The year left behind by me, at the stroke of mid night on the 31st Dec, held millions of moments. I wish I had penned down each to document them but I am extremely lazy when it comes to doing anything let alone writing. I visited 4 countries and one of them twice. Each place brought a sense of wonder and an equal sense of non wonder. Every place on this Earth is the same and the minute you set foot there and meet the people, eat the food, humanize the name of the place in your heart, it loses its wonder. It becomes a part of your own story and then you cannot detach it from yourself and cannot maintain the sense of wonder. Albeit, it was amazing to visit all those places I had heard of in stories. If I have made it sound like I turned an experience that 99% of the world's population craves for into an ordinary fare, I apologize. I lack the articulation to explain what I meant. I hope it conveys itself eventually. But to maintain that wonder let me talk a little bit of each place I visited!
Mexico- I went there twice last year. Once for a close friend's wedding and another time for work. The two visits brought forth two distinct flavors of the country that was made famous by a delusional orange idiot in 2016. More on that later. First flavor was exotic, beautiful and happy landscapes that include beaches, villas, oceans and that dry dry air of Mexico. Cabo had so many things to do that my partner and I were in constant awe of it. Not only we met a loving beautiful family who let us be a part of an intimate wedding but we met some locals and foreigners who seemed out of adventures books. A couple who we stayed for a day with, comprised of a Costa Rican husband and a Thai wife. She spoke of how she sees the world without boundaries and how she wants to keep traveling and working wherever her heart takes. Of course to achieve that she and her husband had backed it up by being scuba diving coaches and were multi lingual. One cannot dream of boundless freedom without offering the world something in return. The locals of Cabo treated us as confused Mexicans. Our skin and faces looked just like theirs but we did not speak any Spanish and I regret that. I regret that I went into a country expecting them to be able to converse with me when they absolutely reserve the right to not do so. And they still did! Using sign language and a few spanish words now and then got us plenty of smiles and some great food.
Second flavor of Mexico was the dusty rural region riddled with drug lords and myths and legends of many a murders and kidnappings. I would be lying if I said I was not thrilled. There is an Adrenalin junkie inside of me who does not react to danger with fear but pure curiosity. I am called a 'sawali' by my partner which in Hindi means someone who has a lot of questions. Its used in jest but its true. I could not stop asking questions about the history of the place. I had gone their for work but the daily commute in an unmarked vehicle, of following safety procedures, of anticipating danger made me largely not focus on work. Something I cannot help. Again the people there just surprised me with their hospitality and smiles and being tactile with holding hands and their lilt in speaking English and a general understanding that I could be a Latina if not for my Indian heritage. Boy, that tickles me. Both visits made me wonder about human nature and how I think of other people as other people but the other people are just like my people.
Poland- This visit had me excited with anticipation so much that I was a kid who was dropped at a museum of their choice. Thoughts of setting foot in Europe had me thinking of everything I knew and remembered of reading about it in books. From renaissance to the crusades to the Vatican to the Pope to the holocaust to the cobbled nature of streets in many European cities to Greeks and Romans and dissemination of culture to the rest of the world. Poland in that manner was a place which not many people go to when they think of Europe but it turned out to be the best way to take a whiff of history there, for me. I went there for work so autonomy in choosing where I wanted to set foot was not with me. I took it as a gift nonetheless. Poland has history written all over it. From the looming figure of Russia from the times of USSR to the 2nd World War and its atrocities to liberalization, Poland had seen quite a bit. I could rave separately about the food and the beauty but I keep coming back to its people. Everyone I met, had a story of their own. I would listen and ask questions and I would have asked a million more questions , had not the fear of appearing inhumanly curious crept into me. I asked about the conservatism vs modernism in their country, the lack of jewish people and temples, to how old is the histiry of Christianity there to their daily afflictions. Every single time I felt like a part of their tribe. The human tribe that day in, day out worries about food and sleep. Just like us. Just like them.
Mexico- I went there twice last year. Once for a close friend's wedding and another time for work. The two visits brought forth two distinct flavors of the country that was made famous by a delusional orange idiot in 2016. More on that later. First flavor was exotic, beautiful and happy landscapes that include beaches, villas, oceans and that dry dry air of Mexico. Cabo had so many things to do that my partner and I were in constant awe of it. Not only we met a loving beautiful family who let us be a part of an intimate wedding but we met some locals and foreigners who seemed out of adventures books. A couple who we stayed for a day with, comprised of a Costa Rican husband and a Thai wife. She spoke of how she sees the world without boundaries and how she wants to keep traveling and working wherever her heart takes. Of course to achieve that she and her husband had backed it up by being scuba diving coaches and were multi lingual. One cannot dream of boundless freedom without offering the world something in return. The locals of Cabo treated us as confused Mexicans. Our skin and faces looked just like theirs but we did not speak any Spanish and I regret that. I regret that I went into a country expecting them to be able to converse with me when they absolutely reserve the right to not do so. And they still did! Using sign language and a few spanish words now and then got us plenty of smiles and some great food.
Second flavor of Mexico was the dusty rural region riddled with drug lords and myths and legends of many a murders and kidnappings. I would be lying if I said I was not thrilled. There is an Adrenalin junkie inside of me who does not react to danger with fear but pure curiosity. I am called a 'sawali' by my partner which in Hindi means someone who has a lot of questions. Its used in jest but its true. I could not stop asking questions about the history of the place. I had gone their for work but the daily commute in an unmarked vehicle, of following safety procedures, of anticipating danger made me largely not focus on work. Something I cannot help. Again the people there just surprised me with their hospitality and smiles and being tactile with holding hands and their lilt in speaking English and a general understanding that I could be a Latina if not for my Indian heritage. Boy, that tickles me. Both visits made me wonder about human nature and how I think of other people as other people but the other people are just like my people.
Poland- This visit had me excited with anticipation so much that I was a kid who was dropped at a museum of their choice. Thoughts of setting foot in Europe had me thinking of everything I knew and remembered of reading about it in books. From renaissance to the crusades to the Vatican to the Pope to the holocaust to the cobbled nature of streets in many European cities to Greeks and Romans and dissemination of culture to the rest of the world. Poland in that manner was a place which not many people go to when they think of Europe but it turned out to be the best way to take a whiff of history there, for me. I went there for work so autonomy in choosing where I wanted to set foot was not with me. I took it as a gift nonetheless. Poland has history written all over it. From the looming figure of Russia from the times of USSR to the 2nd World War and its atrocities to liberalization, Poland had seen quite a bit. I could rave separately about the food and the beauty but I keep coming back to its people. Everyone I met, had a story of their own. I would listen and ask questions and I would have asked a million more questions , had not the fear of appearing inhumanly curious crept into me. I asked about the conservatism vs modernism in their country, the lack of jewish people and temples, to how old is the histiry of Christianity there to their daily afflictions. Every single time I felt like a part of their tribe. The human tribe that day in, day out worries about food and sleep. Just like us. Just like them.
