Every ending had a beginning

I've been talking to a lot of people about my next phase. The summer program came and left, with sweet and sour instances stuck into my cheeks and my bones. Now, tonight, is my last night in here, in MUWCI, el pais de las maravillas, en mi casa.

Now I think I just ran out of energy to keep trying to make plans.  I think I will just let it hit me like a bullet in the back, and deal with the consequences. Midnight has come, it has come and left with all of its magic and wonder, that time in which things seemed to be eternal but they weren't quite so, and that made them more beautiful.

My future has a name, a place and many nationalities.

What I take from this place... friends. Lessons. Inspiration. Ideas. Confidence. Problems. Questions. Languages. Songs. Paintings. Food. Clothes. Rocks. 50+ kgs of luggage.

I find it funny when I see a picture of myself from two years back and people don't believe it's me.

I am scared, I think, because home does not seem to be the break that it should be, particularly with the politics of prejudice and bending backwards involved.

COA... I think I might have rushed into it a bit too fast to see what I was doing exactly, and now that I have time to look at the clear picture, well, it begins to show other colors. But then again, how many of my coyears didn't do so as well?

My grades gave me that sense of achievement, of feeling that I actually CAN achieve the things I want to if I work hard for it, it's a simple and complicated as that.

I like what Ritu said the other day about ghosts, I think I've seen many of them around lately, saying goodbyes and hellos (particularly in front of the med center).

Dear Hill, I will see you in some years, we will both probably have changed, but I hope you know how much I loved living here and how much it changed me. I hope you continue to change your wardrobe and by doing so you are able to give shelter and things to think about to more teenagers who want to save the world. Thank you for taking me with such a cozy embrace all throughout my time here. Much love, Khristian

...and for the future, well, we'll see how it all goes.

See you all (if any readers left) in another blog, in another place and another space. Thank you for adding an audience to this experiment. :)

Varuna and Asi

This is the name of the two rivers that meet at Varanasi, Benares, Banaras, or whatever. A lot of it seemed like concentrated India. I think it's by far the most intense city I've been to.

Picture this stage.
Street: No asphalt, hot, dust and dirt, people from the shops from both sides of it throwing water so that the wind won't raise the dust from the ground.

People: Yelling, with clothes from all colors, a kid with a cobra begging - almost demanding - money, a pack of tanarickshaw-wallahs offering to take you

Heat: 41 daggers penetrating your skin.

Shiva dances his dance of change and destruction, in an endless choreography over the streets of this town. Everyone moves along the roads, without crashing, bumping only to show this is the most that can go wrong in this show.

Manikarnika Ghat, corpses being eating away by a yellow and red beast, only to leave their bones, which will go back into the Mother.

Y asi va el mes.

I'm writing in a better mood now, the cities and the things we've seen have lifted my mood quite a bit, and this entry I write is a month away before my flight leaves to go back home, leaving India behind for a while.

Calcutta was fantastic, the people were nice, and I think it's one of the few cities in the world where I would move later in my life. It has a metro, but also tana rickshaws (rickshaws pulled by men on bikes), autorickshaws, buses, taxis, even one of those train like things that cross the streets (tranvia en español), so it has quite a diversity of ways of getting around. We met people that went out of their way (like elsewhere in India) but in a really generous way to help us. The food was fantastic, the Bengoli thali is so gooood, and it kept reminding me of Guate.

I bought some Tagore books, and we went to the Victoria Memorial. It's impressive to see how power can be dangerous, and how India, as I read in another website, instead of changing its own culture to adapt with the times of the world, absorbs bits and pieces of other cultures. The history of the British Raj inside the European-looking memorial for a Queen who died 30 years before it was done was quite a good read, and I could learn about the development of the intellectual Bengali Renaissance, which shapes many forms of modern Calcutta and India. I've delightfully read Tagore's short stories, along with Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies on the trip, and that I think also added to how much I've enjoyed my time at Calcuta.

The hotel where we were staying was quite interesting, small, dingy rooms were covered with writings and drawings in many languages and scripts, from people as far as 10 years ago I think, writing about life, ecumenism, peace, fairies, "I OHM YOU" and things like that. I left a message for any Guatemalan that crosses that room 22 on the rooftop. The weather was a lot more bearable than in Bhubaneshwar, so that also helped. ANDDDD I had the best chicken rolls I've eaten in India, at the A1 Roll Corner between Sudder and Lindsay street, just ask around there and you'll find it if you ever go.

Then we set on a bus for 15 hours to go to Darjeeling, "the queen of hill stations" in the same state. After the bus we got a shared jeep to climb up over 1000 kms of height, arriving at a delightful and comforting 20 degrees of temperature.

There, our only problem was to find a room, because it's high season and a lot of Bengolis and other Indians where there for holidays with their families. We bought tea, walked around, stayed at an a-mazing Hotel called Aliment, ran by a Tibetan man and a woman (not sure if they're related). The room where we stayed was mint green, and had wooden insides, with those cliché cabin lodge windows overlooking the hill station (and, on a morning after a rainy night, also the Kanchendzonga, the third highest mountain in the world, with its Himalayan sisters).

We also had momos, and went to a Buddhist Gompa, and a Tibetan Self-help Centre.

Then we came to Varanasi, which is like concentrated India. I love it and I hate it at the same time, "hardcore India" like Yaara said once, I think I would add Hindu to the phrase. I shall leave Benares for the next entry I think, extracted from my notebook.

Beyond the trip descriptions, I've been feeling well, just very hot, but I've enjoyed the trip a lot. It's today a month before I reach home!! I can't believe my time has gone so fast, but a month seems like a good time to have left before going back.

I've been trying to get a tun/steel trunk to use for my luggage, maybe I'll paint a HORN OK PLEASE on top of it if I get it. Any ideas for that?

BhuBhuBhuBhu

We are in the state of Orissa, in eastern India. Drenched by the heat and sweat, these past 4 days have been hell, almost literally, and Bombay was more or less the same. It's been more than a week since we graduated, and a day more than that since we left MUWCI.

Gradually our band of 15+  muwci students was dismantled. First one, then three, then six, then one, then another one, and the remaining three separated. Now it's just me and Maite.  I didn't get to say bye to Becky.

Victoria left last night, and Rickie is leaving today, though I won't be able to speak to him until he's in Costa Rica.

The heat has been, as I said, horrible, and Bhubaneshwar has had some interesting things to offer, but not many. I think it would've been way different if I had come with Ritu.

Tonight we go to Calcutta, we should be there by tomorrow morning.

I am getting a bit tired of being here, after two years. But I am still enjoying myself, for today, 31st May 2011. I have 6 weeks left in India, for a while. I think it will be time to close the blog soon.

Gradually

The trees are swaying with the wind.

This morning it's all silent, it's all sad, it's everyone sleeping or busy.

Our graduation rehearsal is at noon. Our Graduation ceremony is at 2. The dinner at 7 and the dessert at 8. And that's IT.

Graduation, gradually. That's how we are flirting with the idea of leaving, gradually, first not thinking about it. Then slowly embracing the pace of the days as our exams are getting over, and over. Then starting to put things down the walls, and then packing.

Tomorrow we go.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:

Thus slowly one by one,

Its quaint events were hammered out—

And now the tale is done,

And home we steer, a merry crew,

Beneath the setting sun.

The first of the last eight nights: Silent Sea

"When we thought we had jumped into the cold water of the ocean, we were actually just on a lake. Good that we learned how to swim."

The sea is silent, the sea is roaring, but it holds so many things inside it. 

Today, I tried to think of the future. 
About the people I would meet, 
and I couldn't.


About the places I would be in, 
but I couldn't imagine. 
So I stopped. 


I have made plans, but I don't really know what will work out and what won't. All I have is the present, is the next week, and nothing else for sure. Maybe not even that. All I can live for is the present. The same lesson I kept learning and learning over and over again this year. Because all we have is the present moment, and whoever is there, and whoever is inside our hearts and minds. 


Now we can't really do anything. It's all been said and done. And the future is pounding on the road, pounding its hooves, and singing loudly about what shape it could have. (Except, unlike in the bird song, I don't know if I want it to shut up). 


India has many a lesson to teach, so does MUWCI. I knew it was a space for me to do what I want, a safe space of freedom to plan my day around it. But today talking to Arpita I realized I never knew what it did to me, until it all had happened. 


I can control so many things I do, but there's many more I can't control that I still do: today I learned these things also affect me back, whether I'm aware of it to not. 


So on the first of the last eight nights, I say: You never can control as many things as you wish you did. And that is good. 

"Life after UWC"

Asi decia un e-mail de Liam hoy.

Tiene nombre! La vida despues de UWC.

Megalomaniaco que soy, nunca me habia puesto a verlo así. Y pues, esque si, habia pensado en la vida en COA, el verano en Guate, pero no el la vida después de UWC. Tiene que llegar. Tenía que llegar. Como siempre me lo dije, tengo los días en India contados desde antes de venir. Y aunque si haya disfrutado cada día casi al máximo, y haya tomado las decisiones con el corazón, y no me arrepiento de nada, duele dejar este lugar.

Pero entonces, ¿Cómo seguimos adelante?

Solo asi. Siguiendo adelante. Llorando, y llevando la tristeza al principio, pero luego recordando los buenos tiempos con una sonrisa. Como ahora yo extraño a los segundos años que quiero tanto, y voy a extrañar a mis coaños, y primeros años.

Creo que esta bien que vaya a la universidad. Tenia un poco de miedo de estar de vuelta en casa, y me senti presionado a hacer una o la otra cosa, pero estoy contento con la decision de ir directo a la U. Ahora me siento desparramado por el mundo.

Ahora me siento que mis raíces siguen siendo chapinas, aunque no lo demuestre tanto, pero no sé de donde son las ramas ni las hojas ni el fruto ni las flores.

Y por lo demas? Seguiremos andando. Ya veremos como va todo. Por cierto, creo que va siendo hora que cierre este blog. Un par de entradas mas luego de graduación creo.