feeling the fever
Finally. Excitement about leaving. Now that my books are in boxes, it seems real and I'm ready to go.
Was just looking for study/volunteer opportunities in Nicaragua and found Casa Xalteva, which looks very good. I've heard Granada is lovely, and I've wanted to go to Nicaragua since I was 15 and heard a Witness for Peace witness about the US-supported war there and then wrote a paper on it. I've thought so much, dreamed so much, about Nicaragua that sometimes I think I was there. But no - it was Guatemala instead. Of the beautiful Lake Atitlan and interesting, kind people - and bulletholes in the presidential palace and tour guides who brag of ripping down shanty-towns. I was only 18, asking, "But where do the people go who live there?" How could he have not had an answer? And did I know then that I was a bleeding-heart liberal?
Finally. I feel ready. Sadness and inertia abates, as I knew it would in time, and everything gets packed up in a frenzy of organizational madness. Good friends help me move things Friday and Saturday (and I have to just throw out here - I can never imagine NOT volunteering to help a friend move - I know that I have used up more than my favors in the moving department, but WTF that I have to ask people? What on earth would I ever do in this life without Lalo and Michele? And Sabine and Jenny help in their ways - though they're not as capable as the heavy lifting - but what of others who I think of as friends? What is this culture here where one does not offer to help friends when needed? In the culture I come from, we help each other build houses and the other things are assumed - why are people like this here? I understand people are busy and I couldn't coordinate times with them, and I don't need that many people really - but who are these people, really, who do not offer to help a friend in need? A few moves ago a person I thought was a really good friend refused to help me move - before I had asked him. In fact, I wasn't going to ask him - I wait for people to volunteer usually. He heard me say I was moving and jumped to a no - and I don't think I could ever forgive him for that, because that shows such a lack of loyalty and friendship that I could never trust somebody like that. Well, I guess I know who my real friends are now).
Was just looking for study/volunteer opportunities in Nicaragua and found Casa Xalteva, which looks very good. I've heard Granada is lovely, and I've wanted to go to Nicaragua since I was 15 and heard a Witness for Peace witness about the US-supported war there and then wrote a paper on it. I've thought so much, dreamed so much, about Nicaragua that sometimes I think I was there. But no - it was Guatemala instead. Of the beautiful Lake Atitlan and interesting, kind people - and bulletholes in the presidential palace and tour guides who brag of ripping down shanty-towns. I was only 18, asking, "But where do the people go who live there?" How could he have not had an answer? And did I know then that I was a bleeding-heart liberal?
Finally. I feel ready. Sadness and inertia abates, as I knew it would in time, and everything gets packed up in a frenzy of organizational madness. Good friends help me move things Friday and Saturday (and I have to just throw out here - I can never imagine NOT volunteering to help a friend move - I know that I have used up more than my favors in the moving department, but WTF that I have to ask people? What on earth would I ever do in this life without Lalo and Michele? And Sabine and Jenny help in their ways - though they're not as capable as the heavy lifting - but what of others who I think of as friends? What is this culture here where one does not offer to help friends when needed? In the culture I come from, we help each other build houses and the other things are assumed - why are people like this here? I understand people are busy and I couldn't coordinate times with them, and I don't need that many people really - but who are these people, really, who do not offer to help a friend in need? A few moves ago a person I thought was a really good friend refused to help me move - before I had asked him. In fact, I wasn't going to ask him - I wait for people to volunteer usually. He heard me say I was moving and jumped to a no - and I don't think I could ever forgive him for that, because that shows such a lack of loyalty and friendship that I could never trust somebody like that. Well, I guess I know who my real friends are now).
posted by NOLA at 9:09 PM
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