So there's this mountain by my house. I can see it when I'm coming home from the main part of the village, and I've always wanted to climb it. And after recent events that have led me to realize that a lot of things are out of my control (previous post), I've decided to take the mindset of "why not now" in terms of a lot of things I want to do here before my second year is up. (Side note: I'm less than a week away from my one year mark!) So with this new focus of living in the here and now, I decided that I wanted to climb that mountain. Now.
The morning of my climb (about a month ago), I got up at about 6, packed a backpack with lots of water and some snacks and headed out on my bike. There were paths leading up to the that point for the most part, but occasionally they would suddenly disappear and I would have to walk over rocky parts until I found a path again to continue biking. After biking for an hour or so the incline got much steeper so I locked my bike to a tree and started hiking. After only about another hour I was a the top and saw this:
Then I turned around and looked back toward village. It looked a lot further away than about 2 hours biking/walking. In the first picture there are two cell phone towers just above where I typed Yaho, and the second picture is those towers magnified x100 (approximately).
When I got up there I was just amazed at the beauty of this place. It is so easy to forget that no matter where you live and what you're doing, but in all the craziness that has been happening here lately, I really just needed a reminder of just how wonderful this world is. I mean, just look at how beautiful that is. And that was just a 2 hour bike ride from where I live.
That morning, while on the top of the mountain, I got a text from home saying that one my best friend's dad passed away. It was just a very surreal moment for me. The scenery surrounding me was so beautiful and awe-inspiring it literally made my heart hurt, and now my heart was hurting for my friend's loss. More painful for me was the fact that I wasn't at home, and I couldn't be there for my friend. All this also came during I time when I was trying to live in the here and now and I was doing something I had wanted to do since getting to site, but I suddenly wanted to be not here at all, but at home.
There honestly haven't been too many moments over the past year where I want to be at home, but this was most definitely one of them. While I love the work I'm doing here and the people I'm able to do it with, that doesn't make me miss the people and events at home any less. There have been weddings, holidays, graduations, homecomings (both the event and literally people coming home) and just the spur of the moment gatherings that I've missed over the past year.
But in that same time, I've learned French and some Jula, I've eaten to (and many other things), I've taught math, physics AND chemistry, I haven't had running water or electricity, I've used biking as my main mode of transportation, I planted a (failed) garden, I taught numerous small children to call me by name instead of "white girl" and now I climbed a mountain.
So when times like this come up, when I think to myself that maybe I should just go home and stop missing all these important moments; it helps to remember all the challenges I've overcome and the victories (however small) I've accomplished. And to remember that even if I were home, I can't be there for everything for everyone. Living in the here and now is certainly not easy, and there will always be events that tear you one way or the other. But when I look around at my beautiful surroundings and think that I only have a year left, I hope to make the most of it.
Side note: I tried to make a panoramic of all my photos together, but it didn't work. Instead I layered the pictures one on top of the other and got this sweet looking guy:
great post, great insight.
ReplyDeletelove you friend!