ifthemoonrises

[ifthemoonrises]

Making A Name

As with the preceding summer, I left for Panama as soon as the academic year ended. This time around, though, I left without a travel companion. I wanted full exposure to what I thought of as the outside world. Traveling in that way unhindered by social obligations to anyone but the country and its people happened to be a prudent move.

I could do whatever I wanted, whenever. Furthermore, by traveling independently I could shed past identities in favor of one that better reflected the environment I was currently in. Though it sounds disingenuous, I only had the best of intentions. Truthfully, if it were not for that state of mind (one I think of as humble intrusion), I would not have been able to integrate myself into the community as genuinely as I did.

I was a guest in the country, in each community. I recognized that and the subsequent need to abide by the customs in place. No doubt I enjoyed learning and applying the customs I observed. Yet, I still had a grain of a personal agenda: I was there to surf. 

Being cautious with my funds, I looked for ways to rent a surfboard—my biggest expense—on the cheap. Of the few hostels in the area, I chose one a couple kilometer walk or paddle from the surf breaks. A stylized cabin with a spacious kitchen provided me cheap lodging and cheap means of food. The only trouble was that the hostel’s quiver didn’t expand past longboard foamies.

I was set on a short board. I craved a fully responsive board that demanded complete control. I could handle it: I wanted the tube. By nature, the grounds of the other hostels had a semi-public feel to them, which enabled me to go board scouting. That’s when I ran into Aquilino. Aquilino and his siblings are the second generation owners of a hotel/restaurant/board shop right on a bluff overlooking the town’s beach break. Aquilino’s demeanor is unwavering: he fronts disinterest, but in reality he’s receptive to amiable guests and clients.

So Aquilino was sweeping busying himself on his hotel’s patio when I strolled up. White, probably European, Aquilino must’ve expected me to be just another kid riding the tourism bandwagon. In simple Spanish, I told him I was interested in renting boards from him. I explained that I would be in town for a week or so and asked him about the possibility of renting a board for free for a day after a series of days having rented.

He was weird about it. He didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes. Instead every time I’d swing by the board rack he’d say that hotel guests got the boards on the cheap. I’d explain that I needed a hostel with a kitchen. He’d remark that plates could come as cheaply as $5 from his kitchen. After the third day or so of renting, the script-like banter bubbled into larger, friendlier conversation. While other travelers were in and out of town in a matter of maybe two days, Aquilino became a consistent person with whom I could share a conversation. A nineteen year old American from Chicago (not the town with the best Spanish translation) was a unique demographic to represent in that region. I was a source of intrigue for Aquilino and his family and friends. Mutually, the conversations were novel and cultivated a relationship.

[ifthemoonrises]

Star Mapping

In the free time I had outside of college commitments I’d pour over maps of Central America dreaming of a trip that would cover significant territory. I considered hopping from Belize, to Guatemala, to Honduras, and eventually on to Costa Rica. I noted prices of boat transit and how dangerous corresponding port towns were. Piecing together the trip based on bus schedules of major transit cities in Central America felt like connecting the stars of a constellation.

That was my goal: cover more ground. But covering more ground was obviously more expensive financially and turned out to be more expensive culturally, too. In the end, my budget was the limiting factor. So when peers would ask about my summer plans, I ended up saying that outside of my internship in Costa Rica I’d be living in my second home: Panama. 

Being able to dream of journeys in a region with which many people are unfamiliar helped qualify my attendance at a college in what was largely my home town. The town I went to college in had been the town that I had been attending school in since middle school. My high school friends flew the nest for college. I didn’t leave town for college, yet I found myself in a completely different town by the time college started. It felt awkward being a local in college. Though the town I had called home was steeped in high school memories, I couldn’t tap back into a high school lifestyle. At the same time, tapping into the college student culture wasn’t easy when one of the first questions I received from peers was inevitably, “Oh, why’d you choose to go to school in your home town?”

I didn’t know how to answer the question at the time. Looking back, I treated college as a career. I’d school and work during the academic year. In the off season, I’d experience classroom material first hand while following my stoke to empty lineups and welcoming communities. Maybe I was a local in my college town, but I did everything I could to have a story about being from somewhere else.     

[ifthemoonrises]

Finer Details

As a sophomore--a wise fool, I still felt a distrust for academia. I had trouble linking classroom lectures to my real world waltzing. An elective titled Development Economics painted a picture of burgeoning economies with a wide brush. It ignored the finer details of the mosaic that is economy. I’ve made the mistake of flinging pebbles at a giant such as an established professor’s publication in the past. I don’t want to provoke the same intellectual spanking, but I do mean to point out that I felt like chalkboard talks could not speak to the same clarity on specific prudent moves of development as could patient immersion in an area that was developing. Important, nonetheless, to classroom study was extracting solid principles of effective development from a swath of case studies. 

[ifthemoonrises]

Cloud Bound

At that point, after my second summer in Central America, I knew I wanted to line myself up in a way that would lead to working in some form with the people of Central America. It had only been a combined total of a month traveling in just the southern two countries of Central America, but I harbored a nascent feeling that Central America--with its vast countrysides and sleepy towns--would soon become a stomping ground for all sorts of industry. 

My second year of college began with a bang. Training for a position at my college’s writing center kept me occupied on top of classes in Economics and Spanish. I happened to juggle my academic pursuits well enough to catch the attention of key professors. As it turned out, my college was linked to a grant foundation that awarded certain students with research opportunities in the heart of the cloud forests of Costa Rica. I will never forget the giddy rush that came over me as I walked out of the Costa Rica program director’s office. The program offered me a chance to live with a Costa Rican family in a developing jungle town and to study the pace and potential directions of the community’s development.

A few fellow students and I were selected to represent the college and the grant foundation in several fields of study. I was set to return to Central America. Over the course of the academic year, I had fostered my knack for critical observation by analyzing peers’ presentation of ideas in order to improve the clarity of their written communication. I would come to apply my strengthened skill of interpretation on a community, rather than personal, level.   

[ifthemoonrises]

Big Highs and Steep Lows

Considered on their own, the high and the low of my first independent trip to Central America are not as significant as when they’re considered in the grand chain of events apart of all my Central American journeys.

At the time, being bored, feeling out of place--both while on the road--were new to me. I had expected travel to be constant amusement. After all, all the travel material I had read and gazed upon captured a scene of bewilderment and high energy. My low on my first taste of independent travel was sitting on a bench of an empty patio thinking, “Well, I’m out here, but...” It was the lack of stimulation that I’d come to channel productively. The plainness of a foreign environment during a lull in activity would become the real ticket to foreign immersion. At that time, however, inevitable downtime was a tough fact to face.

The high of the trip kept me coming back to the ocean. I could write dreamily about many of the surf sessions I’ve had. One aspect, though, of the last surf session I had on that trip captures my reason for swearing to return to the coast. Collectively, it was still my fourth week or so of surf spread out over two summers. I was on a long board, a foamie, and had decided on one last wave. A set gathered; I squared up and launched down the wave. A feeling of magic pervaded me and overpowered any feelings of doubt I had about my passion for beach towns and the slow paces that accompanied them. My connection to surf was rekindled. I’d be back.  

[ifthemoonrises]

First Encounter

Two jobs--a life guarding job and a position as a delivery driver--built my bank strong enough to fund a two week trip to the hallowed beach town the guide in Costa Rica had related to me. Aspirations accorded to, I found myself with a friend from high school in that very beach town only a week or so after the academic year had ended.

The feeling that struck me as I gazed out for the first time over the ocean that lapped the shores was one of emptiness. The feeling arose from the realization of how expedited travel had become. Standing on the beach was an awkward first encounter with a land so different and intrinsically special. One day on a plane and the next on a series of buses was all the time needed to land a suburban kid like me on a far off coast line. At that moment, few places seemed to me to have a barrier to entry that modern travel hadn’t eroded. The full import of that realization would come to me in pieces as my travels unraveled.

[ifthemoonrises]

Through the Fire

Coming off my first summer of surf, I had to face an upsetting first year of college at a small mid western school. I felt the drag shared by many first year college students: I had been bucked from a familiar lifestyle where family had given me a sense of identity. I found myself in a setting where I could largely call my own shots. More freedom should have meant more happiness, but the particular type of freedom lacked appropriate responsibility. 

For the large part, my peers and I were unsure of a sense of self on which we could base responsible decisions. The first year of college for me felt like I was herded off with a subset of the population and left to a poor sense of self to dictate choices. Again, I was upset and unsettled, but I had the coming summer’s return to the ocean to keep me focused.

[ifthemoonrises]

Planting the Seed

My first trip to Central America was through an organization that combined surfing and service projects. The trip was a shadow behind a curtain of what a bona fide surf trip could be--or so I thought at the time. I scribbled notes for plans of future trips that included more bikinis on scene, more bonfires, beach huts, and, of course, plenty of beer. In travels to come I certainly got my share of items on the wish list, but what ultimately interested me more was much less fleeting.

From the first wave I took I was hooked on surfing. Surfing was at once liberating and humbling: an art form for a kid obsessed with movement. Conversations with one of the guides of the trip led to the promise of bigger, more remote surf in a town in Panamá that the guide had frequented. I ended up taking away a confidence from the surfing and service trip that I too could come to frequent the remote town in Panamá the guide had told me about. 

All I needed to successfully strike out to Panamá was a purse garnered from a service job worked during the academic year and a basic knowledge of Spanish. I had found something worth working towards that happened to be the next step on my path to self-actualization.   

[ifthemoonrises]

Surfboard Diaries

I have to thank the ocean for my inspiration and ultimate uncovering of my passion. At the end of my high school career my parents afforded me the opportunity to take part in a group travel experience. Being from the mid west, I was eager to get out to a coast and ride the only board I still had yet to ride: the surfboard. My parents kept the opportunity for me to travel in perspective guiding me towards enrolling in an organization that combined surfing and service. Throughout my subsequent travels, my parents’ reserve in encouraging a balance of work and play benefited me greatly. 

My entries in this blog are dedicated to the ocean and my parents for being the two greatest beacons on my journey thus far. My entries in this blog will catalog four summers of travel and the subsequent reflections that have shed light on the type of work I wish to do when I graduate college: empowering local communities.