Life at Latitude 3

Anyone who´s received a serious email from me in the last month knows that I was struggling with the next step in my life. 3 yrs ago, when I first decided to travel to South America, I was so sure of myself, my decision, and my next move in life, but for the past several months, I had felt totally the opposite. As much as I loved my life in Cuenca, I couldn´t help but wonder, is this where I should still be? and if I shouldn´t be here, where? and more importantly, why?

I don´t make the important decisions in my life. At least not consciously. My subconscious works everything out – all the doubts, the questions, etc, and then when everything seems to be set, and there really is no possible excuse to get in the way, it lets my conscious in on the secret. I was sitting in a park one day, reading an article related to Vietnam and instantly I knew that I was going to Vietnam. I had no fear or doubt about the decision – it was just a matter of taking care of logistics (buying the ticket, letting my employer know, etc). Same thing w. Ecuador. I was on a campus interview in Colorado, and as I was strolling through the campus I knew that I was going to live in mountains for awhile, and those mountains weren´t the Rockies. I was going to the Andes.

At every other point in my life when I was feeling antsy, there was an obvious next step (graduation), or a door opened up for me and I just had to walk through it (someone at work would leave, and I would apply for the promotion), or there was a revelation, like with Vietnam. But it seemed, no matter how patient I was, doors weren´t opening, or no messages were coming from the subconscious.

Ok, that´s not actually true. During the past few months, I did my best to listen to my heart as it tried to reveal myself to me. Every now and then, I´d have a small insight, or tiny aha moment, but they were like small little bread crumbs leading somewhere, but I couldn´t quite make out to where.

My first thought, or bread crumb, was that my angst was not geographical. I was not eager to move back to the states (apart from the benefit of being closer to family and friends), nor was I dying to leave Ecuador. An email from a good friend, telling me about her recent promotion, gave me a 2nd bread crumb. I had a hard time writing back to her to congratulate her, and I realized that this new challenge in her life made me realize that I lacked challenge in my own life. Not that I´ve mastered the spanish language, or teaching english as a foreign language, but I´ve been doing both of those things long enough now that they´re no longer heady challenges in which I can immerse myself. So then the question was, what challenge am I needing or seeking?

Then came the most telling bread crumb of all, which at first just looked like the biggest piece of irony I´d ever encountered in my life.

A couple weekends ago I found myself in a tiny, remote Andean village called Principal. (Principal is an unusual name for an Andean village, as most of them have Quechua, not spanish, names.) Principal, like so many latinamerican communities, has been impacted by its men migrating to the states to work. While migration brings money back into a community, it affects the social order of the family, which affects the social order of a community. So a few years ago, the Peace Corps sent a volunteer into Principal to work with the community to figure out how to make Principal less dependent on outward migration – ie. how to make Principal a sustainable community. The volunteer, Matt, worked with the community to create more tourism in Principal. With tourism you need guides who can communicate, and of course bilingual guides are generally more helpful in communicating with more people. That´s where we, CEDEI come in. Right now there is no way that this community could pay us to give their tour guides english lessons, so every wknd, CEDEI teachers volunteer their time to give free lessons to the guides. I had wanted to go to Principal for a long time, but there always seemed to be something else. But at long last, I had a weeknd free, the ganas and the energy to get out of Cuenca and see the more rugged side of Ecuador.
My friend Lauren, the CEDEI teacher who currently goes out every wknd and and coordinates the volunteer lessons, completely by coincidence, used to work in the Peace Corps head office in DC. It was also by coincidence that the weekend that I went to Principal, Lauren had 2 friends, both former Peace Corps volunteers, visiting her from the states. She met Paul and Reuben while the 3 of them worked in the Peace Corps office, (Paul and Reuben still work there.) 4 yrs ago, when I was devastated over not being accepted into the Peace Corps for medical reasons, I never imagined that one day, I would find myself sitting in a hostal in an Ecuadorian pueblo, with 3 people all associated with the Peace Corps while volunteering for a Peace Corps project. Life has a wicked sense of humor.

So I´m sitting there, listening to the 3 of them reminisce about their days in the office together, and a realization slowly seeped into me – I miss having a career that I´m passionate about, really good at, and makes me feel valued. I miss working with people whom I respect, and respect me for what I bring to the table.

While teaching English as a 2nd or foreign language can be a respectable career, for me, it was only a means to live in a city and a country that enamored me. I enjoy and I think I´m good (not mindblowingly awesome) at teaching English, but in the last 2 years that I´ve been teaching, I feel that many of my other skills, passions, and talents have laid dormant. I have never respected the institute that employs me, nor any of the 3 directors that I´ve had, and have never felt valued by them. When I know for a fact that directors have literally gone out to the streets looking for any native english speakers (most of whom are not certified to teach english as a foreign language), it makes me feel pretty dispensible. And we are dispensible.

I have liked many of the teachers that I´ve met here, but the average stay is 6mo. Every 6 mo. I´m saying goodbye to good friends, and having to make new ones. It can be emotionally draining. And working with a group of people that you like, and feeling like you are a part of a cohesive team – 2 different things.

At one point I could make all those sacrifices because of what I was getting in its stead – the chance to learn a new language, learn a new culture, live a more simple life, etc. But listening to these guys talk, I realized that I not only wanted, but craved those things in my life again.

So over the next few days, I came to terms with the fact that my time in Ecuador has an ending point. On the one hand, it feels good to know that I can finally answer that most dreaded question, “How much longer will you be in Ecuador?” with something besides the very limp “Quien sabe? Yo no sé nada de mi futuro.” (Who knows, I know nothing of my future.) On the other hand, it means having to say goodbye to a life and city that I adore for so many reasons. I will be here through Dec. or January, which should give me the time I need to despedirme del ecuador. And there is no doubt that ecuador will not have seen the last of me (perhaps to its chagrin). I will be back, at the very least, for a visit.

Having made that decision, I also made the healthy decision to break up with Pato. For reasons that I don´t need to bore everyone with, our relationship lasted longer than it should have because we´d both chosen to ignore some fundamental differences between us (perhaps the biggest being that he is a devout mainstream Mormon – and that I am not and never will be.). But somehow, we realized, at almost the exact same time, that in the long run, we would both be happier and healthier with other people (him with a fellow mormon and me with someone a bit more punctual). I feel a bit sad right now because even when a breakup is as healthy, mature, honest, mutual and caring as ours was, it´s still letting go of something. But I know, and not so deep down, that it was right for both of us, and that we´ll both be fine. Right now of course distance from each other is needed, but we both know that if either of us ever needs something, the other one is there, and that´s a comforting gift.

Now that I´ve finally tamed the big elephant in the room, I can actually make other decisions about my future, and that makes my future worth looking forward to. I am excited to go back to the states in October for to go to Laura´s (one of my best friends) wedding in Iowa, then out to DC to visit Reuben (one of the cool Peace Corps guys). Hopefully when I´m in DC I can also see Chris (my first Cuenca roommate) who is just about to relocate there. Another one of my best friends, Jenn, will either come visit me in October or January, and (depending on that) I will either be home for good in December or January.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.