I think I have almost forgotten that this was an experiment…a period of time that I set aside to learn and to explore and to understand. The goal was to bring back the experiences and apply it to my real life….my life in the United States of America.
So what is this life here, exactly?
To give a brief update to friends and family, I am currently living in Garcia (the same neighborhood I lived in last semester). I have a wonderful host family who is always ready to feed me, hug me, and send me on my way. I work at a public hospital in the women’s health clinic, primarily with administrative and clerical work with the opportunity to see SUS (the universal healthcare system) in action at the hospital level. In my spare time, I am completing some independent study work on nutritional anthropology and Afro-Brazilian spiritual medicine.
One more month. And two days. I’ll be stepping on U.S. soil for the first time since last September.
Last semester was very enjoyable, don’t get me wrong. I learned a great deal about public health issues that plague communities in Brazil. I was able to build a decent foundation for Portuguese. I made some very special friends who I hope to always keep in touch with as the years pass by. But this semester was different. The narrow streets began to feel like home. I got serenaded by a very handsome Brazilian. Here I developed a routine…a life.
“In the end, I’ve come to believe in something I call ‘The Physics of the Quest.’ A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.” – Eat. Pray. Love.
And what is this “truth” that I’ve discovered? I don’t really know. But I can tell you that bit by bit it is coming…and I think it will always be a process.
Sure, there are things I’d like to change, things I have uncertainty about, questions left unanswered. But just as one of the most special people I have ever met in my entire life always says…”faz parte” (“It makes part.”) To accept the bad with the good, taking risks for the chance to find pleasure, and exposing your heart to feel something grand.
I’m not quite sure how my life in the United States of America will be like when I return…but I have a feeling that on those evenings I only have a can of Ravioli on the shelf for dinner, I’ll be craving shrimp with rice and a nice tall glass of maracujá juice. And when I’m stressed about catching the bus in time to go to work, I’ll be dreaming of the days that time was relative but where things still got done somehow and life went on. And on those nights I feel lonely, I will look up at the stars and know that on the other side of the planet, there are people who can see them, too. And the world will seem a little smaller, a little less intimidating. And I will be at peace.