The first time I left the US with any degree of independence was when I studied in Honduras in 2000. It was my fourth time leaving the US in a year and a half, but all the other trips had been almost completely structured and/or supervised. (Minus that one moment in Cote d'Ivoire when my dad went off to talk to someone in the airport and sent my brother and I out into the roiling crowd outside the Arrivals hall alone. Deep breath.) We had a study group in Honduras, too, but we were all living with different families and had a great deal of autonomy while in Tegucigalpa. Most of the time outside the city, at least initially, we traveled with the group, learning about development projects.
We arrived in Honduras in the middle of the week, and within an hour or two, we were parceled off to families. That weekend, we went for a hike outside the city.
I promptly lost my group.
We were at a waterfall, and I was sitting up on the side of the waterfall, pondering its prettiness and journaling. There were people around me, until there weren't, and when I went down to the pool at the bottom, a few people milling about told me that my group had gone on ahead. I took off sprinting down the path to catch up with them, landed on the side of my ankle, and tumbled onto the path. I sat for a moment, self-pitying, almost crying, until I could drag myself up and hobble back to the pool.
I ended up hiking back up over the mountains with that other group, which happened to be members of a gym in Tegus. I wore the sturdy hiking boots of a teacher from California (who switched shoes with me because her high boots would protect my bruised and swelling ankle) as we hiked away from my people. The gym group would not allow me, limping and alone, barely beginning to remember my high school Spanish, to take the turn I knew I needed to take to get back to my classmates. I wrote a note on a paper and propped it in the middle of the path for my friends, should they come looking. Then we hiked for three hours, uphill, to the other side of the park, when I should have hiked only the 45 minutes back down to the lodge.
My group realized I was gone when they assembled back at the lodge at lunch, but it was hours before I reached the opposite side of the park and the park rangers put me on the radio to tell our professors that I had survived. I suspect that their panic at the disappearance of a student was nearly as great as my panic at being lost in a new country. (Okay, it was greater. At least I knew that I was alive. They didn't.)
A few weeks later, I almost lost my group again at a lovely stream. I'm pretty sure that after the second time they nearly left me behind, the professors checked for me (and possibly only me) every single time we got back on the bus. I clearly could not be trusted in beautiful places with streams running through them.
It's funny to me, now, after so many years of independence in so many countries, to think that I did not just say, "No, this is my path. I know that it will take me back to my group, and I'm going to go down it now. I will be fine. Thanks for your help." That's what I would do now. But at the time, two or three days into a new country, on my own for the first time ever in a new country, I was too scared, even on a beautiful, peaceful trail.
We arrived in Honduras in the middle of the week, and within an hour or two, we were parceled off to families. That weekend, we went for a hike outside the city.
I promptly lost my group.
We were at a waterfall, and I was sitting up on the side of the waterfall, pondering its prettiness and journaling. There were people around me, until there weren't, and when I went down to the pool at the bottom, a few people milling about told me that my group had gone on ahead. I took off sprinting down the path to catch up with them, landed on the side of my ankle, and tumbled onto the path. I sat for a moment, self-pitying, almost crying, until I could drag myself up and hobble back to the pool.
I ended up hiking back up over the mountains with that other group, which happened to be members of a gym in Tegus. I wore the sturdy hiking boots of a teacher from California (who switched shoes with me because her high boots would protect my bruised and swelling ankle) as we hiked away from my people. The gym group would not allow me, limping and alone, barely beginning to remember my high school Spanish, to take the turn I knew I needed to take to get back to my classmates. I wrote a note on a paper and propped it in the middle of the path for my friends, should they come looking. Then we hiked for three hours, uphill, to the other side of the park, when I should have hiked only the 45 minutes back down to the lodge.
My group realized I was gone when they assembled back at the lodge at lunch, but it was hours before I reached the opposite side of the park and the park rangers put me on the radio to tell our professors that I had survived. I suspect that their panic at the disappearance of a student was nearly as great as my panic at being lost in a new country. (Okay, it was greater. At least I knew that I was alive. They didn't.)
A few weeks later, I almost lost my group again at a lovely stream. I'm pretty sure that after the second time they nearly left me behind, the professors checked for me (and possibly only me) every single time we got back on the bus. I clearly could not be trusted in beautiful places with streams running through them.
It's funny to me, now, after so many years of independence in so many countries, to think that I did not just say, "No, this is my path. I know that it will take me back to my group, and I'm going to go down it now. I will be fine. Thanks for your help." That's what I would do now. But at the time, two or three days into a new country, on my own for the first time ever in a new country, I was too scared, even on a beautiful, peaceful trail.
No comments:
Post a Comment