-“At this elevation, everyone’s friends, bro!” the innkeeper clasped my hand as we struck our 80% off bargain for a night’s sleep atop Mt. Cotopaxi.
-“No, it’s completely safe!” reassured our new friend Omar as he clambered beneath our car and constructed a make-shift car jack out of adobe bricks in the middle of the Peruvian desert. -“Of course you could camp right here... Also, you can come up to my house for the night! I’ll make food!” roared our new amigo, Juan Villalobos, retired Chilean film star, confidant of of the president, and grunt-singer extraordinaire. Most nights -good nights- we make a fire. We toss our daily catches from markets and grocery stores in a pot and pretend its gourmet. The night ends with laughing around the fire with satiated appetites and the feeling of accomplishment for another day and dish we’ve created. We find a spot to bed down, filter water, make coffee, construct a fire, but the beginning piece of the stop comes before the tents: gathering kindling. When a butterfly flapped its wings and Project:GapSemester was a mere twinkle in my eye, I had many ideas for how I could conceptualize it, make it a cohesive whole. “We’re traveling to raise money for…”, “We want to give resources to…”, “Our aim is to heal the relationship between…”, etc. Because the scope of our travel was so broad, I desired to isolate the type of visits we would be experiencing in order to compare them across Geo/Political divides. I still want this. But now, —at an avocado farm outside of Santiago, Chile—in writing, thinking, reflecting upon the trip, the trip’s a jumble of different events in different locations; it’s a daisy-chain. We experienced overwhelming hospitality in Mexico. It was overwhelming to the point that we are abrasive and reactive to those who mention a U.S. Department of State travel warning to this stunningly beautiful country. The people of Mexico loved us like a good family does, personal connections and strangers alike. In Central America, we experienced inside looks into the youth’s experience as we visited schools of various kinds. In Panajachel, Guatemala, we visited the dear Garcia family and their accelerated academic program which they have created to supplement their local school system. Our longest visit was to the Micah Project in Tegucigalpa, where we lived with the students of a boarding school created for boys from the streets of the city. We went to the Aspergren’s, the instigators of foster care in Costa Rica and joined with their friend Ciro for a 21km day as he was walking across Costa Rica to raise funds for their highly effective program. All of these visits were thematically organized, but so much of Central America was not. We learned about native cultures to the Americas, had intense conversations about community, went to a Honduras/USA world cup qualifying match, visited with friends from the states in Panama, got our car stuck for hours in the Nicaraguan jungle, and had spaghetti with an expat from Texas in his surf shop. Daisy-chain. Have some more: Upon arrival in Cartagena, Colombia —our first location in South America—, Krum and I went directly to the coast and I played pickup soccer for hours with local boys. During the night we ambitiously attempted to camp on the beach; we spent the night furiously and hopelessly looking upward into the dark as we perspired and were eaten by the local bugs. The next night, Theo arrived to us supplementing our energy with the best coffee of our lives (San Alberto Cafe) with a feverish Karl. We took him to the hospital and navigated the messy process of insurance, documentation, and payment as he crumbled lower into his waiting room seat. An IV insertion and 3 hrs sucking water at the hospital lowered his fever to 100° F. The next next night we stayed in a hostel as Karl ferociously battled the Panamanian/Colombian shipping process for 20 hours, the trophy being Abuelita—our car. In Colombia, we visited disadvantaged neighborhoods and beautiful clean neighborhoods. We spent the night in parking lots and roadsides across the country. I awoke at a rural gas stations with teenagers giving each other tattoos and truck drivers watching perverse videos with the sound cranked up. I awoke in what looked like a swiss valley, cows grazing with some of the worlds best coffee draped over the green mountains. I awoke next to a police station in Popayan to a feast of our home cooked rice/beans that we shared with the dozens of men and women without homes who were surrounding our car. I awoke to a freshly brewed batch of coffee from a man of small stature framed by a striped poncho atop the volcano, Azufral. In Bogota, I awoke to my college buddy, Jeremy Hunka, loudly snoring at my bedside and a feast of traditional Colombian foods prepared by the fantastic Moreno family. In Ecuador, we visited Quito, the volcano Cotopaxi, Lake Quilotoa, Cuenca, and Cajas National Park. At each location we met fantastic people who welcomed us like family. Our campsites were perhaps our best and our hosts were the most spontaneous (thanks so much, Gary and Mary). In Peru and Northern Chile, we stretched between hosts and camped in the deserts, Machu Picchu, Ayacucho, the pristine coast of Northern Chile, the incomprehensible Cordillera Blanca of the Andes. The night after Machu Picchu, we sent 2 into battle with an illness that causes you to get sick so frequently that you can hardly sit down. Karl and Theo each threw up 15 times. Nothing less than heroes. Now, we’re nearing Santiago and I’m trying to piece it all together. We’ve experienced “poverty” and “wealth”, the poverty of mind easily found within both of these boxes, and an authenticity that can be found independent of physical circumstance or cultural biases. Our internal conversations range from “we should address this to stay friends” to “what should I be doing with my career!” to “can these accusations that we’ve heard against our country be truth”. All 4 of us happen to be Christian believers, which gives us a shared vision of human flourishing and allows our conversations to begin 4 to 5 steps down a train of thought. We’ve a wealth of experiences, making campfires across the entirety of the Americas. These trains of thought are moving at a rapid pace, faster than mine ever have. I feel empowered by our new conversations, experiences, and ideas; I’m enthusiastic to bring my new passions back into my studies. This wealth of experiences is causing change and I will not see the world the same as I did when I return. We're starting a fire. My single frustration remains the same: the lack cohesiveness, the daisy-chain. -My eyes snap open to the sound of Theo’s phone sounding an alarm. I’m looking at what is classified as the best stars in the world at the darkest hour of night. -I sit up at the sound of our water filter dripping glacial water, I’m overlooking the Andean communities thousands of feet below me. -Today, we awoke in the fields of an Avocado farm, surrounded by a valley growing mandarins, olives, lemons, peaches, and perfect avocados. With all of these seemingly random experiences, I feel like I did scampering along the side of the Andes of Northern Peru. I’m frantically looking for the next conversation, experience, or idea scattered around the Americas that burns nice and easy like kindling. It’s not hard, we’re constantly hit with stimuli: fascinating cross-cultural encounters, stunning sights, worthwhile athletic endeavors, things that metaphorically burn very easily. When this daisy-chain-collection-of-experiences starts to feel like a chain-linked fence, I keep reminding myself that every good night of the trip begins with kindling. Just like kindling to a fire, the purpose of this trip is not to be the centerpiece of a life; it’s to get started on a good one. -James For absolutely anyone who wants to pray for us: -safety in our travels as we enter the unplanned -wisdom as we process/package what has happened -an easy method of selling the car near Ushuaia -sanity as we stay present, but anticipate homecoming
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PGT ThoughtsStories of experiences we have along the way. Archives
November 2017
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