Hello all.

Hello all,

    Sadly, while many of you don't know me well you will learn that I am flaky at best when it comes to posting blog entries.  I will cop out by explaining my past couple of weeks:

    Firstly a couple weeks ago I broke up with my girlfriend of 5+ years and she proceeded to move out of our apartment.  I was not the cliched yelling and screaming breakup where people list the other faults and hate each other for wasting their life.  It was very calm and very quick. Things proceeded very quickly and within a week I had almost no contact with her.  I have been lonely in this big empty apartment and the assumed cost of paying full rent and utilities has but a huge financial burden which I am barely managing.  I feel immense guilt because I see myself as the primary person who wanted out, but I also feel a sense of liberation.   I simply think are lives were not conducive to a successful marriage.  I want to see the world and may never have children, two things diametrically opposed to her wants.  What adds more pain into the mix is that we were engaged since September of last year.  I proposed at Machu Picchu and was very proud of myself for the unique proposal.  If I am to be honest I now would have to say it was because I was pretty homesick at that point and was grasping for permanence at home.  I know this probably sounds juvenile, but its the best reason I can come up with.  After she left at the end of September I feel like I went through a Renaissance.  I became more independent, healthy, and my wanderlust intensified exponetially. 

    I want to see this world, good and bad, beautiful and ugly.  I am not satisfied to accept what I see in National Geographic.  Many people don't understand this.  My father in particular asked why I wanted to travel so much, I replied "Why not?"  This is a man who has not traveled more than 500 miles from where he was born in his entire life, so I didn't expect him to understand. I thought one of my friends put it well, explaining that we were the first generation where settling down wasn't really expected of us so many of us don't, at least not right away.  Why should we?  Why not use the privilege we have to live in this country to enlighten ourselves as to how others live in this world.  I remember traveling to Nicaragua earlier this year.  I was in Managua and toured a part of the city where people's houses were walled by pieces of discarded industrial metal.  I was struck by the profound poverty these people lived in.  Its easy to read about poverty and feel bad that it exist and move on to the next thing in your day.  Its very different to have it stare you in the face.  It haunts your memories and paralyzed me at the time.  And there I was the typical American tourist, standing with a horde of my fellow countrymen, walking around like a massive gringo train.  Eerily, a few hundred yards away stood an "free trade zone," basically an area were foreign corporation were free to exploit the Nicaraguans without regard for pesky things like labor laws or living wages. I don't expect corporation to have consciences (even though they are legally considered individuals), but what about shareholders.  They have a responsibility to drive that company away from such practices.  I read Muhammad Yunus' book "Banker to the Poor" and was heartened by the model he presented.  I think this is a feasibly successful (if not the first) idea for alleviating poverty I have read about. So there's my rant about travel and poverty.  I don't desire to see the developed world much, I am generally disinterested in the well-off countries, with a few exceptions.

    Secondly a few days ago on of my good friends left for Geneva to return home.  She doesn't know if she will be back to the US anytime soon.  So this is a bit distressing to me.  I started to hang out with her last semester and learned that we shared alot of the same views and same history.  So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.  Thankfully I still have a handful of friends to distract me from time to time.  I've been reading alot. I've already gone through Zen and the Art of Motorcylce Maintanence, Breakfast of Champions, Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Banker to the Poor, The Alchemist, and am currently almost done with the Kite Runner.  I've watched less and less television every week and feel like I am a work in progress.  I've also decided to study abroad again in the Spring of 08.  I think I've settled on studying in Jordan.  I know it sounds dangerous as many people have already expressed concern with the area, but Jordan is not dangerous, just the neighborhood is a little hostile.  I just feel the need to go somewhere I've never gone and be immersed in a language I don't speak.  Its terrifyingly wonderful.  Many people stated the same resignation about Chile, but it was as safe as the US.  I will take an Arabic class next semester so I'm not totally the dumb foreigner, but its exciting.  As for the Humanitas people, I will be more than happy to go to Honduras in later this year or earlier next year.  I am still interested in being a contributing member to this organization, just know that I am still finding myself.

    Otherwise, this is my life.  I am sick today with a chest cold and have called out of work and will probably go back to bed soon.  I guess in the end the only thing I know is that I know nothing.  But isn't that true of all of us?

- Paz y amor, Alejandro.