What I've Learned

My trip is not over yet, and already I've been asked more than once, "What did you learn?" One friend even added the stipulation that I answer in one word or less. Surprisingly, I found the constraint quite helpful. With a question as open-ended as "What did you learn?" it’s hard to know where to begin. "I prefer diarrhea to constipation" might be too flippant a starting point, while "all you need is love" borders on too earnest. An answer of one word or less simplifies things significantly; I can craft a pretty convincing response with grunts, groans, moans, sighs, and a well-placed chuckle or two. I figure this is a question I will continue to hear in one form or another for a few months, so I am going to pre-emptively answer it here and now. Then I can do my best Tony Snow (is he still the press secretary? That position doesn't have great job security, does it?) impression and say, "For our official stance on that issue, I refer you to the website. Next question please." In answering, I will attempt to strike a balance between the flippant and the earnest so that, if I accomplish my goal, you will be convinced that I have, in fact, learned a few things, and that - right at the top of the list - a sense of humor complements almost any situation. I've learned that...

• Boots and flip flops do not meet all of my footwear needs. I need a shoe I can dance in. Once, at a club in Madrid, I tried to dance in my hiking boots. It was awkward.
  

• Airports are the best for yoga - lots of floor space (often carpeted), high ceilings, and people way too stressed about _______ to care that I'm on the floor gyrating. You know how airports have those glass rooms for smoking? How about yoga rooms with props and teachers and drop-in classes?

• Short hair is so easy. And it’s not only easier physically (washing it, grooming it, etc.). It’s a lot easier mentally too. Now I never waste mental energy worrying about whether or not I’m having a good hair day, wondering what is my hair doing now? It's doing the same thing it did yesterday and the day before yesterday; it’s just sitting there, looking dark brown (and in a few places gray).
  

• Teddy has a long-lost brother in Arequipa, Peru (see first photo above). Teddy is the creepy, old wheelchair in the Bishopswood Health Hut that helps patients to regain their health by motivating them to leave as quickly as possible. I had assumed that Teddy was a one-of-a-kind relic until I visited St. Catherine's Monastery in Arequipa, where I met Francisco. This discovery sheds some light on Teddy's past, which had previously been shrouded in mystery. Since we know that the Incas did not have wheel technology before the arrival of the Spaniards, it seems likely that Francisco, and hence Teddy (short for Teodoro?), was born in Spain sometime in the first half of the sixteenth century. This theory does nothing to explain how Teddy came to be in mid-coast Maine, but one can imagine that he was captured by English pirates who brought him to their colonies in North America. In that era he may have been drawn by horses as a chariot of sorts.

• Being waited on hand and foot makes me feel useless and guilty. In Isabel's house, I am not allowed to contribute to the preparing, serving, or cleaning up of meals because I am a man and a guest. The guest part I understand, but doesn't guest status wear off after a month or two? She says that her goal is that I feel at home in her house and then she treats me as if I were in a restaurant. As a man, I am supposed to sit at the table and read the newspaper or watch the television while I wait to be served. This makes me uncomfortable, but (Isabel and I have had this conversation more than once) if I try to help it makes her uncomfortable, and since it's her house...

  On the bus ride to Ausangate, it began to rain. The thirty passenger vehicle had struggled with the uneven dirt road before it got slippery. When the rain started, the dirt turned to clay, and the wheels slipped like fingers through hair. It was harrowing. The road, always slanted to one side (generally the left because of the gorge - an immediate and abyss-like drop-off), caused the bus to list at such an angle that my crude understanding of physics couldn't make sense of the situation; by what force did the bus remain upright? Looking down the window (rather than out), I saw that the road was narrowed by a natural drainage ditch, at least three feet deep, which would swallow the bus whole if/when its wheels slipped. Eventually, we encountered a bog of clay that covered the entire road. On an uphill. Over and over, Willy - the valiant bus driver - backed the bus up to charge the hill with momentum, and each time, amid spinning wheels and thick clouds of diesel smoke, the hill turned us away. Soon, the entire surrounding population (a small town that has had electricity for less than two years) arrived to see the bus full of gringos stuck in the mud, which is to say the best show since electricity. With pickaxes, our Peruvian guides worked with the locals to remove the top layer of the road - that troublesome clay. Wearing over $300 in waterproof gear (a Marmot raincoat, EMS rainpants, and waterproof Vasque boots), I watched from the bus as men in jeans, sweaters, and sandals worked through the downpour to build us a new road. In spite of their heroic efforts, the bus still could advance no further so we were forced to set up camp there in the rain in somebody's field. (Later a woman arrived yelling and pointing at the tents; a few bills placed in her palm sedated her in a hurry.) As we the tourists continued to sit on the bus in our expensive raingear, our porters set up the tents. Then they helped us down from the bus and hurried us into the meal tent as if we were celebrities trying to avoid the flashes of paparazzi cameras (see second photo above for an idea of the chaos). Water ran from the sides of the tent downhill toward the middle where we were huddled, wet and cold and singing for warmth and distraction. "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "Yellow Submarine" were at least as obnoxious as they usually are, but the Peruvian children peering through the tent windows seemed amused by the unusual spectacle. Then the hot tea and soup arrived (how they accomplished this so quickly in the inconvenient conditions is beyond my comprehension), and the children watched us the way that house pets hopefully attend dinner preparation. How can I look at these children and feel cold? How can I look at these children and feel hungry? And why do I get the raingear and the soup? What did I do for all of this? I've had a lot of opportunities to look at privilege and think about what it means to be a young white man from an upper-middle class American family. I still don't know what it means, but I do know that I want to grow in gratitude, not guilt. Gratitude gives back; guilt takes away. Gratitude is life; guilt is death.

• Hugs make people happy. We were performing a ceremony at a huaca (pronounced “waca”) - a large rock formation, sacred and powerful in the Andean cosmology. This particular huaca has a trough carved into it in the form of a serpent with the spout as its head. Waiting for my baptism, I squatted against the cold rock like doing a wall-sit and closed my eyes. The five shamans pushed against my body, held me there, pushed my head, my heart, and my belly with force, almost hitting me with their sacred stones while muttering an eerie mix of Spanish and Quechua. Red wine poured out of the serpent’s mouth, over my head, and down my back to the sounds of a rattle, someone blowing into a glass bottle, someone else into a wooden flute that only plays two notes, and then the arms - so many arms - helped me to stand. I stumbled to a spot of grass where I sat to meditate, as instructed. It was an "easy" meditation; my mind got out of the way almost immediately and I just sat. Soon - I have no idea really whether it was sooner or later - I began to hear soft voices and laughter. Children? Yes, I heard the unmistakable whisper of children. It sounded like a dozen or more. And yet there had been not one child in sight at the start of the ceremony. I suspected they might be spirits, like in the episode of the X-files where Mulder finally finds his sister and he walks with her and the other spirits of children rescued by the stars, while a Moby tune enhances the other-worldly atmosphere of the scene. Wow, this is some meditation! I thought. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to see the physical bodies of many actual children, laughing and hugging the members of my group, who smiled like I had not yet seen them smile. What other possible response is there to hugs from beautiful, laughing, innocent children? Some adults giggled like children themselves as they knelt down to be closer to the youngsters, none of whom appeared older than five. Others scooped the little bundles of joy into their arms and swung them around. Everywhere was the warmth of laughter and human touch. Again and again the children ran to us for more hugs. They were inexhaustible and delightfully unaware of the prevailing social norm that people tend to hug once per occasion. Still smiling and giddy, we boarded the bus, and, as we did, the kids came over for final hugs and tips. "¿Propina? ¿Propina?" came the hopeful chorus from so many little mouths. Hugs make people happy. Money keeps them alive.

• "Heart-centered in the world" would make a nice slogan for t-shirts and coffee mugs. To actually live this way continues to be difficult for me. It requires patience and practice (read: plenty of experience of what it's not.) The trick, of course, is that I cannot get out of my head by thinking about it, nor by willpower. I continue to get closer, though. The image of my friends' pendulum serves as my metaphor for growth. The pendulum, when set in motion, swings freely across 360 degrees and traces ovals in the sand pit below. Initially, the pendulum swings far from center in all directions, drawing large, sloppy ovals. Over time, air resistance and the force of gravity slow the movement and the pendulum strays less and less from the center. The pendulum is constantly pulled toward center, toward stillness, but it is the motion itself, the straying, that brings it back. And it is precisely in the moment when the pendulum finds itself furthest from home that it feels the greatest pull to return.