"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it — change the way you think about it."
— Mary Engelbreit
Today officially marks one year since I last got back to Canada. And my the things that can happen and change in one year.
Arriving in Canada, my world felt in shambles. I had just left Switzerland and my job there, and Gooner had just died. Everything felt as if it was crashing for the month of October. I started questioning everything. My degree, my job, the institution I worked in, the idea of the righteousness of the institutions in the first place, and the somewhat perilous and fragile state of the world order and international economy. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I absolutely didn't want to go back to Canada, but I couldn't stay in Switzerland either.
After 3 months in Canada (2 in SK and one hitchhike/couchsurf travelling West), I had a plan. It wasn't a long term plan, but it was plan that would allow me to get back to Europe and out of Canada. To keep travelling and absorbing life. It would also allow me to get away from offices, computers, elitist rich people, pale uptight people in dreary suits, and policy research, and let me get to 'real' life in the streets of the world. Let me experience that life, the life that these pale people with money were making decisions about.
Still feeling shambled and lost, but no longer defeated, I left for Europe to stay for a month with some friends in Germany. I didn't do much there but try to get my life together, re-adjust to life in Europe, and keep good company. Along with quick quasi hitchhike trip across Germany to Munich to see Ckatu. Although it was for no more than a week, that trip was to become the first of many consciousness changing experiences of the last year that would lead me to this very spot, outside writing this blog while listening to the waves crash on the Ecuadorian shore and swatting off bees every 5 minutes with my flip flop.
It wasn't a eureka moment or one thing in particular about that trip, but rather the culmination of all the people I met and spoke to, the amazing conversations I had, and the wonderful experiences around Munich. It was a very subtle but powerful change of consciousness that I largely credit to the conversations with one of the guys in the van I got a ride in, and everything with Ckatu. Without going in to a long story, for I could write an entry alone on these two and their experiences, they are both citizens of the world with multicultural international experiences and refreshing ideas. Ckatu is Ecuadorian and has quite the story behind her, and the guy had just gotten back from 6 months in Bali, Indonesia implementing self-sustaining waste recycling programs.
From this moment on I felt a little renewed. I went back to my dear friend's place in Hannover, got my stuff together, and left for Barcelona, with a quick couple day stop in Brussels along the way. Barcelona fit into my plan I worked out in Canada in which I decided to take a Cambridge certificate that would certify me to teach english as a foreign language to speakers all over the world. This course, while extremly useful and a big contributing factor in reshaping the goals and long term plans I now have for myself, not to mention the wonderful short term plans and jobs that were to come, did not factor in the tremendous change of consciousness that I experienced in Barcelona. It was rather the sheer vivacity and lifestyle of the city itself and all the wonderful people and times I discovered in it, including one very special person that guided me through a much needed spiritual rejuvenation, and another I met towards the end that helped inspire and finalize the plans that were to come.
Through the course I was taking I was serendipitously given a room to live at in the home of Maria Roca, a gifted and celebrated artist nearing retirement, and a spiritual healer. The month I spent with her, learning from her both directly and indirectly, being guided through emotional meditations and readings, both while I was living with her and continuously throughout the months right up until the day I left Spain, forever evolved and altered my consciousness, and rekindled my intuitions. This and a few other unforgettable nights in Barcelona with some equally unforgettable people contributed to this consciousness changing that would lead me to start looking for opportunities, of any kind, in Latin America. (*Worth noting that I loved Barcelona dearly, and would have stayed there if given the chance, however the state of its economy and visa procedures made that all but an impossible option.)
After countless applications and interviews, I ended up being offered 4 different positions in 4 different countries, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru. What made me decide on Peru, I'll never remember fully. Perhaps it was the option that was the least shocking on the system, as it involved going to Arequipa, city of over 1 million. Perhaps it was simply the farthest South. And so only a few short weeks after that interview one afternoon over skype, I found myself eating breakfast at a cafe down the street from my hotel in Latin America. After getting over the incredible shock the first week laid on me, I was already falling in love with it all and meeting some fabulous new people. It was in one of the first staff meetings the first week of teaching that I met Cena, who like me had decided on Peru among half a dozen job offers. From that moment on, from that very first non-stop conversation, my life had subtly but dramatically evolved again.
We explore and absorbed life in Arequipa to its fullest and quickly realize that it was not so much Arequipa or Peru that we loved, but the latin american way of life, the culture and the language. Of which there was so much to see across the continent. So after finishing up our contracts we left to travel the rest of Peru, ending up in Cuzco, seeing Machu Piccu, Lake Titicaca, Puno, the floating islands and their culture, the colca cañon, the deepest in the world where we did some trekking and climbing in and out of the canon, as well as camping in a tropical oasis. After being satisfied at having seen enough of Peru, we pooled our money and hoped a bus that would take us 52 hours north to Guayaquil, Ecuador, the largest city in the country. Where we took another bus 4 hours west to arrive at Puerto Lopez, small fishing town on the coast where we started work at a grassroots social development organisation teaching english classes and volunteering twice a week on a program to develop reading skills and provide social alternatives to local kids.
In Puerto Lopez we have learned so much exploring the community and their culture, absorbing the lifestyle, and taking advantage of all the leisure time to explore our reading interests, develop more ideas and plans for the future, and improve our Spanish. This point here is a sort of culmination of latin american explorations that has evolved and honed ideas and plans I have for myself and my future. Things are now looking brighter and clearer than ever, with the least amount of stress and most amount of appreciation for life that I have ever had. But my, what a trip to get here. And what adventures are still to come! For this point of clarity has not satiated some previously unfulfilled travel desires, but has rather evolved and refined my ideas of what a life can hold, what kind of life can be lead. It has given me a renewed appreciation for the world and its multitude of secrets and wonders, and the people that live them. I want to continue to live with them and learn from them. I have never before seen such possibilities of such wonderful, simple, happy lives than I have now. I am no longer eagerly waiting for the next things to happen, but am absolutely enjoying the present moments, and I look forward to enjoying such moments in the future. All in one year, who would have thought.
