Bounds

At the bus station the other evening buying a ticket for Ciudad del Este, I realized how much I miss the place. Buying a ticket for a city across the country when accommodated by a return trip is not enough—a part of me wants a one way ticket to somewhere that I am unsure of what will happen once I get there. The inevitable question is how I can possibly travel from place to place for the rest of my youth, spending it in random
locations and with recently unknown people. "Because it is there," as George Mallory said of his desire to climb Everest; it is hard to believe that I didn’t get to more places while here, but by staying mostly in one place I have perhaps seen and learned more. This trip was not the one for passages through random bus terminals and dirty hostel bunks with worn sheets and the detritus of other travelers. On this trip I have stayed in one place for a while, done good work, and met some fabulous people. I am so happy with the six months I have spent here in Asunción—too short to complete grand projects but long enough to make good friends that I will miss.

If I weren’t nomadic before coming here, I feel that I am now. Although, once I am here and set I am more than anyone a homebody. Like within the States, it takes great effort to travel and I enjoy home more than anyplace else. I have been reminded how lucky I am to have the opportunity to live abroad for six months of my life, lucky to realize that I am widdling it away and creating a form. Evolving from the word by dropping the “h,” the word “form” evolved from the word horma—a shoemakers last. A traveler’s indispensable ally (especially one that walks as much as I do!) the shape of his shoes comes to form his character in the end. I still am lucky enough to be viewing my country from the outside in—as I remember I did on this day seven years ago—vagabonding from place to place, my worldly possessions furrowed away in a large box in some warehouse. My possessions will be unearthed soon, and I will return to the rat race that we are required to live. But because of the rat race—the fact that people do stay in the same place and establish businesses, monuments, and cities—the modern nomad discovers the culture that he craves.

Soon my adventure will end, though I know there are terminals that I will visit for the first time. It is difficult to describe the way that I see the people in the bus terminal, as they look at me often
with misgiving and sometimes with endearment. Always they look at me as if I am a traveler that has come from a faraway place, that I am looking in on their sedentary, normal lives. A foreigner from abroad—from a place they have never seen and will never see, I wander through their lives and disregarding the wares that fill their shops. Speaking their language well is an immeasurable advantage, and often even a smugness mild enough not too offend.

Recently, though, I walked into the shop of a signmaker and too promptly asked to take his photo, whereafter he told me to continue my viaje, and I remarked that I was only enthused by the art that he seemed to be producing. Unlike this chipa seller, he was quite testy that I had hoped to take his photo, and had undoubtedly seen the same request before. While I certainly didn’t mean to trivialize his livelihood, I realize after the fact that I may have unintentionally. All of the people I see—especially in a foreign country—I regard with buena onda the people that I see, with a look that I hope engenders a feeling of humanity. After all, they are hosting you in their country, you are a visitor among them and their families, their governments, their educational systems, their poverty, the social realities that are far more permanent than your passage.