2 days before returning to Texas ( I’m sorry I was so absent)

Before setting out in this journey my mom gave me a card that said to pack lightly and that all I needed was in me. Well, unfortunately, I didn’t pack lightly. And, while not everything I needed was in me, except for a me full of dreams, it was enough to get me by.

Here, I came to gain what wasn’t in me, and those things I would have not gained if it wasn’t for coming. Yes, I’m going back with more dreams than I came with, and that’s the most beautiful thing. I just put on my favorite C.D. I bought one day at a bakery corner, of Arlindo Cruz, it’s a mixture of romantic samba and something else. Well, I’m listening to it as I pack, as I look through old papers, books, and good bye messages from only the greatest brasileiros alive; my professor and my life-long (of this I’m certain) friends. And guess what, tears are falling down my face. All I can see when this music plays is me, as the third person, dancing samba, smiling at every wonder I saw from North to South, walking under the heat, waiting for the bus, sitting on the bus (sometimes even hanging squeezed on the Recife buses….for hours), listening to Daniel speak (my best friend here), taking and getting used to cold showers two to three times a day, being taken care of by Fatima, going to see multiple doctors and enjoying (synonymous of exploiting) the health care here, walking to the ATM machines and hiding my money in my secret waist bag, going to the beach with my waist money bag and the gringo king of boa viagem (C.J.) picking at it, drinking only the most refreshing beer on hot days, and dancing with my Sao Paulo girls (Gabi e Mariélen) and can’t forget Disly and Carla, my girls in Bahía and then Rio- now those were some good times! Etc. Etc. Etc. …..etc. etc. etc. 

Last week while in Colombia, in an apologetic tone, I told my husband I felt guilty for not saving money and consequently going back to him, broke. He responded, you traveled everywhere, you ate everything, you saw it all, how would you have saved money and why would you have preferred to save money? That’s him, he is the guy I married, the man who waited patiently day and night, in some of his roughest days, in some of mine, who encouraged me to go explore, who found me the most hip places to stay, with whom a call away I just couldn’t be lost in the middle of the Amazon (and no, I didn’t go to the Amazon….ahhhh que raiva!!!). 

Now where do I go? I don’t know! I go to be by his side, and that’s the best reward for this accomplished mission, my life’s most ACCOMPLISHED mission, indeed. And I go, as I already said, with a bag full of even more dreams than what I started out with and NOT packed lightly (again), but please give me a break I gotta bring all the souvenirs from everywhere I went for all those who I love and need in my life back home or back in Guate, and now also to my newest family in Colombia. These dreams include two big publications with two of the most maravilhosos brasileiros working onto my newest agroecology dream, and opening an NGO in Salgueiro, no coração do nosso sertão com Daniel…. 

I finished. Yes, I’m a Fulbright Alumn! God bless Brazil, because “if God ever existed on this earth, it sure was here”-amigo taxista brasileiro in Rio de Janeiro.