I didn’t change anyone’s life

 

A year ago today, I was in LaPaz, Bolivia. The week before we were doing a homestay on a small island in Lake Titicaca, and the week before that we were walking up Machu Picchu. With so much travel behind me, I approached Bolivia with the intention of staying put for a while. I planned to volunteer to teach English somewhere to get my bearings, reorganize my backpack, and improve my Spanish. After extensive google searches for volunteer positions in Bolivia, I settled on a small children’s daycare called Luz del Mundo in Santa Cruz. 

When I arrived in Santa Cruz after my overnight bus from LaPaz, I hopped in a taxi and told the driver the address of my homestay. We flew through roundabouts in the downtown streets until we turned and I began to see tall gates surrounding buildings. It took me a minute to realize that those gates were around houses, and that we had entered a residential area. When the taxi stopped, I saw an 8-foot fence surrounding the house I would be living in. The gate was locked, and I didn’t have a key. Within a moment of my arrival, a short man walked up to me on the sidewalk and asked “Kerri?” He handed me two keys on a Munich key chain. I unlocked the padlock on the gate and let myself in. Not knowing where to go, and realizing no one was home, I walked to the back of the house where there was an open court area. I sat and read about Santa Cruz in my guidebook until the owner of the house came home. “Kerri? Porque… why are you here? Your room is there with your name on it,” she said, pointing at a brown door across the court with a little white sign on it. I dropped off my bags into my little brown room, and even arranged a few items on the bookshelves. It felt like I was decorating.

My first day on the job, I woke up early to take a bus with Katharina, a German anthropology student living and working in Santa Cruz. She smelled of chlorine, and offering me a pamphlet, invited me to swim with her in the mornings. At the side of the road, she hailed a small white bus and told me “You can take the 21, the 65, and the 120 from here, but I think the 21 is the fastest.” She paid the 15 cent fare for both of us and we found two seats at the back of the bus. Everyone watched as we climbed to the back of the bus. “They stare, so I just stare back,” she explained, “there aren’t many people who look like you or me here.” She pulled out a bag with two buns inside and told me these were her favourite local food. “It’s cuñapé, like a heavenly cheese bread that everyone seems to eat here even though no one gets fat”. Little did I know I’d become addicted to cuñapé, not only because it was delicious, but also because it was one of few things I learned how to order in the bakery.

  
After about 45 minutes through the city streets, trying to remember all of the information Katharina was offering me while also trying to memorize landmarks to make sure I could do the journey on my own, she motioned to get off soon. “You can tell it’s coming because the streets get muddy.” I looked down and noticed the dirt street was splattered with muddy puddles, despite the dry sunny weather.

“They have a very poor sewage system here, and people just leave their garbage everywhere, so there are some parts of the road that never dry up.” She yelled for the bus driver to let us off, and we were greeted by a gust of dusty wind and the smell of sewage. “What did you say to the bus driver just then?” I asked. “Pare por favor, which just means stop.”

We walked through a dusty setup of stalls with garbage on the ground, and everyone stared again. “I told you there aren’t many people like us around here.” She explained that the foundation is for underprivileged children of divorced parents. “Since these kids have poor parents, they live in the poor area, so our daycare is here so they can walk.” The street was a dirt road with puddles in the middle. As we approached Luz del Mundo, I heard the familiar sound of children laughing.

When we walked in, I was greeted by a smiling Gabriela, the founder of the daycare. After introducing myself, I was informed that the daycare is only open 4 days a week, so I wouldn’t be needed everyday. Contemplating what to do with my extra time, I sat at a table where some kids were cutting out animal shapes from cardboard. “Me llamos Kerri…” I let out, “cuál es tu nombre?” The reply was incomprehensible, so I asked her to repeat. For the next ten minutes, this little girl repeated her full name over and over, between sighs, and insisted I repeat it. Then, satisfied with my rendition of her name, she asked me why I didn’t understand Spanish.

Point taken. I joined a beginner Spanish course at Kolping in the afternoons, and began to study Spanish formally for the first time in my life. The school seemed like the YMCA, as there were kids in ballet costumes running around the first floor. My instructor was Gladys, and I studied with two others, a French student and a Japanese office worker. I felt happy to finally be nurturing the language fanatic in me.

 
That night, I received an email from Gabriela at Luz del Mundo telling me that they were doing construction, and that I wouldn’t need to come in the next day. Then another email the following night to tell me not to come in again because of a holiday. It was clear that I wouldn’t be needed as much as I thought, so my homestay host connected me with Casa de la Mujer, an organization supporting women’s equality in South America. I went there the next morning to offer my services as a volunteer with nonexistent Spanish, and remarkably they wanted me. My first job was to take un-catalogued books from the library and to put them into the computer system. I felt like I was actually working, which felt nice.

Within a week of arriving, I’d started Spanish classes, volunteered once at the daycare, and started volunteering at the organization for women. In my free time between volunteering and studying, I walked the downtown streets and visited the same coffee shop every afternoon. I’d order my café con leche with a croissant from the same waitress and sit at the same table to do my homework. I quickly made a routine for myself, and enjoyed the novelty of becoming a creature of habit.

During my second time volunteering at the daycare, I asked Gabriela about teaching. She said I could do whatever I wanted with the kids, but that they really liked art. There was nothing that looked scholarly about the place – it consisted of a swing set, some picnic benches, a washing up station, a dusty drum kit, some board games, and tables with little stools under them. No blackboard, no chalk, no books. I realized that I might do less teaching and more arts and crafts than I expected.

Since my Spanish was still not great, I ended up having the most fun with the kids when I gave them piggybacks. Two weeks of my life was spent piggybacking these kids from one end of the daycare to the other and back. And it was fine with me, because making those kids happy made me happy.

When I returned to Casa de la Mujer, I sat back at the computer where I finished cataloguing the books and I was left alone without another task. A woman walked by and saw me idle, and invited me to follow her. She let me into a recording studio where live radio was taking place. I sat quietly and listened to the voices around the corner. This became my new favourite place at the women’s organization. The young man who controlled the soundboard helped me with my homework and couldn’t believe I’d been to Asia. He played Bolivian rap for me on his phone. I played Arcade Fire for him. Although I wasn’t really working, I was still sharing my life with someone.

  
After spending six months travelling through South America, I can confidently say that nothing ever goes exactly as planned there. Bus schedules are rearranged without notice, and prices change day to day. A promised beautiful hostel with wi-fi turns out to be a cobwebbed house with chickens to wake you up at 5:00am.

  
Naturally, my time in Bolivia didn't go as I anticipated, either. I didn’t learn as much Spanish or teach as much English as I thought I would. I didn’t change anyone’s life, and I didn’t make any lasting friendships. But, none of that matters.

Life doesn’t tend to go as we plan it. In fact, if I asked myself where I would be in one year back when I was in Bolivia, I would have said I’d be in Korea now. But, life happens, things change, and now I’m writing this blog post from my apartment in Toronto, overlooking the city skyline. What would my one-year-ago self say to that? She’d probably smile, shrug her shoulders, and say there must be a reason for being in Toronto.

I made a few people smile in Santa Cruz, and that’s enough reason to do anything.

Thank you, Brenna, for helping me get my words back on the page.

VIDEO: Passport Tag

I was recently tagged to participate in a Passport Tag started by my friends EvannRachel. The concept is to answer 5 questions about your most recent passport, and to share some cool stamps you've received and tell some stories... I hope you enjoy my video!

If you would like to participate in the tag, simply make a video answering the following 5 questions:

1. What is your most recent stamp?
2. What was your first stamp?
3. What's your coolest looking stamp?
4. What's the most meaningful stamp?
5. What was the most difficult stamp to get?

Thanks to EvannRachel for tagging me! I love sharing travel stories - so thanks for giving me another reason!

See their original video here:

Guest Post: Volunteering in Western Kenya

My good friend visited Kenya a few years ago, and when I asked her to tell me all about it, before anything else, she grinned and replied "you'll have to see it for yourself."

Since that conversation, Kenya has become somewhere I want to go and stay for a while. The way of living, the food, the natural landscape, and the music allure me. Though I have visited other countries through which the equator passes, I have still yet to set foot in the African continent. Lucky for us, former English teacher in Korea turned blogger Natalie over at Live Teach Alaska has written up a guest post all about her time in Kenya. Here she shares her stories from her time volunteering in the Muhuru Bay area in Western Kenya. Take us into the bush, Natalie...

After six hours of driving over the uneven dirt roads of the Great Rift Valley, my team and I arrived in Muhuru Bay, Kenya, in the dark of night. Our van pulled into a tiny compound with three mud huts on the shore of Lake Victoria. Sleepily, I grabbed my suitcase and headed into my designated hut. I turned on the light, which was but a small, dim bulb at the apex of the triangular straw ceiling, and watched in horror as a carpet of insects scattered towards the walls. Shooting towards me was a creature several inches in length that closely resembled a white scorpion (though I still don’t know what it was). I screamed, my husband raced in, shouted, “Oh my God!”, and attempted to squash the Godzilla bug with a broom.

This was my first experience in the Eastern African Bush. After finally settling in that night, I was destined for one week of plastic bag showers, second degree sunburns, and toilet troubles. However, I can confidently say it was all worth it. My trip to Muhuru Bay truly changed my life.

I traveled to Kenya with eight family members and family friends to volunteer at Mama Maria, a fledgling clinic in Muhuru Bay. On our second day in the village, we were unexpectedly invited to a funeral. Despite our protests, we were seated as guests of honor and watched as family members of the deceased mourned by openly wailing.

After the funeral, we sat down at the feasting table and shared a plate of ugali with the people of the village. Children hid behind trees and rocks, staring and smiling at us.

A plate of ugali: maize cooked with water

The next day, we took a small fishing boat to visit a village on the other side of the lake. Despite the very poor living conditions, the villagers flocked over to greet us and show us around. A little girl took my hand as we were shown inside the huts of several of the village people who proudly showed off their pots and pans.

Later that week, we traveled to the only school in Muhuru Bay to teach a lesson about dental hygiene. Because the people in Muhuru Bay brush their teeth with tree bark, standard dental care was foreign knowledge. We passed out toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss and showed them how to properly clean their teeth with a toothbrush.

A few days before the end of our trip, we heard about two girls who had fled Tanzania with their father to live in Muhuru Bay. The two girls we met had albinism and were forced to escape from their home because witch doctors were hunting them for their arms and legs. In Tanzania, it is a widespread belief that albino limbs have magical healing powers. The two little girls, ages 3 and 5, were scabbing all over their bodies due to terrible sunburns. We drove out to meet them and brought hats, sunscreen, and two goats for their family.

Although my first trip to Kenya wasn’t glamorous, it was extremely eye-opening and has changed me in so many ways. Witnessing a different culture, getting out of my comfort zone, volunteering, and giving to others made for a trip I’ll never forget. If you ever have the opportunity to travel to the African Bush, I would highly recommend it. I assure you, you will walk out of the experience a different person. 

You can follow Natalie’s adventures in a native Alaskan village at: http://www.liveteachalaska.com/

Or join the conversation at: https://www.facebook.com/LiveTeachAlaska  

my philosophy on love

i believe any man could be the right man for me, at any given moment in my life. i also believe that people come into our lives for a reason, be it to teach us something, to help us through something, or to just enjoy the great times together.

in all of my past relationships, something hasn't quite been in line to keep us in love for the long run. accordingly, i have spent a lot of time looking back on what i consider my most successful relationships. i examine which parts of the relationship were fully satisfying for me, and which parts could have been improved.

now at 27, i think i've finally got a theory that seems to hold water for me, as well my friends who i've explained it to.

love has three elements: mind love, heart love, and sex love: for lasting love, all three of these elements must be in line.

first, mind love. mind love is having stimulating conversations, and being able to make each other laugh. it also means being able to understand each other, and be patient when things aren't alright. mind love is the insatiable adoration that you have for your partner's brain. you want to hear that person's thoughts, and you enjoy the way the express themself. of course, your partner should also be as interested and crazy about the way you think, which gives you the energy for those amazing into the night conversations that just make life feel so worth it. think before sunrise.

next comes heart love. heart love is missing your partner, and the happiness and enjoyment that comes simply from being near that person. wanting to spend more time with them, having a hard time saying goodbye, and staring at your partner's photos are all signs of heart love. it's also that feeling inside you when you hear those three magic words. heart love can lead us to do silly things, like midnight drives in the rain, and it's probably what romeo and juliet were feeling when they snuck away together.

now we come to sex love. sex love shows itself after a long day out in the world, coming home and embracing as soon as the door is closed. sex love is the throw down, the i-need-you-now, the groceries-in-hand kisses. the passion, when you stare at your partner and just admire the little idiosyncrasies that make them yours. when the hedonists in you both find paradise in one another's arms, and never feel it is enough. sex love is exclusive, primal, and absolutely worth losing sleep over.

so what happens when one of these loves is out of line? the relationship is so close to perfect, but part of you is left a little unsatisfied.

if mind love is out of line, you might end up fighting where understanding is needed, or resenting the logic of your partner's decisions.

if heart love is out of line, someone might be too busy to make the "goodnight" call, or you might start wondering if your partner still has feelings for a former fling.

if sex love is out of line, your once passionate kisses could turn into pecks.

i realize this is a grand simplification of relationships, and that there will be many people who could disagree with my three concepts. However, when I look back on my own life, I see relationships which start out with two loves strong enough to overpower the missing link. As time goes on, though, the third missing love starts to show itself, and by the end of the relationship, it comes to overshadow the other two loves.

i like to think of them as the chakras of love, three glowing hot spots that everyone has in them.

it just takes the right person to light them all up.

the evolution of a backpack (& the legend of the woman in the black dress)

My first extended backpacking trip was around Europe back in 2006, where I managed to see 22 countries in 4 months. I began the trip hopeful and naive with a bag weighing 12kgs (not including my carry-on), and I came home with a full heart and a dirty bag weighing in at a hefty 17kgs. It was getting hard to lift near the end of the trip, with gifts and ticket stubs and moments of life all fighting for space in my bag.

Here in 2012, I begin my second extensive backpacking trip, as I head off to Nicaragua to meet up with my friend to navigate our way through central and south America until we get to Rio de Janeiro. We're planning to be on the road for a few months (but it could end up being longer if we love a certain somewhere). I vowed to myself not to bring too much stuff, and in particular not too many clothes.

Having recently moved out of my apartment in Jinju, Korea - where I had lived comfortably for 2 years - I parted with a lot of clothes. Some were old vintage items I just wasn't wearing, some were new items that I hadn't quite worked into my wardrobe, and there were lots of colourful scarves and pretty skirts that just fell somewhere in between. With the simplicity of fewer things in my apartment in Korea, I also seem to have adopted a bit more of a simpler wardrobe in the past month. Fewer costume changes, and more well-liked clothes on repeat. It is with this principle that I packed my backpack for my upcoming travels.

What clothes did I pack? A pair of jean shorts, a black skirt, a white skirt, a blue button up collared shirt, 3 pretty tops, a longsleeved shirt, a cardigan, a short dress and a pair of leggings. Just one dress, and this is odd for me, since my four-season wardrobe consists of at least 50% dresses. The reason is that I know I will find dresses I love down south.

Yes, there are other items in my bag, and that's what makes up the other 6kgs. I have a netbook and terabyte of storage for videos, a 1068 page guidebook, a GoPro camera plus the user guide (since I have yet to memorize it), a silk bed liner, a pair of blunnies and a bunch of other little things which I want to have with me. Of course I want to have dresses with me too...

But, when I'm traveling in a new city, and I find a dress that I love, I buy it. These clothing items are my souvenirs, and when I wear them I'm filled with the memories of the music, food, and the city where I bought it. Going to the land of floral dresses and handstitched patterns only makes my heart pine for beautiful dresses, and I know I'll find ones that suit me perfectly. This way, the dresses I wear on my trip will be of that area, and I can create memories and take photos wearing items from that region.

At the airport en route to Managua, Nicaragua, my backpack weighed 8.8kgs (with a carry-on at 4kgs). Here I have a much more organized and well-prepared backpack than the one I carried in Europe, and as a bonus I'm starting at a lighter weight. Remember, my first backpacking trip was 6 years ago, and I was pretty much as novice as a backpacker can get (I'd been to Paris and London for 2 weeks each on a high school exchange, but high school exchanges are far different from solo traveling, oh and that one trip to Barbados when I was 16 with my family...). I've picked up a lot of tips and tricks throughout my other travels to places including Turkey, China, Burma, Vietnam, and Thailand.

My very first time leaving Korea in 2007, I rode by boat past this bridge while it was under construction. The bridge stuck its half-contructed spine out into the sea then, weak and unready. Leaving Korea most recently in 2012, we rode along the very same bridge, now confidently providing commuters a more convenient road to reach the airport.

No umbrella, wearing my heaviest shoes instead of keeping them in the bag, using air compressing plastic bags to organize clothes, and carrying fewer liquids are some of my current strategies keeping my bag lighter. But another strategy is just simply having fewer clothes. When traveling Europe in 2006, some clothes in my bag would go a month or more without being worn, which is too long to simply be carrying clothing on the road. This time, I plan to wear everything in my bag in the span of a week, and just wash what I wear every other day in the sinks (with my handy traveler's laundry soap sheets).

It's a new strategy in practise for me, but an old concept. I remember reading of the legend of the traveling woman in the black dress who carried no backpack. They say she washed her dress and underwear every night to have it ready and clean for a new day. Sounds pretty amazing to me, and I'd love to try that on my next adventure - after I stock up on Peruvian alpaca sweaters.
Now, to you dear reader, what's your strategy when packing your travel bag? Are you a notorious overpacker, prepared for every rift of inclement weather? Or do you bring less and adopt a more frequent washing cycle, as I'm going to try? Please share your tips and ideas as a comment here on the blog, or tweet your tips and ideas to me on twitter @expatkerri.

I'm already imagining all the beautiful things I will find in Granada and beyond. I guess I'm not ready to be a legend in a black dress just yet.