The Inheritance

I need to write something because I really still want to try and write every week. There is always something to say about my time here and truthfully I do this for selfish reasons. If I don't write on this blog once a week, I know I won't write or keep track of my experience at all.

"Even the disciples of Emmaus, living in front of Jesus, had the same experience. It is still the Lord who makes "their hearts burn" as they were walking with "a sad look” (Cf. Lk 24:13-35). While not recognizing the risen Jesus as they journeyed with him, they felt their hearts burn in their chests, beginning life again, so that when they got home, they "insisted" that he should remain with them. "Stay with us, Lord" is an expression of desire that throbs in the heart of every human being. This desire for "big things" must be transformed into prayer. The Fathers believed that praying is just the shift in yearning for the Lord."

http://www.ilsussidiario.net/articolo.aspx?articolo=107806

I have everything. I really do. Everything I really want or have asked for I have right now and it's still not enough. I have an amazing family. I have a beautiful relationship with my girlfriend. I am healthy. I have a Fulbright Scholarship in Colombia. I am living in Latin America (where I have always felt more at home than in my own country). But it's not enough.

The other day I was trying to buy a plane ticket with Aires for Bogotá to see a good friend of mine, who is Colombian but studies in Canada and spent a lot of his life in the states, there on vacation visiting his family. I had no idea when else we would see each other and so I decided to go for it. Do me a favor, don't ever fly Aires, its cheap...until they rob you of your time. It took me an entire day to buy the ticket. First off, if you want a "deal" you have to buy the ticket on the internet...the only problem was that the website was full of bugs and didn't work when I tried to buy my ticket. Eventually I had to call them and of course they told me I had to pay some absurd price since I wasn't buying the ticket on the internet. The price they listed was the same price I would have paid for a ticket on Avianca, which is reputable company that you can actually trust to arrive on time to your gate. Anyway, I finally got someone on the phone in customer service who hated the company as much as I did and eventually got the ticket. His name was "John" Jaramillo and his English was about as goo as the customer service I received (both were great). Mind you, it was about 6 hours too late since by the time we were through with the process my entire day was essentially wasted. After that, I was walking home (becuase when I first called customer service I had wasted ALL of the battery of the portable phone and had to go to my host families mother's house) and I was seriously pisssed...at pretty much everything. I was pissed that I had so much work to do in terms of planning for the English classes I am teaching for Fulbright and how I didn't have time....I was worrying for God knows what reason about the "job" I need to get after Colombia that will hopefully be in Italy, and I was stressing about my thesis that is due in two months and about the fact that my mattress is made of slate. Everything...I was cursing everything. In 5 minutes my life, which I swear is everything I want, felt like a really heavy bag of smelly shit that I wanted nothing to do with. Even my trip to Bogotá seemed like it wasn't worth those 6 hours (which later turned into many more on Thursday since my flight was canceled at least 5 times).

Anyway, I went back home and had forgotten that I had a skype date with a good friend of mine João who lives close to São Paolo in Brazil. While I was talking to him I explained how annoyed I was and he said, "You know we are a lot alike. We both have everything and yet it isn't enough". And I knew he was right. At that point I began to think a lot about what a priest we both know used to say when quoting a favorite poet of his. He said that for some reason man was convinced he was owed something, that somehow he felt in his heart of hearts that "everything" was promised to him.

And it's true. We as humans believe for some reason we are made for happiness, to be loved, for justice. And yet, the priest asked, just as the poet did (and I am butchering this), 'Who promised us that we would have it? That we should have everything? That we deserved happiness? Who wrote this on our hearts?'

Either there is a response or or there isn't. Either that fulfillment that our heart demands, especially when shit just isn't going right, exists or we are delusional, led on by false hopes and a vanishing point that we never quite reach. Saint Augustine understood that.

At least for me that demand is real, that need to be loved, to be happy, to do great things and to live a fruitful life...that tension...it's there. And that day talking to my friend I really felt it. Most things don't go "right" here. There is a lot of waiting and a lot of frustrating questions regarding your ID (the ID I have here is for foreigners and was given to me by the almighty DAS) when you try and buy anything...wireless internet...a mattress...yeah, you need an ID (often two forms of it) to buy just about everything here. And then even if you get past the whole ID step...you better hope what you bought actually works becuase the "returns" process is a bitch.

But I mean the point is, why put up with life if you are never satisfied with what you have and if what you get is never exactly what you expected (I mean is it ever? Is it ever how you expected...)? The only way it makes sense is if that question we have, that expectation, has a real response that we can't really predict...that we can sense but that we still haven't quite entirely reached or have only partially reached in the day to day. If you think about it, that desire, that tension between desire and having that desire fulfilled is what makes humans great. It's why we get out of bed, it's why fall in love. It's what makes humans do things. The problem is that a lot of us don't expect to be happy, or to really be loved or to find it...and so many times we try and kill desire as a result. But when we give up on it we die too. With desire goes man. As far as I am concerned that desire is part of a story and it won't go away until it meets something big enough to fulfill it. An infinite for our infinite. It has to be that way, otherwise all of this is pointless and my 6 hours on the phone with Aires was worthless.

So, I have everything and during these past few weeks I realized its not enough. My generation often wants the best internship, thinks they deserve the best job, or to go to the best school...or to get the best scholarship...and then we get it, and I swear we don't know half of the time what to do next. It's almost like it was just about getting the damn thing, not about what comes with it. Getting the Fulbright isn't just about getting the Fulbright, it's about the work that comes with it. Thank God I had my friend João that day because I realized talking to him that when we get what we want the first thing we realize is that we don't really know what it is we signed up for, but that that is part of the adventure. The situation we find ourselves in is always much bigger than we expected, more than we signed up for...like having a baby. These days I just say "Driver, surprise me" becuase I am pretty sure reality is about a relationship and that reality speaks to you and that my only job is to respond with a yes.

So that's what I am doing here, trying my damnedest to continue to say yes. I teach three conversation classes a week and once a month a lead a discussion about the "American Dream" through the eyes of cinema. I have told my kids repeatedly that learning language isn't about grammar and that its about relationship. I can memorize the word love and its definition but that doesn't mean I understand what it means...and it certainly doesn't mean I know what it means in another language. No, to learn a language it has to be felt and experienced. I tell them that's why I am there to teach them, because I have that experience and its something they need it fi they want to really learn English. I do teach grammar, and I do teach vocabulary but always in relationship. The other day I gave a lesson on art. We spoke about Hopper and Rockwell and used a lot of vocabulary and grammar to compare them, and to look at the different ways in which they portrayed life, and American culture in particular. They really enjoyed the lesson...one girl even wrote me and told me "thank you" for taking them seriously as students and not just doing the same old activities that everyone always does. These kids want to speak English they don't want to learn about what you find in the Kitchen.

The last thing I will say is the Medellín is a wonderful city. The weather here is wild though. In the same day you go from thunderstorms to blue sky...and no one every brings an umbrella because no one ever expects the rain to last longer than 20 minutes at a time...and it doesn't. They also have a metro here. It's immaculate and takes you to all the main parts of the city. I use it everyday to get too and from work. I also live right next to the major stadium in town where the most important soccer teams play like La Naciónal and Medellín. The entire area surrounding he stadium has every type of sports facility you can imagine, even a skate park, and was redone for the South American Games in 2010. I run around the stadium about 4 times a week. In general I can run whenever I want, but usually I don't go after 10pm. At that point most people have gone home and the only time you aren't safe in Colombia is when no one else is around but you. Sounds like any city doesn't it? Well that's because it is. Colombia is a safe place with a very bad rap. The more I am here the more I realize that people have no idea what they are talking about when Colombia comes to mind. I recommend Medellín and the general Antioquia region to anyone interested in traveling somewhere that is still under the radar. I also reccomend traveling in the Boyaca region near Bogotá which is home to Villa de Leyva, a truly picturesque Spanish colonial town where the lighting always seems be perfect. Colombia is a beautiful country and I still have a lot to discover.

The post have been coming in slow because I have been really busy with classes and also with my thesis. Come November (when the thesis is due) I should be able to turn one out every friday, just like I had promised.

In the adventure.
tim