Here I was, splitting a banana tree with a machete in the countryside of São Paulo. The pieces of banana tree, filled with water, were being strategically positioned in the dirt to aid the other crops for the rainless days. The other crops– chinese and lamb lettuce—would use the banana tree as a sort of back-up juice box. These were the kinds of small scale agriculture techniques that farmers in São Luiz do Paraitinga were using. This family grew all of their food right outside of their house. Their garden looked disorganized, with many different kinds of plants growing together in close proximity. The different kinds of crops and fruits were growing together symbiotically to protect one another from insects and other parasites. This technique may appear quite confusing to a city girl, but it was actually a very meticulous process that helped them avoid the use of insecticides —or any other chemicals for that matter. They took a lot of pride in their work.
Today, 66 million people in Brazil are food insecure. Food insecurity, a noun, is understood as the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. Though food availability is sufficient for the entire population, widespread poverty has made it extremely difficult for people to purchase food. Therefore, the problem is not that of availability but rather, in-affordability which leaves several communities nutrition insecure. This problem is a difficult one to tackle. The Brazilian government has already implemented policies in attempt to aid this continuing problem.
I sat atop Morro da Urca, one of the highest and most stunning mountaintops in Rio, staring out across the city. I leaned forward and pressed my bodyweight against the steel railing, taking a deep breath of fresh Brazilian air. Here I was, after a grueling 6 hour bus ride, a short bike ride along the coast, and a tiring hike up the side of the mountain. I was standing on what seemed like the top of the world, with the entire city beneath my feet. I turned back around toward the rest of my group and looked at Jacque, our tour guide for that day. She led my group over toward the other side of the mountain – not to where the view of the city was, but to where we could clearly see the large mass of houses clumped on the side of a neighboring hill, on the outskirts of the main part of the city. I looked back over to her, wondering why she had taken us to view all the favelas. She began to explain exactly what I was thinking.
“Over the decades, the Rio favelas have been portrayed and associated in a very negative light”, she said. “They’re often referred to as ‘slums’, ‘shantytowns’, or the ‘ghetto’.” She went on explain how favelas have been misconstrued throughout the decades. Summing up the favelas as just ‘slums’ just doesn’t do justice to the richness of the favela culture and history. The favelas originated near the turn of the 19th century, after Brazilian soldiers migrated down from Bahia, having emerged victorious from the Canudos war. They settled along the mountains in Rio. Not long after, recently freed African slaves began to settle along the mountains as well, being complete outcasts from society and not having anywhere else to go. Later, urbanization caused workers to move from the countryside to Rio, where they sought for more work. But without being able to find an adequate amount of work or a sufficient amount of money like they had hoped, these migrants were also ultimately pushed towards the outskirts of Rio as well.
That day, Jacque taught me a very important lesson. Favelas aren’t necessarily the circus show that always seems to be portrayed in the media. They don’t exist so you can safely buy your Favela Tour ticket and silently judge from a distance like they’re some kind of animals. In fact, the people who live in these favelas in Rio are the exact opposite. They are motivated, hard-working people who are self starters and get things done. They may have been completely neglected by the government, but they’re strong people who have spent decades building their neighborhoods and their communities.
Brazil is a beautiful country, but it does have its problems. But despite all it, I know that when I look back at my experience in Rio, I know that I’m going to picture my first day there: sitting atop that mountain, staring across the horizon, staring down at the beauty of the city, but also down at the beauty built along those hills – the tight-knit communities sewn together from a long line of battered history and a rich culture.
Yesterday evening, Max and I were running along rio Tomebamba when we reached the El Vergel bridge and decided to rest a moment before heading back. As our heads cleared and our breathing returned to normal we began to talk about life after this year, something that had been encroaching on both of our minds. What started as a quick breather stretched into an hour long conversation about the future and the big decisions that always seem to arrive before we’re ready. We talked about having to choose a course of study, a career, a home, a partner, and the mounting pressure that so many new adults feel to get it right. At this point in my life, the idea of the right choice is so infuriatingly and overwhelmingly ambiguous that it sometimes seems like I’ll never know the answers. Especially when I can’t even decide on a pair of socks in the morning. I remember years ago being so excited about when I would finally get to choose my path. I never imagined that it would be so hard to figure out what I wanted. After our run I kept thinking about this, trying to figure out what had changed.
When I turn my eyes to the future I still see a wealth of possibility. Each opportunity creates a new path and new opportunities for me to follow, like branches of a great tree. What I’ve realized now, however, is that my life can only take one path. That I’ll only ever explore one leaf.
As a young child, my unyielding optimism told me that I could grow up to be anything that I wanted. This was vastly true, but each opportunity has a cost, and in my head I imagined growing up to be everything that I wanted. I dreamed of swinging from limb to limb as an artist, an architect, a pirate. A traveler, finding great adventure in every bough and leaf of the tree of life.
As I got older, however, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” began to have wrong answers. When I turned 8 I couldn’t be a pirate because they were “too mean.” When I turned 12 I couldn’t be an artist because I was “too sloppy.” When I turned 16 I couldn’t be an architect because I would be “too unemployed.” As I lost interest in some dreams and deemed others unrealistic, leaves began turning colors and quietly drifting to the ground. Big decisions became gut wrenchingly daunting because they could strip entire branches, sending even the greenest leaves spiraling into the dirt. When I chose to attend Tufts several branches were left bare, followed by another when I joined 1+4. Choosing a future is painful because in this moment almost anything is possible. I can still see my life branching into the open sky above me and it fills me with a sense of excitement and wonder and possibility. I’m not ready to give that up. I think a part of me never will be.
Living in Ecuador for the past seven months has been a refuge from these big decisions and I’ve mostly been able to ignore the idea of a life after this year. It takes a conscious choice to get on Facetime and reconnect with my life back home, so I’m naturally focused on the here and now. Maybe I’ve started to think about this summer, but definitely nothing past that. I honestly prefer it this way. I’m no closer to figuring out what I want to study, what job I want to get, where I want to live or what kind of partner I want, but I think this year has helped me to accept that I don’t know the answers, and probably won’t be able to figure them out for a long time. I’ve found that when I don’t worry about who I’ll be next year, I become more engaged with my host family, my coworkers and the other fellows. I play at the park with Josué instead of messaging my soccer team. I invite my boss out after work instead of leaving quietly and watching Netflix. I plot out my next mock spot instead of daydreaming about the Boundary Waters.
I want to learn how to bring this attitude home with me and just focus on where I’m at, although I’m afraid that it will be all too easily swept aside as I slide back into my old routine. But I’ll worry about that tomorrow.
This was the first January that I had free time in several years. From 7th to 12th grade I was a part of a Girl Scout robotics team in Austin and the first three months of each year were completely monopolized by my commitments to the team. Every day after school and all day on the weekends I would be at the Girl Scout Kodosky Center in room 110 using power tools, programming, and designing a robot. I would do no other activities during this time, all of my focus was on the task at hand. And I loved every minute of it! At the end of each season I would feel an enormous amount of pride finally witnessing my creation come to life.
This year, I watched the build season from the sidelines. After last season, I thought I was ready to leave this part of my life behind as I explored new opportunities in college. But I did not know how much I would miss it. This activity was such a pillar in my life and now that it’s gone, I can’t help but feel a little lost. I am now an alumna of the team, but that title does not come with the same perks as being the leader. I can no longer just go to robotics to forget my problems and build cool stuff. Now when I go, it will be as a mentor and my job is to assist others. I can help the new CEO in leading the team, but I cannot make the decisions myself.
I’m struggling a little with how to cope with this loss. Robotics was a massive part of my identity. It was my passion, a place where I could lose myself in the work, and it created a community for me that was incredibly instrumental during my teenage years. But all good things must come to an end. I always knew this was a short term passion that would end with my leaving high school, but I never imagined that I would feel the loss this strongly.
But I’ve since realized that my internal struggle may not be about losing robotics as much as it is about leaving home. Retiring from robotics and graduating from high school was the end of an era for me, the first sign that my childhood is coming to a close. This activity that I loved so much must come to an end because I need to move on to do bigger things with my life. And I have to leave the comforts of home because it is time to see what I am really made of and how I can function in the real world. I think in the back of my brain I understood this, but just projected it onto the loss of robotics.
But now I realize that just because I am far away from Texas and I cannot participate in robotics the way I used to, it does not mean that I must leave a part of myself behind. My home and activities, like robotics, will always be part of my identity and they have all led me to be the person I am today. Maybe without robotics or without my childhood being the way it was, I wouldn’t have even applied to Tufts 1+4 and received the opportunity to live in Ecuador. The lessons I learned and the experiences I had throughout my childhood will always be with me.
Moving to Ecuador and taking this bridge year was the perfect way for me to test these new boundaries of adulthood, like completely managing my own schedule. This year I have felt free and on my own. I can make choices based purely on what I want and need, but I am still firmly connected with my family and my home in Texas. My bridge year has allowed me to have many experiences (like hiking to giant waterfalls and and participating in cultural rituals) that I cannot have at home and it has shown me that I can adapt to change and thrive in new situations. This was the perfect transition year between childhood and adulthood. I live my life in Ecuador as an adult, but this summer I can return to my family home as a kid for the last time.
An unquenchable love for rice and reggaeton. You will eat rice at least twice a day and Mi Gente will be playing in the background. It’s inevitable.
Your favorite American food. Be it pancake mix, chocolate chips, or peanut butter, I guarantee that even if they have it here it will be different and very expensive. Not much here has made me cry but the birthday PB&J from Audrey definitely makes the list. But don’t worry – in moments of weakness, there are still places where you can order nutella waffles in English.
Patience and flexibility. The need for these is indirectly linked to your Spanish level. The less Spanish you understand, the more you must be able to adapt to spontaneous trips to visit abuelos or amigos. No matter how fluent you think you are, you won’t know what is going on most of the time and that’s okay!
A willingness to be laughed at and corrected by small children. Or children of any age. It may be humiliating and annoying, but they are the best teachers. My four year old host sister made me re-read a picture book to her until I pronounced everything right, and now I can accurately recount the name of any small insect under the sun.
Very strong chapstick. 8,200 feet is no joke.
Very strong sunscreen. 8,200 feet is no joke.
A flexible definition of success. This experience has definitely taught me to appreciate the small victories: finding my bus stop without getting lost, Spanish conversations where the other person doesn’t immediately ask where I’m from, scheduling and leading a meeting at work, refilling my bus card, and catching on video the time my four year old host sister told me she loved me.
All of your loose change! You can get a whole lot of pan with just a few dollars in coins.
A large and indestructible journal. Mine is my most treasured possession because it contains almost all of my memories from my trip so far, but most of the pages have fallen out at some point or another. A good notebook is well worth the investment.
¡Un mapa! I lost my iPhone, so my poor ripped and re-taped map is my lifeline and I literally don’t know where I would be without it.
An appreciation for both words and silence. Since living and working in a foreign language, I am constantly thinking about what to say. I conjugate verbs on the bus in anticipation of every possible interaction during the day, and I frequently write useful words and phrases on my hand to remember. Because of this, any opportunity for silence is incredibly welcome. I am typically chatty and prefer conversation to silence, but here, even casual dinnertime gossip takes enormous amounts of concentration. Moments of comfortable silence can offer a much needed respite that I don’t think I previously understood.
A sense of humor. You absolutely cannot take yourself too seriously in a country where you understand none of what is going on the majority of the time. As our beloved in-country staff would say, laugh so you don’t cry!
My day to day life isn’t a constant battle anymore: I’m officially one month into my bridge year. I’ve settled in with my host family, and I’ve started working full-time at my internship. It isn’t that my life comes easily at this point, but I have reached a point where I want to push myself a little bit further to see where it takes me. So, a couple weeks ago, I threw myself into an uncomfortable situation: traveling to Matagalpa alone.
The rest of the group planned to go up Thursday morning, but I opted to go a night early. Part of me didn’t want to wake up at 3:30 AM to catch the 4 o’clock bus, and another part of me looked forward to trying it alone. I wanted to show myself that I could manage a bus ride with my Spanish skills, and see what that experience would be like. People have always told me, “Growth happens when you’re uncomfortable,” what better opportunity than traveling alone?
I wanted to arrive as early as I could in Matagalpa, so I headed to the bus terminal right after my morning Spanish class, around 1:00. I had originally planned to ride one of the smaller vans, which leave whenever they fill up instead of running on a set schedule, but by the time I got to the station the only choice I had was a chicken bus. When the attendant told me “él chicken bus,” and pointed to the end of the row, I had no idea what to expect. Would there be live chickens on board? No—at least not this time. The bus I was going to ride on was a refurbished school bus, with the added bonus of an area on top for sacks of produce, luggage racks inside, and two bars to hold on to if you ended up standing. The silver lining of showing up over an hour and a half early was that I didn’t have to stand. I sat for an hour, practically alone in the sweltering heat, before the bus even moved. During that first hour, I thought for sure I was going to pass out from heat stroke at some point on my three-hour ride. At about 2:00, more people showed up and things started to get crowded.
By the time we pulled out of the station, every seat was full, and there were well over 100 people on board. As far as I know, school buses have a max occupancy of somewhere around 75 people, and I was a little worried about how safe the ride could be. It took me a while to come to peace with this, but, in reality, this is the go-to mode of transportation for many people. Once I realized that, I was able to calm down a little and not worry about the bus rolling over at every turn. About five minutes into the ride I realized I was most definitely in the wrong seat; I hadn’t even realized that there were assigned seats, but at that point, there was no plausible way I could switch. I was grateful to be sitting next to the window; once we got moving it was a little cooler, but every bit of breeze was appreciated.
I sat through a Russian-pirated, Spanish-dubbed version of “It” (2017), not understanding a single line, until we got to Matagalpa. I got off the bus sweaty, stiff, and gasping for fresh air. I managed to find a taxi pretty easily, and eventually made it to the hotel I was staying at. Settling down, I felt a wave of relief. I sat on my balcony and looked out at over the center of town, asking myself if it was really worth all the discomfort. Breathing in the mountain air, I knew it was. I felt like I had accomplished something, and I was proud of myself. The sense of achievement for navigating Nicaraguan public transit–a system I still don’t understand–on my own, made every moment on the bus worth it. I felt like I had put myself on the line, and it paid off. While in the future I will most likely opt to travel with friends, if not solely for the company, I am glad I took this opportunity to push myself to do something uncomfortable and new.
Matagalpan street; I started to find my way around the city after walking around on Thursday.Row of chicken buses at the Matagalpa bus terminal, Friday 9/15, as we left Matagalpa.View overlooking Matagalpa, taken from the top of one of the many hills around the city.
