Debrief

Way back in DC...

When water reaches the brim of a cup, pour in any more and it'll overflow. So I feel like I need a mental, emotional, and physical break from IHP, romance, friend-bens, and world travels just to debrief and consider my life. All the privilege, all the pain, all the emotions, all the experiences came at once. I'm in the middle of storm that is exhilerating but I miss the realistic calm of my humble life, of an average day.

Junior year was when the intensity kicked in and it's hard to believe that it'll be over in 5 days. Everything that didn't happen and wasn't supposed to happen for a girl born in a poor area of a third world country happened this year, opportunities to advance, to travel, to love... to dance the semba in Brazil, speak Tsonga in South Africa, meet PEPFAR officials in Viet Nam, to meet friends who help me grow-- but more importantly and quite surprisingly men who helped me grow, those things are not supposed to happen to me-- and yet the incredibility and privilege of my life is constantly striking to me.

I (We) went to Ituverava to visit "rural" Brazil (but it was more of an upper-class suburban neighborhood the program sheltered us into) and get a glimpse of the sugar cane industry which creates sugar and bio-fuels for export. I saw the process from the plantation to the industry and got a glimpse of the players in it. This process is quite technologically complicated and it emcompases biology and chemistry but it also affects societies, class and race dichotomies, and health. The privilege of being American is again evident. The group was guests of the mayor; we got an all access pass to visit the rodeo... we visited health centers and hospitals and community activists who explained to us the process of public and private health care in Brazil... we were treated as though we had accomplished something ...It was something I was grateful for but something that may not have been suitable and something I don't believe any of us deserved.

But I think I need a break so I can absorb the tears, the travels, the lessons such as these and understand how that all that has changed me. I'm understanding my liberation and my value/worth and how those things that are necessary can be contradictory but at the same time, so similar. After a week in Maine, once I hug my family and catch up on sleep, I'm sure I will feel differently, I'm sure I will be ready to get up and meet new people who will challenge me again.

Last few days in Sao Paulo, the graffitti, the music store, the subway, the bars, the public displays of what others would call affection but what I would call love, and the ability of people to laugh and open their arms to you... I miss my loves but Maine is not where my heart is.