My world travels have come to a temporary halt. I returned to Oregon, my heart and my home, in early October. It took a night in Ethiopia, two glorious days basking in the sunny, canal woven streets of Amsterdam, a giddy-with-exhaustion reunion in NYC; altogether five solid days of travel, and I finally landed softly back where I started.
I could wax nostalgic all over this post about how the trip has impacted me. I'll leave it at two things that struck me: first, is that people thrive under the unlikeliest of conditions; and as a corollary, what seems to make it possible are the bonds of community and good will - local and global. I am, very simply, humbled by what common focus makes possible. I have great hope that the shape of survival in so many of the places I visited "off roads" from a patently Western trajectory and finds comfort in unique equilibrium.
There and here (caught in the job search decision tangle) the frenzy of choice and possibility set starkly against the simplicity of needs creates a paradox and existential brain tease that, all at once, is excruciating, intoxicating and completely cliche.
Sharing stories, mishaps, opinion, plans, and enthusiasm through this blog has added an unexpected layer of gratitude for it all. I am thankful for this mode of communication- to be able to write to you from some far off place, to capture a piece of the experience and share it, then move on, build on the adventure, and do it again.
I wrote the last several posts during a two week "wrap up" period in Kigali and save the latest to post well after I safely exited the country. Just in case.
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