America Part 2

Take a moment to travel through time with me. Let’s start where we last left off. It’s the beginning of the summer and I’ve just returned home from Kenya. I’ve spent a few days in New York with my friends and a week in Virginia with my grandparents. Now I’m walking into my house for the first time in months. It smells different than it once did, a bit less like dog and more like soap. It’s pleasant to my nose, but mind boggling to my brain. The lights seem to be brighter than they once were, but I know that they haven’t been changed. That is the inner workings of the footprint imprinted on my brain, the footprint of the stars shining and the light of the moon. The footprint of feeling what darkness feels like. A footprint that can only be formed by stepping into a world with less light pollution, and more appreciation of nature, a world like Kenya. Being able to exist without all of the artificial lighting all of the time has caused light itself to appear lighter to me. Besides these moderate sensory adaptations that my body is having to sync back up with, I feel relatively comfortable with being back home. Although I’d expected to feel heartbroken and sad that my time in Kenya had ended seemingly just as it had begun, I wasn’t. I knew that a piece of my heart was left behind in Kenya, just as it was in France from my time living there, but the feeling was no longer overwhelming to me.

A fellow counselor and one of my  
               many special campers!

I sleep very comfortably in my bed that night, not exhausted so much from the adventure that has just come to a close, but rather exhausted from thinking about what was to come next. This is another marking point in my life for when things began to slowly but surely, change. I immediately began throwing myself into the workforce. With an on-call job three mornings a week, an internship three evenings, and a 9-5 job on Sundays, I kept myself busy until summer camp started. Once my first full time job (summer camp) started, I kept working in each place except for the morning on call job. I honestly feel that summer camp was the culmination of all I’ve been working on so far with my life. It sounds crazy, even as I read it back to myself in my head. But all of the exploring and adventuring I do is primarily solitary. Even though in Kenya I was surrounded by 22 other students, I set off without knowing a single one of them. I also began the summer camp endeavor solo, but after the first few days, I realized exactly how much of a group effort that it was. I had to depend on others to do their job, and I myself had to be reliable to not only my fellow counselors, but the children as well. I’ve never been too inclined to interact with American children on such an intimate level, but I guess all of the solo preparation I’d done in my life really payed off. Some of the kids were genuine pains in the ass, but others were absolutely amazing human beings, so bright and intuitive. Besides all the obvious skill sets one expects to learn from counseling at summer camp, I also learned how to be a big sister to 2 campers, and a best friend to a few others. I learned what it was like to have people look up to you and think you’re cool. Most importantly, I realized that there is so much more exploration to be done than that of an intercultural exchange. You can learn something from anyone, no matter what the age difference is, or what you think you have in common. Being able to learn from others is about way more than opening your mind- you have to open your heart too. Summer camp allowed me to give my heart fully to the campers and to grasp a new understanding for what it means to explore the world.

I was very fortunate to receive the opportunity to immerse myself completely, not only into the lives of the many children I interacted with, but also in the town of Manchester. Having lived here for 17+ years of my 21 years of life, I surprisingly knew very little about it. The itch that I had to be on the move still kept me going. Luckily, I made friends with fellow counselors who were more than happy to show me around the town. I hiked a mountain that I never knew was here, learned about a local market, and tasted some new flavors in Manchester. In addition to this, my parents took me on numerous adventures both up mountains and around them, by foot and in the car throughout the entirety of Connecticut. I gained a new appreciation for Connecticut that I’d never previously had. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been consumed with wanting to explore the world that it seems I’d completely overlooked exploring my own back yard. For this reason, I am immensely grateful to have been home working this summer despite my original desire to try out a new job in a new location (river guide in Arizona anyone?)

Somewhere in the mix of all this, my grandmother passed away. Not really keen on grappling with the emotions that this brings up, I will transition into a discussion of how I ended up deciding to backpack through the southern part of Iceland. We no longer need to travel through time anymore, because this is very currently exactly what is about to happen. I am departing for a solo trek through the highlands of Iceland tomorrow!! So how did I get here? Well,  Iceland has been a place that I’ve been wanting to visit since I made friends with a fellow exchange student in France who was from Iceland. Last year, him and his friends traveled all around the world and I got to meet up with them all in New York for lunch one day. At that point, I became determined to go. So while in Virginia after my grandmother’s passing, I received a call from Emily asking if I thought we should go to Iceland. Of course I said yes and we both immediately bought our plane tickets. As we actually began talking about our hopes for the trip, it seemed that we didn’t have the same intentions at all, and so we decided to go our separate ways, both traveling solo. Although disappointed that I won’t be traveling with my friend, I am more than excited to be embarking on my first trekking experience where I will have nothing but my equipment and time to think about all of the fears about my future that originally plagued me at the beginning of the summer. Although slightly terrified, I know that this is exactly the kind of experience my grandma would have been on board with. Maybe very reluctantly for fear of my well being, but she would, without a doubt, be proud. I also don’t know how likely it would have been that I spontaneously decided to do this trip if not in the mental state that I was when the tickets were bought, so this is in large part, thanks to grandma. That was a long way for me to basically say that I am dedicating this adventure to my grandma! So up until now, I’ve been preparing, mentally and equipment wise, but not nearly as much physically as I should have been.

My quarter dome, one person tent
            from REI!

I have very occasional walked around the block with my pack, as per my father’s persistence at the importance of doing so, as well as the purchased a lot of equipment. This meant hours of youtube reviews and trip after trip to the local REI and EMS to talk to the experts. I purchased most everything through these stores, but I won’t go into the details of that process just yet. For now, I’d just like to talk about how one can work 65+ hours a week for an entire summer and come out of it with a bill still due to the credit

card company. Now it seems absurd to think that I spent all of that money on equipment for backpacking, and it is! Considering my flight itself, including fees for baggage, cost roughly $600, where could all of the other money gone? I’m a relatively frugal spender, so not much of it went to unnecessary Gatorade or chocolate bars (although a little bit of it did). But one unexpected cost that came into play this summer, consisted of issues with my car. In case you’ve never thought about this, take a moment to consider how cars are for made to keep people stationary. It may sound a little absurd but I assure you that it’s true. Cars are for those who’ve settled or are settling into a life with a daily routine that doesn’t change much from week to week, month to month, or even year to year. Sure it can take you on the occasional adventure, but for most people that isn’t what the car is for. The illusion of having a car is that you can get up and go anywhere whenever you want (presuming that you have enough money to fill the gas tank), and although true to an extent, vastly misrepresented. The rest of the money I earned this summer went to fixing my car, the car I had to fix because I had to go to work, for which I had to go to work to pay for the car. It’s a vicious cycle.

Speaking of cycles, a brief moment to divulge into a comment on the moon. Just as the tides change with the cycles of the moon so do our bodies. My body, mind and energy have been re-adapting to American life since returning home, and preparing for new adventures. Now as I prepare for backpacking in Iceland, my summer feels like it flew by, and my time in Kenya feels like an eternity ago. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that on my first night in my bed I couldn’t sleep because I was unsettled about the thoughts of having to deal with my future. As the summer closes however, I’ve got ideas for what paths I’d like to take next and am ready for my final fall semester at Hofstra! For the time being, I promise to post lots of pictures on Instagram, so look out!! (Link is on the bottom of this page)

Have a great last few days of summer!!
-Beca

America Part 1

“Slow and mindful steps, slow and steady breaths,” is another mantra that Emily and I used throughout our trek through Canada in order to keep ourselves conscious of our movements, and it is another mantra that I have found extraordinarily important to keep in mind during all of my experiences throughout Kenya. In true circular fashion, I felt it would truly complete this series of blog posts if I conclude with another mantra from Canada since it is how this all began. Recall: “Are you in the moment?” The mantra that took my adventurous spirit from the state of dream-hood to reality, and that serves as a reminder meaning more than I ever thought words could mean, as well as a catalyst for my growth. Not only do these mantras help to keep me present and grounded, but they give me the serenity I need to prosper in any given situation. Each and every adventure that I go on is a way for me to challenge myself to further develop, and my time in Kenya thus far has provided me with that opportunity as well.

As the past few weeks have come to a close, plenty of goodbyes have had to happen, but luckily they’ve been followed by a few hellos! The hardest part for me about saying goodbye though is that I have to let go of things that I’ve become so attached to, however small. For instance, the way that the security guard at my home in Eldoret greeted me every morning with a huge smile on his face, sending me off with well wishes for my day, to the way that the chef at the compound jovially said “karibu” (you’re welcome) after being thanked each meal. Saying goodbye to those people, even those people that I’ve only exchanged a few words with, is so hard because of the impact that they’ve had on my life, and I can never thank them enough for all of the ways that they’ve changed me.

It’s such a double-edged sword however, because the best part of travel is the people that I meet, even though ultimately it leads to the inevitable goodbye. One of the many reasons why I love travel so much is for the opportunity to interact with people, have them share their culture with me, and genuinely have my eyes opened to perspectives I never would have thought of before. There are many people that I’ve met these past four months who I know I may never see again, and many others who I’m certain that I will. But either way, I want to thank everyone in Kenya for welcoming me into their hearts, and helping me to find a new place to call home. Everyone that I met wanted me to tell America that they said hello, so what better avenue than this blog! “Hello from Kenya!”  

So let’s start,with the end then. I left Kenya and landed for a layover in Amsterdam. The first place that I saw when walking off the plane was a Starbucks and I beelined for it, fiending for my iced chai latte. As I took my first sip, I realized that it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d expected it to be, and the rest of it didn’t fulfill me the way I’d hoped it would either. As strange as this may seem, this was the first inkling I had that everything was different. I guess to understand why this was so significant to me, you would have to know that I spent literally every penny of my meal plan at Hofstra on iced chai lattes from Starbucks the previous semester. So the fact that I no longer enjoyed the flavor anymore, well you can imagine. As I said, I knew that everything was different.

I had a bit longer to ruminate on this during my flight into New York, although mostly in a fatigued and clouded state of mind, aka. a completely unproductive line of thought. This time when I got off the plane, I was concerned primarily with how I was going to receive all of the love I was bound to be bombarded with from my family at Hofstra. A couple of my “sisters” picked me up from the airport and we went out to IHOP to meet some of our “brothers”.  We took the same drive from the airport towards my school that I’d taken from my school to the airport prior to my departure for Kenya, but absolutely everything looked different. The very things that I passed and thought “jeez I’m going to miss that” were the very things that I now looked at and said “damn, I could definitely live without that.” And then being with everyone was far more natural than I expected even though I spent the majority of my time trying to stay awake (going on 30+ hours of no sleep). I spent our time at the restaurant taking note of the smallest things, like the condensation on my glass of water because of the ice, an unfamiliar feeling now that my fingers and tongue had been without for a bit of time. During the rest of the weekend, I stayed with my friends and attended graduation where the true fin to a chapter concluded. This inspired me to prepare more thoroughly for my future. I left graduation and went immediately to purchase GRE preparation books with the intent of attending graduate school. This however, is outside of the scope of this post!

Love you Grandma!!

So the following week, I spent quite a bit of time with my grandma and popa, two of my most avid readers! They serve as some of my biggest inspirations for continuing this blog, and for taking advantage of all the opportunities I have. I want to mention the perseverance that I’ve witnessed in them both, and the motivation that this gives me to keep pursuing all of my dreams. I love them so much and am so glad that I got to be welcomed home by them and my parents!

Although there are so many aspects of everything that I could discuss, that will have to come at a later date because at this time, everything is still very overwhelming and I’m trying to process it all! But as I begin to formulate more thoughts, I will be sure to document them here.

I’ve come a far way from what I once was but am not yet what I’m going to be, and I am so looking forward to continuing to develop throughout the rest of my formative years, and hopefully for the rest of my life! Nimeshukuru sana sana!! Thank you so much for following me along this journey, and here’s to many many more! (PS, please feel free to click on the link to Instagram below for a more up-to-date view of the adventures I’m on throughout this summer).

Siku njema!
Beca