs burn from the pounds of pollution hurled at me over the past few months. They ache with attempted rejection of the mold that has opportunistically claimed my bedroom. My legs are restless from sitting in one place for 10 hours a day. I can’t help but worry that this place is adding years to my looks while taking a few off my life.
My stuff is ruined. The fungus triumphs. The brown strap of my nicest dress looks mottled from mold. My cute black ballet shoes are green with fungus. My handmade bag, adorned with patches from all the places I’ve been in Europe, was barely recognizable when I pulled it reluctantly from the closet today. All the furniture in my room is covered in mold, including my bed, where I’ve had fits of night sweats and spent restless hours trying to sleep in damp danky darkness. Last week I had to throw out a moldy pillow I slept on for weeks before realizing its condition. My ceiling is covered in some sordid spawning species. I can’t live like this.
This is made worse by the side effects of my malaria medicine, which I have been on now for almost a month. It has done a number on my stomach and my lips, strangely enough. Yikes!
This city is dirty, damp, dangerous and donkey grey. I feel assaulted each day as I wade through black clouds of smoke and try to ignore the multitude of blaring horns. I can taste poison on my lips as I make my way home each night cursing these streets. On some days, my friends wouldn’t recognize me if they saw me walking down the streets because they’ve likely never seen this look of disgust-stress-sadness and tension on my face.
Furthermore, I am also learning that I am just not a city girl (or at least not this city). I am so so much more at peace in a smaller town. Or in a forest. Or really any place where I can connect with nature and have a moment of peace. Here, I feel like a rat in a cage, one of way too many clawing towards the top to get a gasp of air. It stresses me out to be here. It de-centers me. It makes a negative person out of someone who is not negative by nature. It wears me out.
But all of this is tempered (and complicated) by the good that I am experiencing. I am slowly but surely learning a new language, one that may open many doors for me in the future. I am meeting awesome people at every turn. I am witnessing life and everything is fresh (except the air, haha). I am by no means stagnant in my outlook on life. I am learning more about myself each day. I am pursuing my bliss to the best of my ability. I am taking chances and wander out of my comfort zone at every chance I get. My times of travel—the whole reason for this crazy adventure—are amazing and rejuvenating. They are the reason I came here and the reason I am still here.
But the times in between are trying, as I am just not built for this kind of city life. So I am torn between upholding a commitment and high tailing it out of here to pursue that which I know is better for me.
Whilst in the rainforest area of Puerto Maldonado this last week, I felt extremely creative and generative, new ideas springing up daily. I want to write. I am feeling more dedicated to it than ever. I want to write this book about my travels. I want to spend a year in Spanish-speaking countries (I have expanded my travel dreams to include a few months in Argentina and a few in Spain) and write a book called Spanish Lessons.
I want to write a children’s book about the animals of the rainforest. A zoological/conservation tale in which the poor animals I saw kept in horrid conditions in Puerto Maldonado are set free by their own ingenuity. Because I can’t set them free in real life and the only way I can justify going to see what I saw is to write about it.
Furthermore, I want to actually put some effort into becoming a published travel writer. I think I might actually have it in me. I think I might actually have something to say that others might actually want to read.
I also know that I want to go back to teaching when all of these adventures are over. I love the college learning environment and I love teaching in it. I have been thinking of my students and miss the work I used to do. I think it is the only job I’ve ever had that I have actually felt passionate about. I miss it. I love the lifestyle, I love the way it makes me feel, I love how it stimulates my creativity and passion, and I love having the ability to interact with students on an intellectual level and to get them engaged in their education. Being back in an 8 to 6 reminds me of why I left it to pursue my masters and reaffirms the reasons I wanted to be a professor.
And other ideas have been coming forth. I keep mulling over the prospect of getting some sort of travel excursion company together in California. Right now it is so expensive to travel there as a young person and virtually impossible to backpack it. I keep thinking it would be neat to set up a company that enables backpackers to travel around affordably. To share with other people the amazing places in my own home.
And I want to live in a place where blue-skied days outnumber the grey, where I can call up and walk over to see my dear friends, where I can live in a mold-free home and walk down the street without swallowing smog, where I can be mellow and healthy. And travel. As far as living in a big dirty city and sitting in front of a computer for at least 10 hours a day...well this is not so much for me. However, I greatly appreciate the opportunities this job has enabled me to have. I have been able to travel here and experience Peru in a way I never would have been able to otherwise. I am so grateful for these gifts, about which I will carry fond memories for the rest of my life. I am immensely thankful for all of these things.
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