The Return of the Cuy

We arrived back in Alexandria last Saturday night. Opa and PoPo were there to meet us and our 12 pieces of luggage at National Airport and cook us a welcome home stuffed shell dinner (one of Maya and Jonah's favorites).

Now, we've been home almost a week. Sad to say how easily one becomes accustomed to the old routines again. It's like someone hit the pause button on Alexandria and only released it when we got back.

Our last day and a half in Quito was spent running around doing last minute things so we didn't have a chance to linger over the things that we liked about the city. There was no last visit to Parque Metropolitano to admire the views, no final leisurely stroll through the narrow streets and pretty squares in the old town. Maya and Jonah didn't get to terrorize the pigeons in the plaza fronting the Iglesia de San Francisco again.

Instead, we spent the hours doing what any self-respecting American would do - shopping.

It wasn't until we were flying over the city that had been our home for the better part of three months that it really hit me that this was it - we were leaving Quito and I might never return there. Truly, it is a sad thought.

I spent some time during the last few weeks of our adventure trying to figure an answer to the question I knew we are bound to hear again and again - how was it?

"Good!" just doesn't seem to cut it.

Not even an enthusiastic "Neat-o!" really delivers the message.

As I tried to explain in an earlier post, our plan this summer was to find out if we could live overseas generally, and specifically, if we could do so with children. We haven't really learned the answers to those questions. But I think we've gotten a little closer.

First of all, we learned that we can live overseas. And we still want to, but not right now. What we learned was that we really like the life that we have right now in Alexandria. We have a great house (with a beautiful new front door that I had completely forgotten about) in a great neighborhood. Rebecca really likes her work and we are close to our families, who love and support us. The people and families who live on our block and in our general area really create the sense of community that we thought we were lacking. We knew we liked these things, but it took being away from them and from our home to realize that right now, it will be hard to find something as good as what we already have.

Second, we learned that we can live overseas with kids - but not the two monsters that we have right now. Maya is five and Jonah is three. We figure that in five to seven years, they will both be much better behaved and more inclined to want to do things other than be carried. Probably this is a pipe dream, but, if I can steal a line from Ernest Hemingway, isn't it pretty to think so?

Finally, I personally learned a lot - both about stuff and about myself.

The old adage that you can't teach an old dog new tricks turns out to be false. The greatest apprehension I had when Rebecca and I decided in the Fall of 2007 that we would spend the summer of 2008 in Ecuador was that I didn't know a lick of Spanish. Frankly, I had pretty much given up any hope that I would ever learn another language well enough to communicate with someone without having to draw pictures in the dirt. But, look at me now. Although I had to ask a lot of people to repeat themselves, I managed to 1) not get us lost; 2) not eat anything really gross; and 3) not get punched in the face.

And the realization that my old, tired brain can handle another language well enough made me realize that it isn't really that tired. I had just put it in a jar on the top shelf. This trip has inspired me empty out the jar, stick the brain back in my head and learn a few more things.

At some point early in our trip, I decided that I wanted to become an EMT. After Rebecca told me what an EMT actually has to do, I decided that a first aid class might satisfy me. But we'll see.

I read (figuratively) about the first thirty pages of the epic that is South American history. I want to learn more. We thought that the U.S. Cavalry sucked in how they treated Native Americans, but they have nothing on the Conquistadors (read about Pedro de Alvarado sometime. Hell, read about Francisco Pizarro - the conqueror of the Incas. He was a mean bastard too).

But probably the biggest thing that I learned is that even when you are thirty-eight and married with children, life does not have to be predictable. We met so many people who are chasing their dreams or acting on impulses that I couldn't help but realize the possibilities that are open to me. I feel very fortunate to have options and to have done something that made me realize that the dreams I had ten years ago are still attainable.

Oh. The other thing that I learned is that no matter where in the world you are listening, The Kinks rock.