Week 19-26: What happened to the last 2 months?

30 Sec. Update: I've returned to the blogosphere! During the last eight weeks, blogging fell at the wayside as I finished my grad school applications, hosted my family and Kayla during their visits, and traveled in Patagonia, the Atacama Desert, and Bolivia. BUT this is my solemn promise to resume blogging at least once every two weeks.

Where in the world: Since my last post, I have traveled from the Southern tip of South America up to La Paz, Bolivia (the heart of the continent). In an attempt to keep this post from being too long, I am just going to list a couple of the highlights from the last two months.

-Saw a Manu Chao concert in Santiago. “King of the Bongo. King of the Bongo. Here me when I come.”

-Shared a flight to Patagonia with Benny Prasad (http://www.bennyprasad.com/) on his way to Antarctica. In case you haven't heard of him, he is setting the world record for visiting every country in the world in the shortest amount of time. He's already visited 218 countries (Antartica was his 52^nd of the year) and he's on target to break the record this next year. Most amazing of all is that he's NOT some wealthy South Asian. He is funding his travels entirely from donations that receives from free concerts that he gives. One of the more interesting casual conversations that I have had.

-Listened to the Perrito Moreno glacier move three feet/day. Imagine a glacier sixty feet high and the size of Buenos Aires. Yeah...pretty impressive.

-Backpacked 13 days and 125 miles in Patagonia split between Torres del Paine (Chile) and El Chalten (Arg). Patagonia met every bit of the hype.

-Went to Isla Magdalena, the nesting site for over 100,000 Magellanic Penguins. I felt like I was David Attenborough.

-Was honored at a school-wide assembly attended by all of the students and teachers of my school. I was regaled with hundreds of notes and gifts from my students. The event wrapped up with my embarrassing attempt to dance the Cueca (the national dance of Chile).

-Held an international family reunion (Davis, California meets Los Alamos, Chile). For three days my Davis family lived a day-in-my-life for the past 6 months. They savored my host-father's asado, they met my students, they lived in “El Caupo,” and they even put their TP in the trash can.

-Brought in the New Year with Kayla in Valapariso, Chile (one of South America's best celebrations). Trying to watch 17 different firework shows at the same time all across the bay was no easy task.

-Biked at sunrise through Valle de la Luna, aptly named for its other-worldly landscapes. Along the way, I also climbed 300-foot sand dunes, spelunked in desert salt caves, and debated the beauty of Patagonia vs. Atacama.

-Toured the Capel Pisco distillery in Vicuña, Chile. It was gratifying to watch grapes become bottles of one late night guilty pleasures.

-Spent my 23^rd Birthday on a 3-day by Jeep trip through the Atacama desert and across the border into Uyuni, Bolivia. Saw thousands of flamingos, the world's largest salt flat, volcanic sulfur hot springs and geysers, and stayed in a hotel constructed entirely out of salt.

-Joined tens of thousands to watch Evo Morales inaugurated at Tiahuanaco (Bolivia's Macchu Pichu). Evo is Bolivia's first indigenous president and Bolivians sure are proud of it! Indigenous groups from all over the Americas (as far North as Canada) came to attend the event. All of the spontaneous dancing and the after party was epic.

Marisol's Story: Leaving Los Alamos was much harder than I expected. Sitting at the dinner table an hour before my bus to Santiago, I was brought to tears trying to thank my host-family for everything that they had given me. As I silently sobbed in front of them my host-mother, father, and brother also began crying. It was a bittersweet moment for all of us. My Chilean family had shared so much with me even though they struggled to pay their monthly utility bills. How can I ever thank them?

The amount of love and affection they showed me, a person who they knew nothing about less than six months ago, was powerful. After only a few days in Chile, I felt like their son. But that is how my host-parents live their lives. My second week in Chile, I blogged about my first Chilean wedding. However just this past week, I learned the full story of the bride, Marisol.

Marisol was formerly a high school boarder at my host-parent's house. Five years earlier, in the same month, at the age of fifteen she became pregnant and her mother died. With neither the baby's father nor Marisol's father in sight, she was all alone. Instead of abandoning her to the care of the government, my Chilean parents saw Marisol through her pregnancy. Marisol continued to live at their house and my host-mother took care of her baby so that she could finish high school.

Fast forward five years later and that was the wedding I attended. Both father's are still not around, but Marisol is now happily married to a new husband and her son is five-years-old

My host-parents at the wedding with Marisol's son.

The amount of time and resources that my family gave and continue to give to ensure that Marisol's child grew up in a safe household is remarkable. And to do all that for a teenager they hardly knew when they barely had enough money for their own family, is probably the most moving thing that I have ever witnessed.

I share this story to recognize the beautiful gift that my family has given to Marisol, but also because my Chilean parents are my role models. I want to give the same kind of gift to my students when they enter my classroom. I want to greet them with the same kind of overwhelming love that my host-family showed Marisol when she was so vulnerable. I have a lot to live up to.

Moving on: I'm sitting alone in front of my computer in the middle of La Paz, Bolivia. I have no idea where I will be a week from now. My wheels have stopped moving and for the first time since July, I don't know my next step. I have ideas: traveling north to Ecuador and Columbia, finding work in Bolivia and living with another host-family, or I am even considering coming home. Seeing Kayla and my family was wonderful and a pleasant reminder of everything that is awaiting me in the United States.

Before leaving for South America, I planned to return home at the end of the February, but after six months here I feel as conflicted as ever about the right time to come home. Grad school remains on the horizon, but the earliest program that I applied to begins in mid-June leaving me with four and half months. But I guess this is why I decided to take this year off in the first place. I wanted the absolute freedom that comes from not knowing the next bed I'll be sleeping in or the next meal I'll eating. Enough thinking. Time to go see what tomorrow brings.