#and his visa ends halfway through my second year not my third so it's just.... difficult

[mwydyn]

It's very weird being in a relationship for about 3 months and knowing his visa runs out in just over a year like weird to think very hypothetically but also sort of seriously about my future and where I want to live but only if things workout but there's not been any reason to think it won't but it's only been 3 months but I really care about him

[majestic-shriek]

  I’ve now reached the milestone of having lived abroad for over a year, making this the longest I have been away from the UK and my family, like. Ever.

I feel I maybe should have inaugurated the occasion of my arrival in Chile (July 30th, 2016)  with a cake or something. In reality, I was on the point of starting a new job, and so I cooked some lunches. I am nothing if not practical.

I’ve been thinking though, as I tend to do, rather a lot, and reflecting, both on my year (and a bit) here this time round, and the similarities and differences from my first year in Chile back in 2005/6.

Chileans are (generally) lovely

This isn’t a new or surprising observation. I’ve been lucky enough to stay with two different Chilean families during my time in the country, one in Santiago (my Santiago family, as I call them) and the other in Talca (my Talca family). These families welcomed me in –in the first case as a young, Spanishless girl of 18 years old — and included me in activities and daily family life; something I am still welcome in to this day. I’m still in regular contact with my Santiago family; I teach two of the kids English, and I am invited to some family events. I’m still welcome to stay and visit my Talca family whenever I want. When travelling in the south last November, I met other families who were hosting volunteers, who also welcomed me into their homes and said return visits were welcome. Further in the south, I met countless lovely friendly people when travelling who helped me and chatted to this somewhat intrepid solo traveller. I’ve always been struck by that here in Chile. Maybe it’s just that people, in general, are good, but Chileans are definitely Good Eggs.

(I need more recent photos with my Santiago family, it seems…)

You are still you

The same things you found difficult the first time you lived here, are still the things you find difficult. The same things you found difficult back in the UK, are still the things you find difficult. Anxiety is still anxiety. Moving halfway across the world doesn’t change who you are, but you can keep striving to improve.

I found this, from a blog post  this morning, and it seemed relevant. “So, in my despair I thought: “This demon that I’ve created is part of myself that I should forgive.” I felt compassion. I tried embracing the demon, and to my surprise, that made it smaller”

The world is made of sushi

And that sushi is full of cream cheese and deep fried. Or covered in avocado. It’s all good. Well, some of it is better than others. I swear that back in 2005 sushi didn’t exist here in such quantities, where as now you find it on every street, practically. I have an affection for Chilean sushi; it was here, after all, that I tried sushi for the first time, my good friend Maca taking Leo and I to a sushi restaurant in the centre where I tentatively tried the raw fish and rice. The first time, I wasn’t convinced. The second time she took us, I thought it was okay. After the third time, I wanted more. Now, I have access to all the sushi I could possibly want.

Tramites. TRAMITES

Tramites. My life is tramites. Back in January I had to go through the joyous process of extending my temporary visa, which meant immigration queues and translations and apostilled documents and notarised photocopies and more queues…and then an awful lot of waiting. In June, I paid for and received my visa — cue more queues, and waiting, and in July I finally got my new carné – my ID card, which is essentially for much of bureaucratic life here. It’s valid until the end of January. Yep. I’m gonna have to go through this all again come January, except the paperwork will be more complicated and the waiting will be even longer, because I’ll be trying to get a visa definitiva – a permanent residency visa. (My worries about that are for another post…)

Banks. Omg Banks.

Why don’t the banks open past 2pm? Why don’t the banks open for customers on Saturday mornings at least? Why do they make it next to impossible to do your banking? There’s also the small detail that if your bank card is blocked or lost, or something happens to your account, you need your ID card to deal with it (or the patience and the Spanish to argue an awful lot with the bank teller). If you don’t have an ID card, because your visa is en tramite…good luck with that! I had 5 months of being very careful with my bank card because I had no easy way of getting a new one…and then 2 weeks before I was due to get my new ID, the bank blocked my card.

Oh, and why is there not an option to remember a lost internet banking password? Mess that up? Yeah, you have to go to the bank and get a new one.

Oh, and you’ll need your ID.

There are fewer street dogs

Back in 2005, there were dogs seemingly everywhere. I even was required to get the rabies jab before coming out here. Now, there’s no rabies and definitely fewer street dogs. That’s not to say the problem is solved; there are still far too many around, but even if areas where I’d expect to see more dogs there are fewer. There’s been new law to do with pet ownership and care that passed recently as well, so we’ll see if that makes even more of a difference.

Street dogs are smart though! Not only do some of them know how to cross the road safely and use buses, but this one is currently enjoying his moment of fame:

I also enjoy the little pack of 2 or 3 dogs outside Baquedano station who exclusively bark at and chase taxis and motorbikes. No other cars. Just taxis.

Cafe culture exists now

Chile, can, at times, seem to be a country that’s slow to come round to coffee. In 2005, pretty much all that was available was Nescafe, powered, to boot (not even granulated!) and cafe culture wasn’t really a thing. Well, there was (and is) a certain type of cafe  that wasn’t really the sort of place I was going to be going. There were 2 (that I knew of) Starbucks in Santiago, both up in the distant lands of Las Condes. Now, there’s a Starbucks practically everywhere, and a number of decent little cafes all over the place too, some of which also have pretty decent coffee (Roasters & Co, I’m looking at you)

Homesickness does exist!

I’ve never really been one to get homesick. I don’t remember feeling it during my first year away. I’ve missed home and my parents and friends and things, obviously,  but I’ve never been homesick. Until May this year, when the overwhelming desire to just be at home, to be back in the UK was so strong I almost packed it all in and booked a flight. I looked at the costs of flights a couple of times. But, it passed, with the feelings that were surrounding it too, and I haven’t had that strong overwhelming need to be back on UK soil since.

I miss food

Food obviously exists here. There’s good food here, too, in places, and I can cook, so I can make many things that I like. But gosh. I miss things like

— bacon (the only easily available bacon here is streaky bacon, which, while good, is not true bacon. There is a source of back bacon, but I am currently poor, and so back bacon is off my menu)

— curry (again, the number of Indian restaurants has risen sharply since the last time I was here, but reasons of cost mean I have not yet tried any of them out)

–chinese food (see above, regarding cost. Also I am dubious as to the nature of Chilean Chinese food. I mean, British Chinese food is…interesting enough, I’m not sure how they’ll have interpretted it for the Chilean palette!)

–sheer variety of fresh (prepared) foods to buy in the supermarket (fresh fruit and vegetables are readily available, subject to much greater seasonality than in the UK, but I do sometimes miss fresh things that are ready to cook — just for ease! I know ready spiralized courgette and chicken ready with a sauce to cook in the oven a luxuries that I don’t need, but man, it’s nice to have them and to be able to cook healthily quickly.)

I miss good cheese

This deserves a segment of its own, because, wow, do I miss good cheese. Cheese with flavour. Cheese with a deep sharpness to it. Cheese which smells. Cheese that’s mature. Cheese with mould on it. CHEESE. I resent having to pay extortionate amounts of money for a tiny amount of somewhat decent cheese, and so am reduced to “cheese that will do to melt on top of pasta.”

This would be heaven right now

And milk.

I’m not really a milk drinker, so this one surprised me. Fresh milk isn’t really a thing here, unless you live in the campo and have access to a cow. All the milk in the supermarket is UHT. I hate UHT milk. I have always hated UHT milk. It tastes weird. I can just about deal with it if it is ice cold. I dislike it in coffee because it makes my coffee taste weird, which means that I primarily drink black coffee now, unless I’m having some highly flavoured abomination from Starbucks or get lucky with some vegetable/nut milk somewhere. I’m looking forward to the day when I will have enough money to be able to afford nut milks.

Some dairy products though…

Who knew that cream cheese covered in soy sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds and served with crackers was so damn delicious?

I think my Spanish has improved

It’s hard to tell — I could speak Spanish when I arrived this time, after all. It’s not like before where I was thrust into a world where I understood not a word of what was going on around me, where I had to try to construct sentences carefully in my head before talking, and where the conversations always seemed to rush off to another topic before I’d had a chance to say said carefully constructed sentence. Now I work in an almost fully Spanish language environment, my social life is pretty bilingual and I think — I hope — my Spanish has improved from when I arrived back here last year. I haven’t done much hard graft on my Spanish, and I fear I may need to to really seriously improve it, but for now, I think I’m doing pretty good.

I haven’t been fired yet, so I must be understanding everything in the workplace okay at least!

It still throws me off hearing English in the streets or the supermarket

I never used to hear English anywhere except in the English classroom, out with Maca or with a handful of other people I knew who spoke English. Now, I hear it everywhere — and it’s not just that there’s more foreign tourists and residents in Chile, but the Chileans are talking more English too.

Working here involves working long hours

I knew this, but add my commute as well, and I work a lot. I work 9am-6:30pm in an office job. So yeah, I’m not working hard some of the time, but that’s long working hours. I’m lucky enough to live close by; on a good day it takes me less than an hour to get home, but for people who live further out, contending with the Santiago rush hour traffic? No thank you. 44 hours is a long working week.

I prefer downtown to uptown

I recently moved to Las Condes to be closer to work and to cut down on my commute. It’s nice enough, I like the area. But I much prefer the life and vitality of downtown — even Providencia. I lived previously in Plaza Italia – where I lived in 2005/6 too – which is an area I love. It’s close to everything, it’s well connected. I’ve found myself missing just being able to walk into el centro recently, wandering down through Lastarria towards the Plaza de Armas. I miss downtown.

Joining an expat community is not a bad thing

I hadn’t resisted joining the expat community here at all, it just hadn’t really happened. I’ve got my English speaking knitting group, after all. But recently, I’ve been to a few events and things involving the expat community, and yeah, it’s been nice. It’s nice to be around people who “get you.” Even if they don’t really get you because British English is apparently not compatible with North American English.

But I’m glad I know Chileans too

That said, I’m glad my circle of friends includes Chileans too. I don’t want to live in an expat bubble. Now to work on expanding both circles!

Without the support of these guys, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did, in all honesty. They are amazing.

  There’s probably many more things I could have said or added or thought about at anniversary of my arrival back in Chile. It’s been a tough year – I never thought it would be easy – but I am perservering and getting stronger. Here’s to many years more.

  You’ve been abroad how long?! I've now reached the milestone of having lived abroad for over a year, making this the longest I have been away from the UK and my family, like.

[holisticpassport]

Love on the Weekend

I haven’t written in two months for two reasons, one being I needed to see where and when my life would settle for good. The other reason, because I wasn’t in the correct head-space to write this-- I needed to be somewhere between a total state of bliss, throwing all cares to the wind but also taking deep breaths to acknowledge the overwhelming notion that this is most likely where my journey alone ends. 

Last I wrote, I moved back up to Shepparton to pursue things with Coca Cola man and begin work at Noble Monks, a restaurant/cafe. In that time, we adventured to Sydney on an eight hour drive for a four day weekend where I finally saw the Opera House, walked the Circular Quay, flounced in a dress under the sun of Bondi Beach, and took a ferry to Manly Beach while staying in one of the most luxurious and peaceful studio Airbnb’s I’ve ever stayed in. Sydney was the vibe I initially thought Australia would be and that I wanted when I moved here, but in comparing Melbourne to Sydney, Melbourne wins simply because of the art, coffee, and overall eclectic culture. Over these four days, it was also a time of assessing and being honest with myself about the proposed prospect of traveling more with him in Europe come mid-August, which I eventually decided was not the route I wanted to take. 

The month I had been back in Shepparton, my mind felt clouded/confused and guilty because my feelings towards Coca Cola man were blocked from progressing based on several factors, among the main ones being I met someone in those two brief weeks in St. Kilda that had a significant impact on me. Introducing Barista Guy but since he’ll be sticking around a while, his name is Cameron. I used to frequent a cafe on the Acland strip before I moved back to St. Kilda for a second time, so I decided to head there again with my friend, Ria, before we ventured off one morning to look for jobs. We walked into Ground Yourself Cafe, and from the moment he took our orders and walked away I turned to Ria and said, “I will have two of him to go, please”. I was mildly smitten, so I went in again the next day. I wanted to go in again, I couldn’t go in three days in a row or he’d get suspicious, but as fate or coincidence would have it, a few days later I was heading to my old workaway’s house for dinner a half hour early and we ran into each other at the same tram stop. In this short 20 minute conversation, it was like ticking off every box to an imaginary list I had made for my dream man: spirituality, living for the moment, traveler, from New Zealand aka sexy accent, perfect age (32), vegetarian lifestyle, fit/active of his own will, musician, good conversationalist, handsome, sexy tattoo, barista, quotes lyrics and literature.... all this.... in 20 minutes of talking. To say he kind of took my breath away is an understatement. I messaged my mom and might have said something to the effect of meeting my husband. 

I went back to the cafe a few days later and pretended to need help with basic barista stuff but tuned out listening halfway through trying to figure out what the forest tattoo on his forearm meant and analyzing little things like his haircut and lips. But something was off in our interaction that made me feel he wasn’t into me. I also hadn’t found any work yet and it was drab/cold in St. Kilda during winter. Coca Cola man offered housing, a job via his sister’s work, a spare car to use, and comfort of a potential relationship so I weighed my options, and I went back, which I’m still glad I did because I learned even more lessons that I wouldn’t have had things lined up or worked out with Cameron right from the start. 

I got the opportunity to gain better skills as a waitress and also my own designated day as head barista on Sundays, thus developing the skill of latte art. I learned how to see things from another perspective based on my relationship  that allowed me to reflect and truly let go of my heartbreak from earlier this year. I discovered my future plans were not actions that were going to lead me to my best self so I decided to not work for Stoke Travel at Oktoberfest in September. I realized the people I want to surround myself with are not people who talk about others behind their back but rather talk about events, music, and ideas which show their maturity and growth as a person. Above all, I learned that I kept saying I didn’t want a serious relationship, but in fact I didn’t want a serious relationship with the wrong person again because putting in so much work, vulnerability, soul, and effort to not have it reciprocated in our values, mentalities, and goals wasn’t worth it. I had a clear idea of what I wanted, and I think the universe knew I was finally in a space to accept it into my life after everything this year had brought me. 

Remember how I said I always had the goal of going to Paris from the time I was eight? My other goal, as anti-feminist and patriarchal as this is, but from the same age it has always been to find my soulmate and be the best wife I can be. It was never a goal to have children, be a doctor or vet (I may have wanted to chase tornadoes but realized I was really bad at science), but it’s why I’ve never ultimately settled for mediocre relationships despite people saying they were better than most. I wanted ‘the one’ to travel with, make music with, and be disgustingly in love in every way imaginable. I’d begun to lose sight of that kind of romance being that it’s been elusive and diluted by experiences, but that tiny thread of hope held out, and I’ve started to rebuild the notion that it does exist. 

Fast forward through me telling Cam I had feelings for him and vice versa, spending the past three weeks having some of the deepest, most intense and long conversations I’ve ever had in my life, meeting friends, family, claiming sound advice from sources about cautious optimism, and truly listening to my intuition like I have always done. 

I am here, back in St. Kilda (third time’s a charm) now living with this incredible human, already sharing a beautiful life knowing it’s only going to get better. Sure, I’ve gotten backlash about how it’s fast, and trust me, both his and my mind were frantically searching for reasons this wouldn’t work. Our minds were racing the first night I moved in and we took a lot of those deep breaths I talked about earlier. We both know how it feels at the beginning of something new, with intense obsession and teenage butterflies. We both have endured enough pain and mistakes to enter this relationship with a clear vision of who we want to be and the kind of life we want together. The difference with the beginning of this union is we aren’t trying to impress each other or anyone else. We are being as transparent about our emotions, mental states, weirdness, quirks, tantrums, freak-outs, perfections and everything in between because we don’t want to play games anymore. Everything I went through this year just makes sense now that I’ve ended up here and I would go through all of it again to get to the same place. Our intuition is so insanely connected. We constantly know what the other person is thinking and feeling which makes our relationship easy and natural. We respect each other’s emotional, physical, and creative space, and feel secure and safe to express anything we need to. We are in awe of each other, confused of how lucky we got in this life. The foundation we have already built is strong, and very real. 

Because of this transparency, we decided to book round-trip flights together back to California and Ohio for Thanksgiving and Christmas. While my visa expires in November, I may come back on a different kind of visa. ;) 

[floraexplorer]

Five Things to Know Before Travelling to Bolivia

  A few days ago, I left Bolivia to travel into Peru.

I’ve been in Bolivia for fourteen weeks. During that time I’ve visited nine cities, taken part in two volunteer projects and spent way too long stressing about an overstayed visa.

My sense of relief at leaving Bolivia is palpable.

Because while I’ve seriously enjoyed the time I’ve spent travelling in Bolivia, there’s no doubt that over the last three months it’s also slowly been driving me crazy.

My internal self, at least, feels a bit like this guy

Read more: My Ultimate Travel Guide to Backpacking Bolivia

What’s the reason for this? Well, Bolivia has a number of idiosyncrasies that have the ability to make or break a traveller’s experience here.

Once you get off the well-trodden gringo trail of La Paz, Sucre, Potosí and the Uyuni salt flats, it turns out that Bolivia isn’t very set up for tourism. And while I relish the challenge of navigating a non-touristy country, there are a myriad of barriers to surmount – mainly in terms of transport, money, food, culture, and the country’s unique method of giving advice.

So I thought a round-up of my experiences in Bolivia – and the ensuing lessons I’ve learned – was in order. This is absolutely not to dissuade people from visiting, as I really do love Bolivia. It’s more to provide an overview of what you can expect from a period of Bolivian travel.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1. Bolivian transport can be tricky

The first thing most travellers will encounter in Bolivia is the transport system. Like most of South America, people get around the country via an extensive bus network – but experiences on these can be debatable.

Read more: A guide to bus travel in Bolivia

The process of catching a Bolivian bus deserves a post all to itself, so for now I’ll mention the bare basics: over-speeding drivers, bizarre departure and arrival times, a constant gamble as to the bus temperature… You get the idea.

In terms of the more short-term transport options in Bolivia, though, I spent most of my time in two different types: taxis and trufis.

Taking trufis and taxis in Bolivia

When I first arrived in La Paz, I was pretty nervous about catching the local buses. Known as trufis, these little minibuses throng the city’s streets and feature ticket sellers leaning out of the open doors shouting their destinations – information supported by a placard propped up in the windscreen.

The problem is that the drivers essentially make up their routes: if there’s a road block or too much traffic, they simply go another way. For a tourist, this is something of a difficulty when they barely know the name of the street their hostel is on.

The streets of La Paz look a lot more pleasant when you’re not squinting out of a trufi window.

Luckily, by the time I conquered my fear and boarded a trufi, I’d walked around enough of the city to know which direction we were speed-driving in. And if I ever lost my bearings, I’d simply shout, “Isquina por favor!” and jump out at the nearest corner. A rule I never would have learnt without experiencing it first – however worried I was about getting lost.

Bolivia is also the only country where I’ve been consistently required to know both the directions and eventual location of where I’m headed infinitely better than the taxi driver. There have been slews of drivers who look terrified when you flag them down – that is, if they stop at all. Numerous taxis have driven straight past me, or started their engines and speeded off as soon as they hear an address they’re not explicitly familiar with.

I stayed at an incredible hostel in Cochabamba which was marred solely by the fact that absolutely no taxis had any clue how to get there. My favourite journey back to Las Lilas hostel was with a driver who held an expression like a frightened rabbit for the entire ten minute ride. I had to continually coax him to take each new turning, and clambered out of the car exhausted.

Bolivian transport: the positives

There are a number of benefits to the way Bolivians travel, though. First off, Bolivian transport is cheap. Hence why I took taxis a lot of the time – something that’s never been a habit in other South American countries.

The scenery on the bus route is also pretty nice.

Secondly, the experience is usually pretty friendly. On every trufi ride, I realised that each passenger said “buen dia” or “buenas tardes” as they boarded, presumably to the rest of the bus – and I adopted the tactic very early on.

Third, and most appealing to me, is that being a taxi driver in Bolivia is often a full family operation. Many times I’ve caught taxis with the driver’s son or daughter, wife or girlfriend in the front seat – and once in Sucre, even met a new born baby, whose father clearly couldn’t bear to spend his days away from her. Despite the numerous strange drivers, there are also many who are really eager to chat away in Spanish about what you’re doing in Bolivia.

Sadly, though, these conversations were often tainted by a constant issue: paying the fare.

2. Dealing with money in Bolivia is stressful

Like many countries around the world, people in Bolivia have a problem with giving out their change. I understand why: one tourist pays with a big note, and suddenly all your spare coins disappear as a result.

But when the biggest Boliviano note in common circulation is 100Bs, equivalent to £10 or $14, it becomes rather frustrating to constantly argue with taxi drivers, tienda owners and restaurant waitresses, who consistently maintain that they don’t have change.

Hiding your cash in your shoe. No one will ever look there.

I often found myself pretending I didn’t have smaller denominations in these situations, just to be able to break a note. It’s not the nicest feeling, but sometimes ends up being totally necessary.

The pricing of products also carries its own set of difficulties; more often than not, I had the sneaking suspicion that sellers were simply making their prices up on the spot. Regardless of whether it’s due to obviously being a foreigner, things got problematic when I tried to barter with the clearly invented price, and was either bluntly shot down or laughed at.

Of course, the huge positive aspect to money in Bolivia is that pretty much everything is insanely cheap. Whether it’s a ten hour bus journey for £10, a three course meal with wine for £5 or an ensuite room in a hotel for £7, sometimes it’s necessary to put things into perspective a bit.

Ok, the service might not be the best, but you’re still saving a ton of cash in the process.

3. Eating in Bolivia is always an experience

Bolivians certainly know how they like their food. In a country that’s home to thousands of different varieties of potato, the locals supplement a starch-heavy diet with a nationwide obsession with sweet stuff: plastic cups of coloured gelatine topped with whipped cream are sold on every street corner, sugary empanadas are grasped in sticky hands, and Coca Cola is the drink of choice.

Luckily there’s also a ton of shopping opportunities in the local markets, so it’s not all about the sugar.

The weirder Bolivian food facts include drinking juice out of plastic bags (actually a rather sensible idea!) and most older Bolivians chewing on a ball of coca leaves to combat the effects of altitude – which results in a constant bulge in their cheek.

But by far the most incredible – and most typically Bolivian – foodie experience happened on my second visit to Isla del Sol, the night before I left the country entirely.

Tired out and starving from a full day of hiking around the island, we chose a small restaurant overlooking Lake Titicaca and ordered a pizza, topped with olives, peppers, and ham. A ten year old girl took our order, brought us two beers, and vanished into the kitchen. We were the only customers at this point.

After a forty minute wait and the disappearance of the sun below the horizon, we started to wonder where our food was. We looked to the ten year old, busy putting oven gloves on after opening the oven door, and she smiled and dipped her head at us. Another twenty minutes, and a pizza finally appeared – but missing the ham the description had stated we’d get. Obviously this really wasn’t an issue, but we asked anyway. “This was supposed to come with ham, right? Well, there isn’t any…”

We were halfway through the pizza when our ten year old waitress appeared at the table, bearing a small china plate with two square slices of prepackaged ham, clearly straight out of the fridge.

“Todo bien?” The girl said, clearly perplexed at why we were laughing. We’d been given the ham we’d wanted, after all – what else could be the matter?

Still hungry when the pizza had gone, we ordered a plate of spaghetti. By this point the restaurant was filled with people, and the pasta took another forty minutes to arrive. Yet when it did, the stuff was so crunchy and brittle that it clearly hadn’t met boiling water for longer than a few minutes. After two mouthfuls I took it back to the kitchen.

“No puedo comer eso – es demaciado fuerte.”

The teenage boy glanced at the poor ten year old. She took the plate away – and there was no more mention of pasta. Not even the question of whether I wanted a fresh plateful.

Bolivian food: the positives

Luckily, Bolivia’s food offerings have kept me happy more often than not. I’ve waxed lyrical before about my love for the South American menu del dia, and Bolivia is no different. While daily helpings of soup, rice, meat and platano can sometimes get old, there’s no doubt that this simple meal is a quick, cheap fix for being hungry.

Outside of the typical Bolivian lunch, there’s a number of chances to happen upon amazing eateries if you just go looking. Potosi boasted incredible hot chocolate; we indulged in cheese fondue twice in Copacabana; and in Sucre, I ate the best steak of my entire life at a churrasqueria not even mentioned in Lonely Planet or on Trip Advisor.

SO MUCH PIG.

Read more: Discovering the delicious food scene in Sucre, Bolivia

Most importantly, the attitude Bolivians have towards eating is ultimately communitarian, and it’s a lovely thing to see.

When someone passes your table in a restaurant, you’ll usually hear ‘buen provecho’ – the Spanish equivalent of ‘bon appetite’. There’s also nothing odd about sharing your table with strangers: a trait that I think many other cultures would benefit hugely from.

4. Bolivian culture is absolutely fascinating

There’s no doubt in my mind that Bolivia’s cultural traits are one of the main reasons it stands out so much.

Indigenously dressed men and women are a common sight in all towns, villages and most big cities – many of whom shy away from photos because they think a camera will steal their souls. Young boys shine shoes in the middle of the street, their faces covered by balaclavas to conceal their identities.

Llama foetuses hang above market stalls, inviting people to bury them under the foundations of their houses for good luck.

Building a new house? Go on, buy a llama!

Read more: Traditions & superstitions at the world’s highest market in El Alto, Bolivia

These aspects of Bolivian life are things a foreigner simply can’t hope to understand. And Bolivians themselves have many behavioural eccentricities that often prove acutely stressful for a foreigner such as myself.

5. “Giving advice” actually means making things up

On Boxing Day in Copacabana, we wanted to hire a motorbike.

It was a great way to spend an afternoon, zipping along the lake’s coastline to a few scenic spots, and we’d questioned the elderly gentlemen renting out bikes a few days before. He’d given a good price for four hours of renting an automatic bike – “Si, of course, we definitely have automatics” – and things seemed set.

Except when we arrived, he wheeled out a tired, battered and bruised motorbike, and proceeded to explain that there were only four gears we needed to use.

“…so it’s not automatic,” I ventured.

“Si, si, it is! There is no clutch, so it’s automatic,” he said, grinning.

I tried again.

“No… if it has gears, it isn’t automatic. We asked for an automatic because we don’t know how to drive with gears!”

His teenage accomplice attempted a different tactic.

“This road is straight, it’s flat. It’s an automatic road,” he said, unsuccessfully evading eye contact with me.

Time and time again, these things kept happening in Bolivia. A stranger would confidently point me in the wrong direction to an address I asked about; a shop owner would tell me they didn’t stock produce which I could clearly see behind on the shelf.

Ever seen a real life zebra crossing?

Read more: The colourful contradictions of La Paz, Bolivia

But then again, some of Bolivia’s cultural crazinesses are what really makes the country special. Like real zebras helping you to cross the road.

And yet I still have a firm love for Bolivia

Talking to lots of travellers throughout Bolivia has matched my own opinions: this country is a challenge, certainly, but it’s also an utterly fascinating place.

So what’s my advice for travelling in Bolivia without letting these stresses get to you?

– Stick somewhere for longer than a few days. Find a homestay or an apartment and use it as a base to explore the country as a bit more of a local, instead of as a fast-moving tourist.

– Take Spanish classes so you can actually communicate with people and understand the Bolivian perspective on their country.

– Shop at local markets, and try to actually get under the skin of Bolivia.

Despite the stresses and the difficulties, there are so many positives: the awe inspiring landscapes and scenery, the budget-friendly prices, the fascinating culture, and the sense of adventure and possible challenge that comes with everything here.

So thank you, Bolivia!

Thanks for testing me to my limit, but simultaneously throwing me into the midst of an amazing array of totally unexpected experiences. South America would have been a lot less eventful if it wasn’t for you.

Have you ever travelled to Bolivia? What was the experience like for you? 

Pin this article if you enjoyed it!

The post Five Things to Know Before Travelling to Bolivia appeared first on Flora The Explorer.

via WordPress http://bit.ly/2MBtwhi

[erdrickdragonsbane]

An Autobiographical Post on my Depression

I posted this on another blog, on 2/3/2017, which I am now deleting. I am reposting it here because it feels relevant far too often, and I do not wish to lose my thoughts on the matter.

I need to get this out there. I’m as close to suicidal as I have ever been.

I don’t know if writing about it will help, or if it will make things worse, but I need to do something.

I’ve been to see a psychologist about my depression in the past, and it’s always been my own efforts that keep me going—and my connection with my dog, who is always there for me to hug when I need her. Sometimes I feel like I’m completely over my depression, and sometimes it’s really bad—but this last week has been worse than at any time in the past.

You see, absolutely nothing in my life seems to go right, I have only three friends I do things with, I’m broke and have never been able to find work, I want nothing more with my life than to be able to help people, animals, and the planet on a meaningful scale – and have been utterly unsuccessful at doing so, with absolutely no idea of how I’m supposed to change that given that I have no money, I have no power, I have no connections, and no one has ever been willing to give me a chance to do anything, ever – and I’m zoo exclusive in a world that hates people who are different and people like me more than most—and makes absolutely no effort to try to understand my orientation and the people who have it.

It started when I was a child. I was bottom of my class in reading at the start of first grade, and top of my school in reading at the start of second grade, with the difference being that I was diagnosed with ADHD halfway through first grade and thus was prescribed Ritalin, which absolutely saved me from a life of ignorance, drug addiction, and probably violence and crime. By the end of third grade, I was able to test higher on the Minnesota state tests than anyone in this state’s history ever had, by such a large margin that the people scoring the tests thought mine was a sample test and didn’t believe I took it at first.

You would think, having scored so high on my tests, that I would have been advanced grades and allowed to progress at my own rate, which was many times faster than that of my classmates. That’s not what happened…

Instead, they kept me going through school one grade at a time, with teachers who didn’t understand me and who slowly killed my joy of school and of learning. I was constantly in trouble, because I was constantly bored. I was punished for correcting my teachers on their mistakes, and made to feel like being intelligent was a crime. By the time I got through middle school, which was a nightmare in its own right, I was sullen, depressed, isolated, and completely disenchanted with school, teachers, people, and learning. No one understood me, and no one even tried. And to make matters worse, I had absolutely no idea why I had no interest in the girls, nor even in the boys, who were in school with me. In fact, the only times I can recall being attracted to anyone at all it was when I imagined myself as an animal, like a wolf or a dragon, and even then it was purely a kink sort of situation—I certainly had no real romantic interest in anyone. At the time, I didn’t understand that fantasy, and I didn’t understand why I was attracted to animals but not to humans, and I just assumed that there was something I was missing that I would eventually get.

Then came college. I spent my first two years learning how to control my ADHD without medication, as the medications had all begun failing me in my teenage years as my body went through all of its changes, and as I sank further into depression without really realizing what was happening to me yet. As a result, I ended up sinking to a 1.5 GPA. I missed one semester because of a hernia and the surgery that repaired it, and I missed one semester because of academic suspension. When I finally had my ADHD sorted out, I went into the MLT (medical lab tech) program, which I stayed in for 3 semesters before deciding to finish my time at my first college with a general education degree, due to my sheer boredom with the MLT work and field. By the time I graduated I had close to a 3.4 cumulative GPA.

I went on from there to a local university, where I started working toward a mechanical engineering degree. Unfortunately, I also found this field to be extremely boring, and so my grades suffered for it. I took the first two tests in my Physics course, and then saw that I could skip all the rest of the homework as well as the third test and the final exam and still pass with a C, so that’s what I did. The rest of my courses were likewise too easy and too boring for me, resulting in me cutting as many corners as I could in the hopes of eventually getting to some classes that held more challenge and more interest for me. That never happened.

After my first year at university, I went on a program to spend the summer in Israel volunteering. I remember experiencing more than a bit of depression because it was not at all what I had in mind. I wanted to work with the animals and make a difference in their lives at the nature preserve I volunteered at. Instead, I saw what amounted to animal abuse and neglect in certain cases, it was far too hot for me, and I had three women for roommates, two of whom were smokers. I have nothing against being roommates with women, I just felt like the odd one out when the two smokers joined the group, and I do have quite a bit against being roommates with smokers.

Eventually I got so sick and depressed I had to leave, at which point I was able to find another location within the program to spend the rest of my volunteer time, and that was up in the Golan Heights. It was cooler there, and I liked the people I was roomed with a hell of a lot better—for the most part. There were three women and three guys (including myself), and I’m still Facebook friends with three of them. Unfortunately, one of the women was batshit crazy, was constantly alternating between complaining and going completely nuts, and she even stole some of my stuff when she left without telling anyone one day. And also unfortunately, one of the guys, who wasn’t actually a volunteer, and wasn’t part of the program the rest of us were there through, was extremely hostile.

So, while I had a better time at the second place, the crazy woman and the angry guy eventually made it so negative that I ended up leaving Israel a few weeks early, which definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

After my second year in the mechanical engineering program, I changed majors to History and immediately found myself thoroughly enjoying school for the first time since third grade. I had found something that interested me, that challenged me, and that couldn’t be worked out intuitively. With history, you can’t just think about a time in history and naturally come to understand what happened—you have to actually read, and research, and dig to find out the basics, and then you have to piece it all together to get a better picture, and it’s all extremely rewarding.

Around the same time, I also started taking some philosophy classes, and found that I appreciated learning about the history of philosophy—it added yet more layer to the people I was learning about in my history classes. So I added philosophy as a minor, and then changed it to a major before my third year was up.

After my third year in university, I took off to learn Attic Greek in Ireland. The plan was to spend four months there, two living with a host so that I could learn about Irish culture better, and two at school. Within two weeks my host had turned into a slave driver, and when he tried to force me to work 8 hours a day with no breaks, just to be able to stay in his shitty guest room and eat two simple meals a day, I told him no, and he kicked me out. I was glad to go, and still marvel at the fact that I didn’t violently assault him. Not only was he taking advantage of foreign travelers for essentially slave labor, he was also neglectful and abusive of his horses, and he was extremely racist.

I then went on to spend the next 5 weeks traveling Ireland, with a few weeks in Dublin – yuck – where I got my visa to go to China, a week or so on the Aran Islands, a few days in Galway, a week or so in Cork, and some miscellaneous time just traveling. It was for the most part a great stretch of time, and I was extremely glad for it, especially when I considered that I could have been stuck working like a slave for an asshole I wanted nothing to do with.

Then I settled down in Cork for my classes in Attic Greek, and it was absolutely brutal. We had four semesters’ worth of language classes stuffed into 8 weeks. At first I was in the dorms with the other students, but there was no internet and I didn’t really feel like I fit with the people in my dorm, so I left and ended up with a good group in a small apartment. I’m still Facebook friends with two of the people from the apartment, and glad I met them.

Eventually, after what felt like an exceptionally grueling period of time, I passed my Attic Greek classes with a perfect 4.0. From there I moved on to China, and met an old friend along the way in Taiwan. He paid way too much for dinner for us, and brought me to see some pretty great sights in Taipei. All in all it was a really good 20 hour layover between flights, although don’t ask me why my flight from Ireland had me fly over the whole of China to land in Taipei before connecting me from Taipei back to Chengdu.

But, in the days right before I left for Chengdu, I got a notification from my home university that they were cutting off my funding. I filled out the paperwork they gave me before leaving on my flight, and didn’t find out until after I was in Chengdu that they had given me one more semester of financial aid. Apparently I was over the credit limit for graduating with a single major, even though I had two majors, and thus had a higher credit limit.

I quickly filled out my paperwork to extend my financial aid coverage by another semester, at the start of that fall semester in China, and thought everything was taken care of. So I set about enjoying my time in China, and found that I really rather liked most of the people in the group I was with. There were really only two or three people in my group I didn’t like all that much, and only one whom I genuinely disliked.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed that semester in China, and I felt like I had made some really good friends. I did a lot of biking, I saw a lot of sights, I ate some fantastic food, and I felt like I had learned quite a bit about the culture over there.

And then I found out that my home university had lost all of my paperwork, and I wasn’t going to get the funding that I needed to stay in China for the full school year, as I had planned—and had coordinated with everyone back at my home university. I was in the middle of finding a job teaching English as a tutor, which would have given me extra spending money but not enough money to stay until May. I was forced to cancel everything, pay for a ticket home, and hope I got my tuition and dorm money back quickly enough to use for what would be my final semester before graduating.

Because of the changed timeline, I wasn’t able to start applying for grad schools in time for that year. I also quickly scrambled to find a way to get a dog, because I knew I would need one for emotional stability and support. I ended up getting Keira, a malamute, and she has literally been a life saver.

I registered for classes, went deep into debt finishing my final semester, and graduated with a double major in History and Philosophy, with a 4.0 in History and a 3.92 in Philosophy. Unfortunately, I had a huge personal loan that was supposed to have been taken care of with my financial aid money, that I had taken out because financial aid wasn’t going to come in time to cover my tuition in Ireland or in China. Making the monthly payments on the personal loan caused me to sink deep into credit card debt, and I couldn’t find a meaningful job if my life depended on it.

Fortunately, I was able to land a job at a local bakery, due entirely to the lack of an interview for it. My Asperger’s and Social Anxiety Disorder make interviewing nearly impossible, so it was a lucky break for me when the manager simply asked me “When can you start?” and hired me on the spot without an interview.

Unfortunately, that was about the limit to my luck. My job was about 20 hours per week at the time, at 8.50/hour. I was barely making enough to cover my bills every month, and was actually sinking a bit further behind every month.

I signed up for classes to get a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certification, so I could try to get back to Asia where I could teach English and get my life sorted. Those classes went well, and I actually had three interviews with people over in China before realizing that I would need $5,000+ to cover the costs of getting over there and getting set up, because there was no way I was going to leave Keira behind. And even if I hadn’t had her to think about, it still would have been expensive because it’s far from cheap to get from Minnesota to China, and then to get an apartment and to cover a first month’s expenses before getting my first paycheck. And I simply didn’t have the money, and no one I knew had the means to help—and they still don’t.

By the time I came to that realization, it was too late again to apply for grad schools, so I went down to Atlanta for that year’s annual American Historical Association meeting, where I hoped to find any sort of lead on employment. I found nothing but deep depression.

I spent much of 2016 severely depressed, but hoping with all of my might that Bernie Sanders would win the Democratic nomination. And then things started going wrong with that, too. The DNC seemed to be rigging the election against Bernie. The media wasn’t covering him. When the voting started, the recorded numbers were far outside the accepted margin of error—in Hillary’s direction. There were reports of voter suppression against the voting blocs most likely to vote for Bernie. Bernie supporters were purged from the voting rolls. One of Hillary’s Super PACs started going around the internet harassing Bernie supporters and feeding false information to Hillary supporters and people who hadn’t made up their minds yet. Almost all of the super delegates were backing Hillary and saying they would back her no matter what the voters had to say about it. And the media made it seem as though Bernie stood zero chance, and Hillary’s being the nominee was a done deal.

And then Bernie had the nomination denied him, Hillary failed to do the right thing and step aside in favor of the candidate the people actually wanted, and Trump managed to win the electoral college by virtue of Hillary managing to do everything wrong.

And now, the country is going to shit faster than anyone thought possible, and all of the peaceful protests in the world won’t change a damn thing, unless the entire government around Trump stops doing what he says—thus rendering him powerless.

So, that’s the basic outline.

Every time I do something right, that should get me ahead, and open up opportunities for me, life finds a way to shit on me even harder.

I want to help the world, but I see the world collapsing around me, and I have no power and no influence with which to do anything about it, and no money with which to forge my own path.

And because I can’t help anyone—not even myself—I feel myself collapsing into the darkness of soul crushing depression.

Now, even something as meaningless as dying in a video game has me struggling not to break things, and not to throw myself out a window. I feel crushed, and defeated, and like there’s nothing I can do right that won’t go wrong in the end.

[junker-town]

There and back again: An immigrant's dream of being a soccer player

Being a Nigerian immigrant allowed me to see what a privilege it is to live a fulfilling life.

My family left Nigeria in 1998. After winning the immigration lottery, my father sold his father’s lands and moved his pregnant wife and five children from the village of Umuele in Imo State to Detroit, Mich. I returned to our village nine years later and became the godfather to my uncle’s youngest child.

I gave him his baptismal name, Pascal. I went back for a second time at the beginning of August. When I arrived at our house, a child stood by the door staring at me. I met his gaze and he said, “Do you know who you’re looking at?” I shook my head. “I’m your godson.”

My godson, Chiedozie, sees the world as a simple thing. He believes that planes are small because when he sees them in the sky, he can fit them between his thumb and forefinger. He loves to ask questions, and he loves soccer. When I tell him that I played professionally, his eyes light up. Because I’ve done it, he knows that he will achieve his dream of playing professionally in the United States or in Europe. After all, I once lived in a village like he does, and he is as good a player as I was before I left.

There aren’t too many clocks or phones in a village, so one has to have a physical awareness of time. You have to know that the roosters come out at about 6 a.m. and that it gets dark at 7 p.m. during the rainy season. You need an innate feel for the passage of hours to function. Jet lag keeps you from feeling quite at home.

Unable to sleep, I would sit on the balcony at night and watch the August rain. Chiedozie always showed up carrying a soccer ball. He would sit, spin the ball in front of him, and ask me questions about my playing days. And he’d listen to the answers until the ball inevitably became his pillow.

Chiedozie believes in the absurd. Most villagers will live and die in the same social class and environment in which they were born. To make it to the big cities, like Abuja and Lagos, and live a better life than the one you inherited is to be an exception. To go beyond those cities, to leave Nigeria and make it to the Western world — by immigration lottery, as an asylum-seeker, or as one of the few soccer players to be discovered by scouts — is to be an exception. A miracle.

It’s hard to explain to a child that what he sees as destiny is mostly the product of luck and privilege.

The author’s godson, Chiedozie.

My father worked to be a professional soccer player as a child, too. When he was studying and playing at Port Harcourt University, his father died. Because his two older brothers were also dead and he only had one older sister and a younger brother left, he became the man of the household. When he finished his studies, he packed up his dreams and returned to the village to take care of the rest of his family.

My father married, and both of my parents became secondary school teachers and then principals. One day my mother — pregnant with her fifth child — was walking to a women’s meeting with a friend who was rushing her. Her friend was in a hurry to deliver immigration forms to her family. My mother joked “oh, because I’m not your family is why you won’t give me one?” Her friend brought her one of the forms the next day.

The first form was lost, and the friend replaced it with her brother’s — who had filled it halfway and gave up in frustration. He had been denied a visa eight times before.

When the acceptance letter came, my father dismissed it as a hoax. Every year, millions enter a lottery to win immigration visas, and only a fraction of a percent win. It was only after a conversation with a friend who returned from the States that he understood what the letter meant. The man told my father that leaving Nigeria would be a personal loss but a greater gain for his children.

Because we already had cousins there and it had a big Nigerian community, we moved to Detroit in Sept. of 1998. Winter came as a shock. My father — wearing a long Raiders jacket given to him by our landlord — walked through the snow every night to stock inventory at Rite Aid. When he found time between work and exhaustion, he took us to a park in Dearborn to play.

The author (middle) with Mr. Sani’s kids.

My brother and I played soccer in that park with Mr. Sani’s kids. Mr. Sani was an immigrant from Saudi Arabia, and he soon became my soccer coach. He paid for my registration fees and bought me cleats because my father couldn’t afford to. He picked me up for practice and games, and when I was too worn out afterward, he let me sleep at his house.

I scored a lot of goals and won a lot of trophies. Some men representing professional academies asked my father if I could join their systems. My father told them no in his best first-generation immigrant and teacher voice: “He has to get his education first.” Angry at having my dream denied by my own father, I responded by declaring that I would never play soccer again. And from the age of 14 until college, I didn’t touch a ball.

At University of Detroit Mercy, I thought of other things — things like engineering, frat parties, and one Lebanese girl with eyes like stars. One day as I was walking my best friend to his track practice, we saw the soccer team going through preseason training. I told him that I was better than everyone on the team. He laughed it off. When I insisted, he asked me to prove it.

I went out that day and bought cleats. A few days later, I asked to train with the team, and I was a walk-on member by the end of the practice. (I would tear the cartilage in my right knee a few weeks into the season, and my life would go on to become an unending cycle of dribbling defenders and suffering injuries.)

When I was done with college soccer, I bounced around several semi-professional and lower league professional teams. While playing in Connecticut, an old coach messaged me saying that there would be European scouts at a combine in Chicago. I went and tried out, and I was offered a trial in Antalya, Turkey. It wasn’t until I was on the plane headed to Antalya that it dawned on me that after all these impossible things had happened, that I could make a life playing soccer.

Marketplace in the village of Owerri, Nigeria.

After Chiedozie left with his ball/pillow on the third day, my uncle, Kyrian, came and sat on the balcony with me. He had also dreamed of playing soccer as a child. He played for his secondary school, for Port Harcourt University, and for a few semi-pro teams, but he wasn’t one of the lucky ones. The farthest he has ever traveled is to Lagos. He knows Europe and the States only from television and stories of those who have been.

We talked about Arsenal beating Leicester City, then Kyrian said to me, “football has always been my life. I knew that no matter what was happening, I could always just take the ball to the field and I would be happy.” I challenged him to a game of one-on-one for the next day and he responded, “The accident ruined my legs. You see the way I walk now; my legs aren’t good anymore.”

Last December, Kyrian was on the way to visit my older brother — who had come back on his own — when his car flipped over. His driver approached a curve too fast. Kyrian spent the early part of 2017 in a hospital and hasn’t touched a ball since then.

He asked me why I ultimately turned down a contract offer in Turkey. I told him that the athletic life was a prison to me. I wanted my life to be more than a regimen of training, eating, rehabbing, and working out while only sometimes playing a game. It took for me to reach the dream to realize that I wanted something else. He thought that I was crazy, but he understood to an extent.

I remember after Lupita Nyong’o won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, she ended her speech by saying that the award was an assurance to herself and children all over the world that “your dreams are valid.” She didn’t mean that all their dreams should come true. Chiedozie doesn’t have to become a soccer player, but he should believe in and work toward that dream. To dream is the most important thing. You have to dream big, because between the person you are and your ideal self is the person you will become.

Kyrian is the last son of my father’s sister. He has a wife who is pregnant with their second child. The first was stillborn. He runs a few businesses and is the stabilizing force in our extended family, which is to say that he is who everyone calls when they’re in need. When my father wanted to build a house, he wanted Kyrian to be in charge of it. When my mother’s father was sick, it was Kyrian whom she called to take them to the hospital. It was my father who called him to go attend to my brother when he went home.

But as important as he is to everyone’s peace of mind, Kyrian feels incomplete. After his accident, my brother visited him in the hospital every morning. In intensive care, he asked my brother to work with my father to help him leave the country. When I was at home, he asked me several times to work with my brother and father to help him leave the country. What Kyrian wants — more than his legs to work as they used to, more than his health, more than anything else in this world — is a chance to be something more than he is.

Because my uncle never left the village, he had to deal with the truth of his ambitions. If his dream was only to be a soccer player, then failure would have been debilitating. He wants what I want: fulfillment. I achieved the dream he once had, but on that balcony, we longed for the same thing. The difference was that I have the privilege to pursue that fulfillment while he’s trapped where he was born. To Kyrian then, every passing minute in the village feels like a small death. On the balcony, he said to me, “I don’t want to die here. I want to be somebody.”

Kyrian told me the names of all of his friends who had chanced into an opportunity to leave. “Small kids” who had made something of their lives. They had traveled, worked, made money, and returned to build big houses. He named them as if he were naming his enemies. He said, “I need a plan.” Then he poked the left side of his chest, “because this, this is paining me so much.”