Reflection

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Trip Start Nov 24, 2005 Previous
Entry Trip End May 21, 2006

  Guelph, Canada
Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Six months in Central America and now I am home. I have been stuffed silly with food, enjoyed a few glasses of wine and had a moment or two to reflect between catching up with friends and family

I thought about finishing this travelpod with a list of my favourites but the thing with listing favourites is that they donīt capture the fact that this trip was more than the sum of it parts. It was an immersion into different cultures, it was all the experiences and the people along the way, it was the bad days as well as the good that made it so amazing.

I learned a new language, I stood atop volcanos, I shared the holiday season with a Guatemalan family, I dove with manta rays, I scaled a Mayan pyramid over a thousand years old, I ate my weight in Gallo Pinto and I made friendships that I hope will last a lifetime.

Perhaps most importantly I recaptured a part of myself that I thought I had lost. Dreams and aspirations that I let sleep for years. I am now that much closer to knowing what I want to or at least I have found a path that should take me in the right direction. It has been three years of wandering, experiencing, questioning but now I am excited for what lies ahead.

All that written I will share what I miss about Central America:
· Speaking Spanish...the beauty and the frustration involved, the rush when I remember to put an indirect pronoun in the right place, and the desire to actually learn enough that I have a personality when I speak
· Music....coming from the neighbour's houses (except perhaps on ridiculously early weekend mornings), from a band marching down the street or from a pirated CD vendor on the corner
· Mobile Markets....living in Central America means if you sit somewhere long enough whether it is on a bus, in the park or at a sidewalk cafe long enough someone will come by with the thing you need (but perhaps didn't yet know it) It might be a pair of sunglasses, an avocado or an alarm clock. Damn convenient.
· Street Food...buying my gallo pinto, salad and cheese from the crusty street food lady, who does an excellent impression of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, for only 60 cents.
· The La Esperanza Community....that comfort of knowing I can wander over to the office or to the bar and I will run into someone with whom I can sit and chat for hours over everything and nothing while sipping Caipirinhas
· Perspective....it is easy to be back in Canada and forget the hardships suffered in the world. But in Central America I am reminded everyday but I am also inspired to do something about it.

And just to balance things out....what I love about being home
· Driving...the independence of being able to jump in the car, throw on a CD and make my way to a destination without stopping several dozen times to pick up passengers, baskets of food and squawking livestock.
· Being close to (nearly) everyone I love...being able to say I will see you soon and know that means in a few days and not six months from now, being able to pick up the phone and call people just to chat.
· Hot showers...and just the feeling of finally being clean
· The realization that no matter how much I have travelled in my lifetime or how many different places I have lived in the past three years that I still love the beauty that is Southern Ontario. This is my home and that is a comforting thought.

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