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Give me Energy

Give me Energy

Published May 8, 2017

Yesterday I stood in line with Luisa waiting to have her schedule approved at the University. I stood in this same spot with her last year in August, and we hopped line to line, laughing in frustration at the inefficiency of the system.

I recall it taking a full day to register for classes, have them approved, and pay for them. With no data attached to my phone, and with the looming danger having nice electronics stolen, last year I sat in line bored, unable to talk, and hungry. I entertained myself by talking to Luisa and wondering what the people around us thought of my presence: a strange girl at the local university who couldn’t speak Spanish.

I was parallelized by the fear of walking 12 steps away to a shop selling sandwiches. Despite my hunger, Luisa was prodding me to ask for sandwich: “me vendes un sándwich por fiz.” She stuffed bills in my pockets, repeating the phrase over and over, nudging me. Be Brave. But I couldn’t do it. I handed the money back to her and asked her to step out of line to do it for me. When she came back, I was disappointed in her for not thinking to buy water. And I was disappointed in myself for not stepping up to ask for my own food. Is not that the basic skill of survival?

Yesterday, After staying up late, and standing at a street corner for 45 minutes waiting for a bus with standing space, we were tired. Luisa mentioned how maybe a Gatorade would provide her with the energy to enduring the stupidity of the waiting process. I was just bored.

I scanned the area looking for anything to relieve us, and I saw a store across the street. “Wait here,” I told Luisa. “I am going to go get us something to drink.”

When I approached the old woman running the 40 square-foot storefront, she greeted me the way it is customary in Colombia. When they say hello, they do it three times. When they say goodbye, they say it 5 times: “Buenos dias! Bienvenido. A la orden.” Her skin a lovely golden brown, and her voice both soft and harsh. Good morning! Welcome. I’m at your service if you need anything.

I asked her if she had drinks, and she pointed me to glass shelf which displayed the 6-8 options–not like the 50 choices in a US convenience store. Of the few options, half of them were juice. Not high-fructose corn syrup juice, real juice with sugar and water. For me, an apple juice box sounded good, and I got an energy drink for Luisa. I asked the woman how much I owed her and was surprised to hear only 1200 COP, the equivalent of about $1.40. I tucked my change in my pocket and wandered back to Luisa, who had advanced one place in the line since I left.

While I knew I did not want the energy drink, I offered her both drink options out of courtesy, and she left me with the apple juice. She offered me a sip, and I obliged, even knowing I hate energy drinks. They are syrupy and overly sweet. Their intense carbonation burns my nose, and they leave a sugary coating on my teeth. I took a sip anyway, and was surprised to find that it was quite different from what I expected. Yes, sweet, but not like drinking kids candy. Slightly effervescent, and citrusy. Certainly, nothing to make me cheat on my apple juice, but better than I’d thought.

I plunged my straw into the box and sipped away carelessly reflecting on the ease of my purchase. Just a year ago in nearly this same location, I was too paralyzed to buy a sandwich. Now, the act seemed natural: When you want something, go buy it. I not only learned the minimum vocabulary to make a purchase, I learned courtesy of saying hello and goodbye, how to tuck my cash away in the store before I stepped foot into the street to be safer, and how to entertain myself in line by talking to people I never could before.

When we got all the paperwork finished, we took a bus back to the house. Buses are so full in Bogota, that you are considered lucky to get a seat. We made due by sharing a seat on the way back. As we did, I realized how much I have truly changed in the last six months. Not just my accent nor my experience, but I am a braver person than I ever thought I would be. Of course, it does not require much bravery to order a sandwich or ask for some drinks. But those little braveries led to big ones, like traveling to Peru by myself and climbing Machu Picchu. Boarding buses to unknown cities for the sake of adventure.

It’s been a hell of and adventure, and I am proud of how far I have come.

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Sick of Being Sick

Sick of Being Sick

Published January 23, 2017

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These lungs sputter like a car running low on fuel.

My exhaust fumigating, contaminating the precious air.

Just Breathe.

I can’t Breath! This chest backfires, coursing microexplosions.

Convulsing.

Violent, like blood smeared highways. Thick liquid.

Unfamiliar taste.
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Learning from the Mayan: Empowering Women

Learning from the Mayan: Empowering Women

Published November 13, 2016

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Empowering Women to Find the Purpose in Life
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I do not know exactly how to describe the intense feeling of being lost. All the sounds in your life that have always brought you comfort are gone. If macaroni and cheese make you feel home, it is suspecting you will never eat it again–nothing even remotely close. It is feeling being utterly alone and at the same time unable to find even yourself, nothing around you is yours, not even your job. Not even your voice. All you have to define yourself is the clothes you happen to be wearing and the hard seat under your butt. I have felt that a few times in my life. Both times I was doing amazing, life changing things, but I was living in someone else’s life.
Don’t get me wrong. I am happy. But I have had intense moments of feeling lost–without a strong sense of self or purpose. All of the things I am doing do not add up to the person I thought I would be. Maybe that is good because it means I am flexible. Or maybe it means I do not know who I am or how to pursue it. And today I found myself sitting in on a strange meeting I never expected to happen, one that has me thinking about the pieces of my life that fit together.
“I don’t know. She some lady that works with indigenous women. I told her I would have a meeting with her…” Luisa explained to me 10 minutes before the lady was supposed to arrive.

“She sounds interesting, but I do not know what we are going to talk about.”

I’ve come to learn that I am not a meeting person. I love talking to people, but I cannot have 3 and 4 meetings a day like my partner does. She is the master of networking, and I am the master of sneaking out of meetings. I’ve found (though I am not proud of it) my attention span for networking and meetings significantly decreases, even more, when the other parties are speaking in Spanish. The lady did sound cool. I am a feminist with a passion for indigenous people, but I REALLY wanted to get work done.
I got lost in my computer, and when I looked up, she was standing at the table next to us.
There was desperation in my soul to listen to her. With my limited Spanish, I understand the big picture of what someone is saying 80% of the time but always miss the subtleties. It’s like going to a movie and understanding the plot, but never the dialogue:

When she was 22, she had to move to Guatemala for her husband’s political asylum where she encountered indigenous women for the first time and was mesmerized by their contentment, maturity and wise perspectives of themselves and the world around them. She explained how they understand their equality with men and do not have to stress over it. At the same time, they understand their feminine obligations as mothers and their responsibility to the world. These women all had a clear sense of purpose. They were connected, very deeply, with their god and their spiritual selves. Through these women, she had learned to help other women. The has studied the sacred Mayan traditions, and while she is Christian, believing in God, she uses the Mayan rituals to connect with her God and find answers to her insecurities.

“The indigenous people are dying.”

Even though we do not actively slaughter them like we have in the past, their children are growing up and leaving the villages longing for technology. We think they are just poor people, but their knowledge about the spiritual ties to the earth could save us all from hopelessness and that feeling of not having a purpose. We cannot let that knowledge die with them.

Something in her story spoke to me. Maybe it was the way I’d been feeling so confused about my direction in life. Maybe it was the way I felt so alone and confused.
I’ve often questioned my purpose in life. At least 6 times in my life I have had people approach me to tell me they had a message from God about my purpose, but I never know whether to be moved by their conviction or freaked out. Once, I spent 4th of July with my best friend at the time watching fireworks from the top of a parking garage when a girl told me I was going to be an important force in the universe and I cannot be afraid. I had chilled for three weeks and still remember her face and name…

Now, in this meeting, staring at the aged and ageless face of the beautiful woman in front of me, I thought about that feeling of being lost and I thought about the face of Jedidiah that fourth of July. The next date she was hosting a ceremony was December 9th, and I would be gone.
I will fly back early from Lima. It just feels that important to me.
Luisa and the woman were both shocked. The next day we got a message saying she would host a private ceremony for us. We packed our bags and headed to the mountains.
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Internationality: Our Biggest Strength and Weakness

Internationality: Our Biggest Strength and Weakness

Published October 31, 2016

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Our biggest Strength and Enemy
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I like to tell people that that coolest thing about our team is the coincidences that brought us together. We are a diverse team: Juan and Luisa are cousins from Colombia. When they were teenager Juan came to live in the US, and they were devastated by being separated. They’ve been best friends since birth, even across thousands of miles. Eva is from Austria. She met Luisa and Juan by a fluke and agreed to travel across south America with near-strangers. And I am from the US. I’ve lived a seemingly normal life until I recently quit my job as a high school English teacher to join the NomadApp team and travel the world. I met Luisa at a bar, and three days later invited Luisa and Juan on a road trip to Minnesota. In a normal world, we never would have met. In this universe, it was fate.

Combined we speak 6-7 languages, and we all come from different educational backgrounds. The first time I met Eva was in New York City. We took THIS picture, and could not stop talking about how miraculous it is that we even ended up in the same photo. How many impossible things had to happen to lead up to that moment?

We are a family now. We share everything, and because we have to pack light, I mean we share everything. Deodorant, brushes, computers, phones, passwords, food, beds and floors alike. We know far more about each other than we care to, but there is something pretty magical about living this lifestyle. Sure, you never get alone time (which is a challenge in itself), but you’re never lonely. Its these little things that are the fibers that hold us so tight to one another, but despite the fibers, our biggest fears are the inability to stay together.

A few weeks ago there was tension in our team. Not the kind of tension where we were at each other throats, but there was a heaviness looming in the air and we couldn’t quite shake it. Little disputes about what to do next: pursue investors, continue traveling and promoting the app, apply for accelerators. Time is running out. Visa’s only last for so long. How should we prepare for the app launch? In the midst of all the tension in the team, Juan was probably the most heated.

Let me paint a picture of the usual Juan: this is the guy who skips from park bench to park bench asking me to do “parkour” with him. He’s the definition of happy-go-lucky. He has infinite amounts of energy. He is the only one I know that can literally jump out of bed and be ready to leave the house within three minutes of waking up. He is optimistic to a fault and always looking for the next adventure. And you can count on him talking all day about the fans he talked to on snap chat…So when Juan is quiet, there is something on his mind.

When we talk to investors, they also want to know our weak points, our faults. Truly, we have the gambit of skills: experienced programmers, graphic designers, top-notch social media marketers, communication specialists, financial advisors. Aside from the occasional lack of patience, we tend to think of ourselves as the perfect team. But our biggest asset, that diversity, is also our biggest enemy.

When we sat down for a meeting over a drink, we were finally able to talk about our thoughts, our words finally parted the dense air: “What are we going to do to stay together?”

A few weeks ago, when we went to Niagara Falls, we were so excited to have to opportunity to walk across a bridge into another country. Another stamp in our passports! We proudly marched up to the bridge in our “citizen of the world” shirts, ready to proclaim another trophy. As we approached the footbridge, we noticed big iron gates and signs posted everywhere “DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PASSPORT.” We scanned the signs to find out that only two of us could cross. Selected solely on country of birth, Eva and I were granted the privilege to pass, and we left our companions behind.

I feel a certain amount of guilt having been born in the USA. In many ways, I have more privileges than my Nomadic family simply because of where I was born. I didn’t ask for that privilege, and even though it works in my favor, I do not want it. I feel guilty that there is nothing I can do to change the rules. What makes the people of one country require more restrictions? In a few weeks, I am going to Colombia and need nothing more than my passport and a few shots. Meanwhile, in a few months, Luisa’s visa expires and she will have to apply for a new one if she intends to come back to the US–a privilege not guaranteed. I’ve come to find out there are a number of countries I can enter without a visa, but the people from those same countries must have visas to come here. This inequality strikes me off guard. If all men are created equal, why are they not treated equally? Why does the internationality of our team have to be our biggest obstacle, when it is most certainly our biggest strength?
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