Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Thanks Michael Pollan.
Fruits as well, I've been on a fruit high. Maybe since that first bowl of fruit salad a week or two ago in the morning. Hmm...strawberries, mango, orange, and a couple of other delicious delights.
So a quick stop at a supermarket and glance at the packaged candy bars is just enough to make my insides shiver.
The other evening I went movie hopping but just before that I got a phone call from my dad. My uncle from Germany had a heart attack while he was visiting in Miami. His daughter, my cousin, is about my age. They had a pretty close relationship. He had a serious face, very much the opposite of my other uncle in Germany. A couple of times he would tease me and my vegetarianism, claiming there's nothing he can cook for me to eat. Imagine that. I am grateful that I got the opportunity to get to know him a little bit and spend some time with him. May he rest in peace.
I'm all packed and ready to go. Whatever I may forgot, hopefully the 9 other fellow students will have :)
My mother is freaking out...and why exactly I really do not know. The fact that she is a hispanic mother, I am her child, and on top of that I'm a girl does not help I bet. I'll be accompanied just about every minute of every day while in Guate. There's this fear she's expressed constantly of Guate being a dangerous city and so far from a decent place to visit. Yes I know there is crime and violence and the like.
BUT LIFE GOES ON.
Where's all this panic coming from? Thank you ABC, CBS, CNN, and every other letter in the alphabet news program.
I am really eager though to visit this country even though it will be my third or fourth time there. Before I had always been dragged along with family for an event, a religious holiday (Semana Santa), or as a kid for one reason or another. This time I'll be doing an alternative break immersion (abi) with la universidad at San Lucas. We haven't really gotten a full itinerary of what we'll be doing which only worries me a little bit since I like to be prepared and know what's going on, at least 24 hours in advance people.
Makes me wonder who the heck is organizing this trip (just kidding, I know I know we don't always have to know everything).
I was inspired earlier by T who is a fellow CHANGE leader.
He is really crazy involved with the ONE Campaign and has been among 20 semi-finalists across the U.S. selected to go to Kenya and do awesome anti-poverty work or trainings. Anytime I catch up on what he's doing through some other method besides phone conversations I am stunned. It's people like him that make me really hopeful and again inspired to keep working.
Oh, and CHANGE is a week long intensive training program in Boston hosted by Oxfam America (OA). It takes 50 college students from just about every state and educates them on different OA campaigns and about the organization itself. So you end up with 50 best friends. no lie.
Fun/Favorite travel quotes
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” - Mark Twain
It's a rough journey sometimes, if I want to travel with you...that kinda says something. Mostly that I just want to travel with you, get to know you, then figure out if I really enjoy spending time with you. Ha. But honest, waiting in lines, sitting on trains, figuring out directions, travel partners are tons of fun or at least they have that potential. It's all how you see things of course. One of my favorite things about the NPR series "This I Believe," if you haven't checked it out I strongly urge you to do so.
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese
YES! Oh the beauty of couchsurfing and trusting strangers to let you into their homes, allow them to prepare you wonderful meals, take you out and discover the city/town/village, and simply be a generous human. I think my dad worries a little because of how trusting I am willing to be. But I'd like to think I have a good idea of how to behave/act/think/react, what would you call that? Hmm...
Rosanna, you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Rosanna is the woman who knows me inside and out. She's a sweetheart but she's awful at keeping in touch, in reality we both are though.
I'm grateful to have her in my life.
Oh goodness, look at the time. Gotta get going.
Toodles.
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