5.05.2005

infinity, to put it lightly

today i got up, checked my bags, and then laura and i went to a local bakery where apparently a person can buy dessert for the entire orphanage (eighty kids) for UNDER TEN DOLLARS. can you believe it? unfortunately, they had just started their morning and weren't ready to sell us that much yet. so we had to head back to the orphanage empty handed. i left laura some money, the last of my cordobas, so she could take care of it later. but suddenly it was time for me to go.

this is how cool laura is: after all this time together, i dropped her off at the school with a hug and a "see you in a week!" and i went on to the cabin to load my bags into the taxi, which took me to the managua airport. she's so, so easy to get along with. it's amazing to me that after so much time together we're totally happy with each other. i think i would get on anyone's nerves by now :)

on the drive from the orphanage to the airport it occured to me to pull out my digital camera and take some shots, but instead i decided to commune with the scenery. nicaragua is not what i expected. it was impoverished, tropical, and brightly colored. i saw cows, horses, dogs, children, old men, rocking chairs, and flowers. i thought of a poem that was published in Adbusters that went something like "at my death on the hill i looked up and saw a cloud, a tree, a bird, the sky, and realized that i saw everything there was in life." the poem goes on and gets wierd and morbid, but that part was beautiful and that's how i felt. just a slice of life passing before me for about thirty minutes. families going about their day. and then i left.

the flights were fine. got home late, my parents picked me up at o'hare and it was uneventful. how nice of them to come get me, though. put some of my NASTY clothes in the washer and went to bed.

noticed how my bedroom at my parent's house is bigger than the average nicaraguan home. not that that's bad. just noticing. i was and will remain for a while very aware of how much i have. how everything here is bigger, softer, brighter. better? the weirdest part was thinking as i went to sleep, "this morning i woke up to a rooster crowing, and i go to sleep a million years away."

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