Home: May 2013

I know this is supposed to be my new travel blog, so it probably seems odd that I’m including home in that category. But…home isn’t really home anymore. I mean, it always will be, in a way. There’s no way to describe that breath of fresh air when I get off the plane, that first Neapolitan milkshake of the summer, that moment when I dip my toes in the ocean after a run on Scenic, that first Wednesday lunch back at Chipotle. Yesterday, I got to see one of my best friends for the first time since December. She’s been in South Africa, and we swapped stories about travels and school and lessons learned and fears. It was so natural, catching up after all this time, talking about how God has moved in us and where we’re struggling. I don’t have a friend like that at school, one who challenges me spiritually even as we physically struggle to mount Garrapata Ridge. I miss that when I’m gone. But I’ve learned to live without it. It’s a vacation luxury, a love that I now associate with the relaxation of summer and Christmas break. That breathtaking view of the ocean, where all you can see on the horizon is blue or green mountains…it’s not home anymore. Because I never see it. Home for me now is Cameron, it’s stress, it’s laughter in Crowell EE, it’s trips to the Quarry with a late-night stop at Cookout, it’s casual lunches with incredible visionaries and innovators and leaders, it’s front-row at Cat’s Cradle, it’s red wine and Gilmore Girls, it’s…Duke. Maybe that will change too in the upcoming year. But for now I’m planning on enjoying this vacation back to Carmel-by-the-Sea. 

Bermuda: March 2013

#somuda. 

Spring break, 2013. Chorale goes to an island. No real description needed, except COLLEGE. Dark & Stormy. Singing Danny Boy in dark crystal caves. #swizzle. Chorale love. Maybe too much Chorale love. Turtles and beaches. Little boy throwing up on stage during our concert. Happy hour. Star gazing on rooftops. And on the grassy cliff overlooking the ocean. Barefoot. “Contact” in the gardens in the late afternoon sun, with a homeless man yelling at us about Vietnam and British colonization. Talent shows in the rain. 

Let’s go back, yes? 

(photos courtesy of Phoenica Zhang, Bridget Willke, and others)

Costa Rica: Dec 2012/Jan 2013

Pura Vida.

The start to my year of traveling. Duke Wesley Methodist Fellowship travelled to Alajuela to work with Costa Rica Mission Projects, started by a Duke alum, Wil Bailey. We spent the week working with the staff at La Iglesia Metodista, putting up the walls of a 3-story stairwell. Scaffolding? Held together by fireworks. Harnesses? Ropes made of duct tape. Safety goggles? Why bother. We spent 10 days learning about tico time, playing the ugliest game of soccer I’ve ever had the joy of participating in, worshiping together, comiendo, “mission tripping” while painting in unventilated closets, swimming in bathtub-warm and crystal-clear water, watching some of our group’s first Pacific sunset, and practicing our Spanish with Julio (si…un momento), our contractor, and Steven, our incredible guide throughout the city. On New Years Eve, we stood on the third floor of the church and watched thousands of fireworks light up the sky across Alajuela and San Jose. It was breathtaking. All of it. 

I’ve been on mission trips before. I thought I had “built relationships” on these mission trips, because I had gotten close to poor children in the slums of Mexico and had put them in my profile pictures. Then I went to Costa Rica, and I learned more of what it meant to have a mutually-beneficial mission relationship. We ate meals together with Pastor Douglas and his family; we invited our church staff to ice cream each night, and included them in our Bananagrams and acoustic Old Crow Medicine Show covers. It was only 10 days, and I don’t want to sound all end-of-summer-camp nostalgic, but we truly did develop lasting relationships in Alajuela, if only because we worked with each other instead of for each other. There was nothing we could truly “fix” in 10 days, nor did we have the authority to decide what needed to be “fixed” as gringos from up north. We could only do what was asked of us, with Julio there to teach us how to put up sheet rock as we taught Steven the English he wanted so badly to learn. We were there for each other, praying with each other and learning about each others’ unique cultures. At the end of the trip, sitting around a cande-lit feast that they had spent hours preparing, Douglas explained that no American group had ever eaten with the church staff before; they had stayed separated, unattached, bonding only with each other. We were the first that felt like family. 

Costa Rica was beautiful. But I don’t just mean for the sunsets, or the hundreds of floating lanterns, or the lush forests, or the clouds. I mean for the relationships we built. For the love that was shared in just 10 days time.

NOTE: Photos courtesy of Christine Delp. (apologies for not bringing my own camera to this one.)