Aug 10, 2016

#5 — Saudade

I woke up this morning, and there weren’t any sound of the geese squawking.

The Biosphere, our home for the last 6 weeks!

Accurate depiction of how we felt about leaving on the last day in the Biosphere.

I looked out my window and could not see the Andean mountain range. I didn’t pet Lucy the German Shepard, play with Silvestre the Cocker Spaniel nor see Estrella the horse. I didn’t wake up in the calm and tranquil little town of Sirpita Q’ollu. Paula, Nick and I did not eat breakfast together. There weren’t any llamas for me to avoid on the field, nor sprinklers that were out to ambush us on the way to work. Medium didn’t take 3 hours to load. Something is missing and different in my life.

If you asked me what I accomplished in the 6 weeks that I spent in Cochabamba, I could probably come up with a list of tangible things such as videos, social media posts, photographs, okay, those are things. However I think the most valuable “things” that I accomplished or discovered aren’t things that I can showcase on my portfolio.

A person should never be bounded, defined, or valued because of a certain talent or skill they possess, but who they are as a person, a whole person.

Yes I’m happy about the projects we accomplished, but I’m more grateful and proud of the relationships that I’ve formed, the sudden realizations and life lessons that I’ve learned.

Now reflecting about our trip I can confidently say that the people that I’ve met and with in these 44 days are what made this trip so memorable and rewarding. Tears shamelessly streamed down my face at the El Alto airport right before we left Bolivia. Carlos gave us all hugs. In that moment I wasn’t sad, I was touched by his sincerity and the genuine care people like Anna, Javier, Karen, the other Carlos and Graciela had for us. It wasn’t an easy 6 weeks, and it surly wasn’t some luxury vacation to South America, but I felt spoiled by just the fact that I had a chance to go.

Saudade is a Portuguese word that we learned from Paula and I think it accurately describes how I am feeling right now. It means longing or a deep profound feeling of nostalgia. Okay I’m being dramatic, it’s only been 5 days since I’ve been back, but seriously, we were lucky. We are lucky.