Hiking through the "Most Biologically Intense Place on Earth"

A view of the fer-de-lance that we
narrowly avoided

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" my trail guide Felix yelled in one panicked breath as he came to an abrupt halt and shoved me backwards. We had both been within one step of a fer-de-lance snake that lay coiled up in the middle of our path. As Felix later explained, the snake was the deadliest in all of Latin America; if one of us had been bitten, we'd have been dead within two hours without getting serious medical attention. The antidote he was carrying wasn't going to cut it.

That news unnerved me a bit. At that point, we were smack in the middle of our hike and the nearest hospital was a four-hour hike and a plane ride away. We would have been in serious trouble if Felix hadn't had his eyes open or if the snake had been facing our direction instead of away from us. Especially disconcerting was the fact that Felix, a guide on these trails for over ten years, seemed to be fairly shaken himself by the close encounter. When I asked him what we would have done in the case of a bite, he shook his head and very sincerely responded: "Man, I don't know. I really don't even wanna think about that."

This was just a glimpse of my introduction to Corcovado National Park, the Osa Peninsula's rainforest that National Geographic once famously called the "most biologically intense place on earth."

One of my favorite animals of the
trip: the lesser anteater

Although the trip was a brief one, it certainly did not disappoint. In just two days of hiking and camping, I saw dozens of wild macaws (one was kind enough to relieve itself on my backpack), a number of coatimundis, four different species of monkey, a handful of peccaries, two river otters, an anteater, a poison dart frog, and two more deadly snakes. I was also informed by another group that we narrowly missed seeing four sharks circling the water offshore. Darn! The views were beautiful, the trails were challenging, and virtually everything was new to me. I've done plenty of hiking in the US before, but Corcovado was definitely an entirely different experience.

Preparing to board the
infamous collectivo

On the first day of our trip, we began the morning with a two-and-a-half hour ride on the one-of-a-kind "collectivo," a small truck that serves as a crude form of public transportation in Osa. With over forty people packed into the covered truck bed and with deep potholes littering the already bumpy road, the collectivo was an adventure. It somehow eliminated personal space in a way that the even the NYC subways fail to do, and the whole time I kept likening the experience to playing a two-and-a-half hour game of Twister on the rickety Coney Island Cyclone. Butt-to-hip. Forearm-to-forehead. Elbow-to-ribcage. Armpit-to-cheek. It was like speed-dating for body parts. My favorite part of the ride was when Rochelle, one of the girls who came on the trip with us, tried to get her camera out and temporarily blinded the man next to her by accidentally taking a picture of him, double flash and all, at point blank range. That was awesome.

This was a common view
on our first day of hiking

Once we got off the collectivo, we had 20km to hike to the ranger station where we planned to camp out. It was a very pretty trek along the Pacific that brought us in and out of the coastal rainforest and onto the beach. We saw lots of wildlife, drank some coconut milk, and helped a fellow hiker repair a shoe that had lost its sole. A couple of hours before sundown, we arrived at the ranger station and pitched our tents. One of the trail guides was even kind enough to give us his extras for dinner so we didn't even have to cook. (Although I think that irked my friend Juan Luis more than anything else; he'd carried 2kg of rice all day for nothing!)

The next morning, I met Felix and he told me that he'd be hiking out through the heart of the park and coming out the other side. That was the hike I'd been hoping to do before coming down, but I had been originally told that the trail was closed because of heavy rain and high tides in the rivers. I was pretty disappointed about not being able to go, so when Felix invited me along I didn't hesitate to join. I parted ways with the friends I had come down with and planned to meet up with them in a day or two. Before I left, though, I had to switch backpacks with Rochelle, as mine had come apart at the seams the day before. I was hoping to avoid a repeat of our hike into the park, during which I'd been forced to carry my backpack overhead for the last hour-and-a-half of our hike into the park. Since Rochelle was planning to take a boat back to our meeting point, we figured the backpack swap wouldn't be too much of a burden for her. Hopefully that was the case!

One of the milder river crossings
of the day

This second hike was even better than the first. Our small group consisted of Felix, a 29-year-old British guy named Lewis, and myself. In total, we traveled 31km and managed over twenty river crossings in about 7 hours. We left the coastal rainforest and really got to explore the thick of Corcovado. It wasn't the most challenging hiking I've done, but it was undoubtedly the most dangerous. In addition to the snakes, Felix informed us that roughly 80% of the spiders in Corcovado were poisonous. Needless to say, we had to be on our guard the entire time! It was definitely an exciting way to spend some of my final days in Costa Rica and I know it's an experience I'll always remember.

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Chirripó with my boss Pablo to climb the highest mountain in Costa Rica. With any luck, we can avoid another fer-de-lance disaster!

Settling In

Rafting down the Pacuare

These last few weeks have been a lot of fun. A group from UC Berkeley arrived on June 13th, so I've had a bunch more people to hang out with. A couple weeks ago, I got to go with them on an awesome white-water rafting trip on the Pacuare River. It was the coolest thing I've done in a long time! I went rafting in Colorado last summer, but this was so much better. We spent four hours on the river, stopping for a buffet lunch on the shore in the middle of the trip. The coolest part was that we were out there for several hours but never saw a trace of civilization -- no roads, no power lines, no trash. We were just surrounded by rain forest, waterfalls, and beautiful scenery. I can't remember ever being in a place that felt so remote and untouched. Very cool!

A view of Manuel Antonio
National Park on our hike

Last weekend I opted for the beach experience, and went with a few kids from the Berkeley group down to Manuel Antonio. We found a cheap hotel that came out to $10 per person per night, and had a great time. We spent all day Saturday at the beach, which was very pretty and had awesome waves. Then, I spent some time exploring the area with a guy from the Berkeley group, Trevor, and we unknowingly found a way to swim into a national park without paying. It was probably not the safest thing in the world, as the tides were strong and there were lots of rocks surrounding us, but it was definitely a fun thing to do. The next day, we went back to the park (this time we paid!) and spent some time hiking and watching a big group of white-faced monkeys.

Up close and personal with
a white-faced monkey

Work has also been more interesting lately. I've been keeping a separate blog and a YouTube channel for the Berkeley group, which I'm hoping will help promote these types of programs better for next summer. It also gives me some more experience using social media and, most importantly, an excuse to attend the most interesting lectures and activities. During these next two weeks, they'll be all over Costa Rica working on different types of community projects. I'm hoping I can talk my way into heading down to one or two of them for a few days!

In addition to the social media projects, I spent the last week or so helping to edit a chapter of a book that the Vice Rector here, Amr Abdalla, is submitting for publication. It was a bit painstaking, but definitely a worthwhile experience. I never really considered how many different stages there are in publication and how many people are involved in the process.

For the next month that I'm here, the workload looks to be fairly light. Another college group that was supposed to come down canceled on us a few weeks ago, so we won't have as much to do in terms of support and logistics. Since I'll probably have some more free time, I worked out a deal at a local language school that's going to allow me to teach English classes in return for Spanish lessons. It will be pretty lame if I get back to NY without being able to speak a decent amount of Spanish, so I'm going to work much harder at it these last few weeks. (I'm very glad the Berkeley group came down, but the influx of English speakers definitely didn't help me leave that comfort zone!)

I'll be sure to write another post soon. There's lots to share, but I don't want to cram it all into one long entry!

Lessons from a Stone-cutter

One of my favorite quotations is by Jacob Riis: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two; and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." I love the image that Riis conjures here and the lesson that's provided. His words are a reminder of the importance of perseverance and dedication, and they offer a hopeful interpretation of failure. It seems clear that, for Riis, failure is only a temporary condition on the road to success. It's necessary for accomplishing virtually anything -- even the mundane task of splitting a stone.

I looked to these words often during the past two years. After my knee began giving me trouble in September '09, I've tried relentlessly to find a solution that would allow me to run again. I went to orthopedists; I saw chiropractors; I tried physical therapy; I received cortisone injections; I endured painful massages; and I did far more cross-training than I ever would have liked to. In as many months, I sought the opinions of 18 doctors and specialists. With the stone-cutter in mind, I kept hammering away, hoping that I would be rewarded for my persistence. There were many times that I tired of my efforts; but I invariably convinced myself that this stubborn stone just needed a few more blows before it cracked.

Finally, though, I'm admitting defeat. Things just don't seem to be working. After a 7-mile run last Saturday, my knee pain is back. It's fine for walking and it'll be okay for recreational activities, but it's definitely not going to hold up for a summer's worth of collegiate cross country training. At this point, I'd probably be able to train seriously for another week or so and then the discomfort would become unmanageable. I know my body well enough by now to know that that's the reality of the situation.

So I'm officially done with my college running career. I had very high hopes of competing for one final time this upcoming season, but apparently it's not in the cards. My knee simply refuses to handle the training that's required of me. I'm tempted to keep pushing on and trying to fix it, but all these efforts have been very emotionally draining. Repeatedly getting my hopes up and committing to treatment after treatment -- only to see them all fail -- has been incredibly demoralizing. I don't have any huge desire to go through that again.

I was fairly depressed about this decision last week. Running has been the most constant thing in my life for over ten years. It's given me a true sense of identity and has been enormously influential in shaping the way that I view the world. I'm not sure what I'll do without it -- even if this hiatus is only temporary. At this point, I'm trying to convince myself that a lack of running will open up a whole new world of opportunities for me. If I really think about it, I have no doubt that this is true. Running has always held me back in some regards: it's limited my social life, it's made me more cautious about the physical activities that I partake in, and it's always taken up a huge portion of my time. But, to be honest, I'll sincerely miss these "disadvantages" of being a runner. I absolutely love the discipline that running demands. Over the years, I rarely found myself yearning to enter the party scene or to stop making the sacrifices that I'd become so accustomed to making. It really became central to who I was. It will be strange to lose that dimension of my life.

Even worse, though, is the feeling that I'm giving up on something. I'm a stone-cutter that's learned to see the futility in his hammering. Considering how much I've admired Riis's quotation, it kills me to admit that. But, at the same time, I'm reminded of another saying: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." I think I've reached the point that a hard-headed refusal to accept defeat would only be holding me back in other regards. This, far more than the emotional exhaustion, is the reason I'm going to start moving on.

It's slightly comforting to know that my personality won't change drastically just because I step away from running. I always think in terms of discipline, of endurance, and of teamwork. I'll find another way to channel those energies; I'm sure about that. I cannot separate myself from the sport I love, even if I can no longer do it seriously. I've been largely formed as a person through running, and I know that the lessons it's taught me will carry over to every other aspect of my life.

Now, it's just a matter of finding something else to be passionate about. The search will be a little bittersweet, as I was always entirely content with running occupying that position. But there are bigger stones that I can begin hammering away at; and there are stones that are not so contingent on physical limitations. With failure and frustration on my mind, I'm far hungrier than I otherwise would have been.

These days, I have every intention of finding something significant to do with my life and splitting that stone down the middle -- even if it takes me a thousand blows to do so.


PS -- Happy birthday, Katie!!! <3

"Commonality of Civilizations?"

The world envisaged by Huntington
(click to enlarge)

This past academic year, I became very interested in the “Clash of Civilizations” argument, which originated in 1993 when Samuel Huntington attempted to predict the changing nature of world conflict. In his controversial essay – “The Clash of Civilizations?” – Huntington contended that global politics in the post-Cold War era would be dominated by cultural conflict, and he divided the world into a handful of distinct, potentially contentious “civilizations.” According to his paradigm, the fault lines between civilizations were especially dangerous and were most likely to be the sites of major conflict. Some of the most convincing arguments in support of the thesis were that differences in civilization are fundamental, making them less mutable, and that increased interaction in today’s globalized world inevitably leads to an enhancement of “civilization consciousness.”

The other side of the debate was spearheaded by Edward Said, who insisted that such ways of thinking inaccurately portrayed the world and mobilized dangerous nationalist passions. Moreover, Said argued against the assumption that there is complete homogeneity between culture and identity, and maintained that such categorization misses what is so rich and fertile about culture.

At UPEACE, I’ve had the opportunity to consider this question in a much different context. During a typical day, I engage with individuals from at least five of Huntington’s civilizations – sometimes up to six or seven, depending on who’s around. Obviously, this is quite a change from the predominantly Irish-Catholic Stonehill College. Indeed, with so many new perspectives present at any given time, I’ve gained a much better understanding of how people think about and relate to each other. Here are some observations I’ve made:

1. Some people seem to very much believe in the “civilization” paradigm despite its obvious shortcomings.

          One woman, for example, frequently serves as a landlady for UPEACE students and has hosted Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Asians over the years. During a conversation earlier this week, we discussed her experiences with each group, and I quickly realized that she had the tendency to assign very rigid identities to all of them. Americans, she told me, had a “better” culture than Latinos and, therefore, she loved hosting them. (By “better,” she apparently meant that Americans tended to be hard-working and on time, in contrast to the very laid-back attitude of Costa Ricans.) Europeans were somewhat rude and intrusive, however, and they were extremely wasteful. Africans never wanted to pay their rent and caused big problems for anyone brave enough to host them. And, Asians, finally, were a pleasure, as they were always diligent and polite.

          Of course, such stereotyping fails to account for the huge number of tardy Americans, thrifty Europeans, respectful Africans, and lazy Asians. And it clearly allows no room for differentiating between the Alabamans and the New Yorkers, between the Ugandans and the Congolese, and between the Bengalese and the Cambodians (although even these categories dangerously collapse populations into restrictive labels).

2. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to start believing in the “civilization” paradigm.

          As much as I'd hate to believe that these labels are accurate, I found myself being somewhat persuaded by this landlady's argument. It does seem quite obvious that there are different cultures at play here. The American mindset is very different from the Costa Rican mindset; the Costa Rican mindset is very different from the Egyptian mindset; and the Egyptian mindset is very different from the Australian mindset. It's useless to pretend that this is not the case. Our personalities are very clearly influenced by the contexts in which we're raised, even if this influence allows for some variation in thought. I believe that was the point this landlady was trying to make -- not that there is uniformity within every culture. And I can't disagree with this reasoning.

          But I don't believe that this reality substantiates Huntington's claims. There is a vast difference between acknowledging the impact of cultural forces and suggesting that culture locks individuals into predictable behaviors. Failing to recognize this nuance can lead to very dangerous territory -- this is the heart of Said's argument.

3. Other, non-cultural factors have the potential to unite people, sometimes in more meaningful ways than a common heritage.

          At UPEACE, I've found myself relating to people for very different reasons. There are some who I relate to because of culture, like the Americans and the Canadians. We have much in common and seem to think about the world in a similar way. Then, there are individuals (mostly men) who I relate to because of sports. Others I relate to simply because they are nice people. And still others because we have corresponding academic interests. The point, here, is that I've formed friendships with people from virtually every corner of the world for many different reasons. Culture certainly plays a role, but it far from dictates who can share common interests. And, more importantly, culture does not appear to make "clashing" an inevitable outcome among people. Instead, I believe that cultural interaction has the potential to paint a clearer picture of the world and to improve one's critical thinking skills.

So how have these experiences affected my understanding of the "Clash of Civilizations" debate? For one, it's shown me just how different cultures can be. Before coming to UPEACE, I naively and idealistically subscribed to Said's school of thought. I had little experience with people of different cultures, but nevertheless maintained what I thought was a well-informed opinion about them. In these first few weeks here, I'm beginning to realize just how much I didn't know about the civilizations debate. I'm realizing that I thought about this issue in largely abstract terms, never having any true basis for what I was saying. Indeed, people are very different; cultures most certainly shape identities; and particular qualities are likely to clash with others. There is more to Huntington's argument than I gave him credit for.

However, none of this should mean that global conflict is bound to be dominated by the "clash of civilizations." The responsibility is on policymakers and heads of state to look for sources of commonality among their peoples. They are certainly there -- they just might not manifest themselves in the context of culture or ethnicity. Like my personal experiences, these commonalities can be based on virtually any quality (although, I will admit, some are obviously bound to be more lasting than others). Rewriting national narratives with these sentiments in mind should be an important goal in today's world. If we begin to substitute the word "clash" for "commonality," I think that Huntington's civilization paradigm can begin to be debunked. And I think that a lot of important problems can begin to be solved.

Monkeys and Machetes

A view of the farm with dozens

of acres of forest behind

 I spent the last two days on a fairly rustic farm in the northwestern province of Guanacaste. The property belonged to my boss Pablo’s mother, and he kindly invited me to come along while he did some monthly maintenance work on it. We left at 6 o’clock Thursday evening with a four-hour drive ahead of us – a drive that Pablo comically prefaced with the sincere warning: “Just so you know, I can get very sleepy on car rides so make sure you poke me or something if I start to drift off.” Needless to say, I made every effort to maintain a constant flow of conversation and succeeded in keeping Pablo conscious; but the drive was slightly terrifying nonetheless. The majority of Costa Ricans could pass as NYC taxi drivers, so any time spent on the roads here is a bit nerve-wracking. Dealing with these motorists in the dark, though, during torrential downpours, on winding, pothole-ridden roads (and after just hearing about my boss’s narcoleptic tendencies) certainly made for some very tense moments. But we got there in one piece!

We went to bed soon after arriving at the farm, and, the next morning, I was woken up at about 5 o’clock by the loud, persistent crowing of a rooster. This natural alarm clock wasn’t entirely unwelcome, as I’d already been planning to get up at 5:30 to run. But, I definitely wouldn’t opt for it every day. The absence of a snooze button on roosters must have gotten an awful lot of them killed prematurely over the years!

The run I had was interesting – and, again, slightly terrifying. Costa Rica is very much alive at 5:00 in the morning, and I spent most of my six miles trying to identify all of the strange noises surrounding me. The deep groans from the trees creeped me out until I remembered Pablo mentioning something about howler monkeys the day before (to listen, click here). And the aggressive, very fast dogs that kept chasing me forced me to be on my guard at all times. I eventually resorted to running the final three miles with a large branch in my hand to fend off the many canine attackers. (It worked…and I’ll definitely be doing that more often!)

Danilo leading the way 

with machete in hand

Once we started working, I felt much safer.
Not only were the dogs gone, but I wound up trekking around with three Costa Ricans – each bearing a machete or a chainsaw. The farm was very far from what I had envisioned. There were no crops anywhere to be seen; it was just an enormous property composed of 170 acres of rich forest. Our task was to clear any dead or fallen trees that were obstructing the perimeter fence. Given the property’s size, this made for a lot of hiking and roughly eight hours of work. It was a nice break from working at UPEACE and it was an even better way to see a beautiful part of the country. During the day, I saw dozens of wild howler monkeys and a handful of white-faced monkeys; I got within ten feet of a tree full of American black vultures; I saw from a distance Mel Gibson’s enormous ocean-side mansion; and I took in some gorgeous views of volcanoes and the Pacific Ocean. I also learned how to use a machete and witnessed some very creative ways to cut down trees and sharpen a chainsaw blade. (Our guide, Danilo, was something like Aragorn from Lord of the Rings with all the tricks he had up his sleeve.) All in all, it made for a fun trip and gave me an authentic glimpse of life in the Costa Rican countryside.

On the agenda for tomorrow: buckling down and studying some Spanish!

A Better Explanation

Hopefully my last post didn’t make it sound like I was having a bad time down here! I heard back from a few of you who thought that might be the case. I wouldn’t say I’m having the time of my life yet, but it’s definitely been a lot of fun – and, more importantly, a very new and interesting experience. I’m still working on the Spanish thing, and I bought a pocket-size English-Spanish Practical Conversation Guide yesterday. I’ve found that I’m getting okay at asking the important questions, but that I never have any luck in understanding the responses people give me. It’s a work in progress and I’ll just hope it gets a little better each day!

On Friday, I tried to upload a blog description so that you all have a better idea of what I’m doing down here. It didn’t work, though, so I’ll dedicate this post to a better explanation. I didn’t really have a clue what I’d be doing until this past week was over, so I never had a very good answer for anybody who asked about it. I’m still not 100% sure, but I have a much better idea than when I arrived! To be clear, I’m not teaching English to Costa Rican children at an orphanage or anything like that. Lots of people assumed that’s the sort of thing this was when they heard the word “peace.” The University for Peace is really just a graduate school for peace-related disciplines. In case that’s still too vague, here are some examples of degrees you can earn at the university: International Law and Human Rights; Media, Peace & Conflict Studies; Responsible Management and Sustainable Economic Development; Gender and Peacebuilding; and Natural Resources and Sustainable Development. Most students leave the school with the hopes of having some tangible impact on the direction of their countries and/or the world. They’ve been pretty successful in that regard, and alumni have become policymakers, diplomats, journalists, professors, members of NGOs and the United Nations, and entrepreneurs.

In this year’s graduating class, there were 175 students from 51 different countries – which is pretty incredible. Last week, I sat in on a discussion about the importance of inter-faith dialogue. The classroom had no more than 30 people in it, but there were students and professors from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, China, Germany, France, Burundi, Egypt, and the United States. On a bus ride back from UPEACE on Friday, I spoke to a Rwandan student about the current state of his country, and we discussed some of the reasons why Rwanda has made such an unprecedented recovery from its 1994 genocide. It’s really a cool place and I doubt there’s another one like it in the world. I’m extremely lucky to have the opportunity to be taking this all in.

My personal responsibilities at UPEACE are not fully defined yet. So far, I’ve been doing more office work than anything else – scanning documents, entering grades into the University's system, etc. But in a couple of weeks, we’ll be hosting students from UC-Berkeley for a five-week course on human security and peacebuilding. Then there will be a group of students from Loyola Law School in LA, followed by another from Western Washington University. I’ll be helping out with the logistics for all of these programs and, hopefully, I’ll have the chance to sit in on as many courses and lectures as possible. There seems to be a lot of flexibility in my job, so I’m expecting to have helped with a wide variety of tasks before I come back in August.

This post is already pretty long, so I’ll share some funny stories in the next one. And I’ll be sure to update you all on the internship as I learn more about it. For now, I’m off to bed so that I can get a run in before work. ¡Buenas noches!

Companionship through Isolation

          On my flight to Costa Rica, I was reminded of the time when, while attempting my very first Elementary Spanish assignment, I mistook the Spanish word “llamas” for the plural form of the English word "llama," denoting the South American camelid bred largely for its wool (not its skills in magic).  I remembered being totally confused, finding no relevance at all between this peculiar animal and my workbook exercise; and, eventually, I resorted to calling my younger sister, who had studied Spanish for several years in high school.  Her response was helpful but humiliating.  “Llamas,” she explained, a Spanish conjugation of the reflexive verb “llamarse,” meaning “to be called,” is actually pronounced “yah-mahs” – not “lah-muz.”  My foolish mistake was the result of a failure to link the double-L to the “yah” sound.  I had never studied the language before and, consequently, I had no knowledge of this very basic linguistic nuance.  Since then, my family has loved giving me a hard time about this embarrassing misstep.

          I smiled at this anecdote while I flew over the southeastern United States, convincing myself that I was nearly a Spanish expert compared to those days.  How wrong I was!  Just over 48 hours into my summer in Ciudad Colón, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve jumped into the deep end without any ability at all to swim.  I’ve been utterly unsuccessful in understanding the native Costa Ricans (the “ticos,” as they are called), and my own attempts at communicating in Spanish have been dismal at best.  Luckily, there are enough English-speakers that I have not been forced into complete, monastic silence; but the experience so far has been extremely isolating.  My personality, I have realized, relies almost entirely on my capacity to talk, to joke, and to engage with others.  So far, I have not been able to do any of these things on any meaningful level.  And, accordingly, my first few days have been a bit demoralizing.

          But, today, I noticed an uplifting paradox in these circumstances: through isolation, I have found companionship.  Christer Persson, a Swedish professor of International Law and Human Rights at UPEACE, genuinely offered me his help this morning and assured me that he knew firsthand what it was like to be young and alone in a foreign place.  Last night, at the university’s commencement, I met a man from Alabama who told me that he, too, had traveled to Latin America some years ago without any knowledge of Spanish; learning it that way, he insisted, was the best way to do it.  Finally, this afternoon, I had coffee with Elena García, a UPEACE intern from Spain, who recounted her experiences of learning English while living in London.  She promised to assist me in mastering Spanish by refusing to talk to me in English, and she very generously bore with me through a laborious twenty-minute attempt at a Spanish conversation.  Certainly not the most painless strategy, but I think it’s what I need!

          I will keep these three encounters in mind as the days and weeks transpire.  Indeed, my cultural isolation is not an unusual plight – no matter how much it has felt like it thus far.  Many millions have done it before me and many millions will continue to do so in the future.  All who endure this isolation will find companionship through others who have treaded similar paths – immigrants, exchange students, travelers.  This companionship is quite unique, as it is contingent on a particular set of experiences, disappointments, exclusions, and difficulties.  Those who manage this isolation seem to have a special bond – a bond that is unknown to those who never leave the comforts of their familiar cohorts.

          More than anything else, these first few days have taught me to believe that all isolation has the potential to generate some valuable form of companionship.  At least this is what I’ll tell myself until I can actually speak Spanish!