An Origin and an Ending

On February 12th, 2019 at 6:41 in the morning, I experienced the greatest origin there is - the arrival of our daughter after 26 long hours of unmedicated labor. Life changed in an instant with the birth of our baby and my subsequent birth as a mother. Our girl has already taught me everything and then some about being in the moment, letting go of control, cultivating gratitude, and amplifying love.

I'd been contemplating for some time - years really - how and when to write the final entry for this blog. I want to keep writing, tried to start again here, but never quite found my momentum. Life has moved forward. I have a new home now, a new partner, a new family. I'm a new person. Only right that I'd have a new space in which to share.

And with new beginnings there are endings. The news of Cyclone Idai last week, and the subsequent devastation of Mozambique's central region (as well as Zimbabwe and Malawi) has my mind and heart back in Africa. It's surreal to see the places I lived and worked in when I started this blog back in 2005 completely underwater, decimated, the future precarious and uncertain.

Photo credit: Denis Onyodi/IFRC/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Here is a link to donate to relief efforts - I personally know the country director for Save the Children Mozambique and, despite all my NGO cynicism documented in this blog, this is the best way I know to help at the moment - cash aid, in the hands of a team I know is "real".

May these waters recede and somehow there be a thousand miracles.

If you'd like to stay in touch, you can find me at www.aliambrosio.com - a space that is still very much a work in progress. I will be starting a blog over there, and updating the content regularly.

Much love and my most sincere thank you for following me here over the past fourteen years. Here's looking forward to the next chapter, the next routes, the next adventures.

xx,
Ali

Shyness

My first time in Grand Central Station. Looking down while Roberto looks up through the lens.

Several weeks ago Roberto and I went to New York to visit my cousin Anders. While there we went to this shop called, well, SHOP, a hyper-colorful, heavily curated concept store that changes its theme every season. Full of clever gift items, there was also the occasional show stopper, like the giant unicorn pool floatie that was in the middle of the space when we visited (the theme was Out of Office, an ode to endless lazy vacation days).

Anyhow, while at SHOP Anders bought a pack of cards that is supposed to generate ideas for small talk, improving your conversational skills, or simply getting to know people better. Later that evening we pulled random cards from the deck over a midnight snack of leftover donuts. Some of the prompts were pretty predictable (What did you want to be when you were a kid?) some were amusing (What's a guilty pleasure?) others were deep (Do you value mercy or justice more?) and a couple were downright cringe-worthy (What relative do you like the least?).

One of the cards I found strangely difficult to answer was "What circumstances make you shy?"

My initial reaction was silence, because I'm not at all a shy person and it took me multiple minutes of thinking to even come up with some candidate scenarios...and even then, not really! Like I am reluctant to ask strangers for directions when I'm lost because I don't want people to know that I'm disoriented or not "from" a particular place. I'm reluctant to interact because the information I'd share makes me feel vulnerable, not because I'm timid about the approach. The other scenarios I came up with were also one-off from shyness, like not wanting to talk about certain accomplishments (modesty), occasionally being quiet at dinner parties (paranoid about being a motor mouth), or back in the day deciding not to get gelato because I didn't know the words in Italian for 'scoop' and 'cone' and the embarrassment I was sure to suffer because of that was greater than my desire for ice cream (stupidity - now I get gelato despite any linguistic limitations).

My friend Hilary is perhaps the most shy person I know. We were in jewelry school together and bonded over a mutual love of running. We've been meeting for weekly runs for over 6 years now, and the funny thing is that while we run we talk nonstop - both of us! There's nothing like chatting to make the time and the miles fly by, especially when training for long distances. I believe that being side-by-side while we run (as opposed to face-to-face) takes the pressure off and makes it easier for a shy person to chat. In my case it makes me talk less because Hilary is in better shape than I am and so I reach a point of huffing and puffing and not being able to hold a conversation much faster than she does, so it's a good balance!

What made me think of shyness was the realization that the place I quiet my voice the most these days is here, on my blog. Sometimes I long to write and will spend hours composing in my head and feeling the itch to get my fingers on the keyboard, and yet I hold back. It's not writer's block - the instant I sit down the words pour out. Rather it's censorship, fear of oversharing, a questioning whether my current stories truly belong in this place so rooted in the past or whether I need to find a new home. I miss writing, be it about unremarkable daily routines or major stuff like marriage, miscarriage, and how to crack the code of living 6 months in California and 6 months in Italy (current conundrum). I know the way forward is to keep writing, be it here, in a private diary, on scraps of paper, whatever. Doubts about where to write shouldn't be an impediment to writing. So here I am, despite my shyness, showing up to say hello.

Book Three

Sunset from Hawaii's Big Island, understanding what this next phase is all about.

If moving to Mozambique was Book One, moving to California and starting art school was Book Two, then this is Book Three. I am still based in the Bay Area but the cast of characters is significantly different, as is my perspective. I feel deeply moved to write these days, but found myself questioning whether it was right to continue blogging here, in this space that is all about homes I no longer live in, a career I no longer have, and a man I am no longer married to.

Despite all that has changed, this is still the place where I feel the most comfortable sharing, documenting, and processing my life. I remind myself there is no "wrong" in continuing to write my own story, even if the space is imbued in memories of Books One and Two. What a blessing, really, to have this record to look back upon.

Thirteen years have gone by since I started this blog on a rainy evening in Austin. I am now 36, working as an artist and translator, married to a soulful Brazilian cinematographer named Roberto. We met in San Francisco through a mutual friend, a beautiful story for another day. We live in a light-filled apartment about 10 minutes away from my mom's house. My days are spent making jewelry and painting in my studio, interpreting in hospitals and at welfare appointments, and translating technical documents. Roberto spends his time going to ESL school and working on various film and video projects. Life is good.

At some point I'll share some photos, perhaps from our wedding at City Hall, or from recent travel to Hawaii, New Mexico, and Italy/Slovenia. And I'll share stories. There are SO many stories from the last two years that I want to get out before the details dull. But for now, a small synopsis of Book Three thus far:

• I healed my heart from the end of a marriage, relationship, partnership, and friendship
• I lived with my mom for 1.5 years for the first time since I was 15
• I started working as an interpreter
• I reconnected with my roots in the Italy/Slovenia border region
• I opened myself to finding love again, and did!
• I lived in San Francisco for 6 months with Roberto in a shared apartment in the very foggy Outer Richmond neighborhood, and eventually rented a place of our own in the East Bay. 
• I realized that I want to be a mother. 
• We got pregnant!!
• We found out at 13 weeks that our baby had Turner's Syndrome and the pregnancy was not viable.
• We lost the baby at 14 weeks.
• We got married!! (Very strange to be celebrating and grieving at the same time).
• I have a new name - Ali Ambrosio!!
• My dad was diagnosed with cancer (again) and had major surgery. Thankfully he's now recovering.
• Roberto had a heart attack (he is 40 and otherwise healthy) and we discovered he has several congenital heart defects. So so so grateful he received treatment and is now seemingly okay.
• Contemplated moving to the Big Island of Hawaii (the tropics were calling big time, but we realized our destiny is elsewhere)
• Currently figuring out how to make life work in the Bay Area, with a medium-term plan to spend half our time in Italy/Slovenia.

So far Book Three has been dizzyingly intense. You can understand why I need to write again. Looking forward to sharing here frequently, I've missed blogging and missed interacting with you, my lovely readers, if any of you are still out there after all this time. :)

On Movement

A quick poem I wrote in a parking lot after class at Hipline, about a month ago:

Dancing feels like freedom,

I can move any way I want.

My decisions,

my body.

Feeling grounded for the first time in ages.

In leaving I am growing roots,

solid,

to secure my ankles and support my feet

and allow my heart to explore from this base.

Keep moving,

clear the mind.

Don't ignore the body's message.

There is no need to fear the outcome

when following the gut-compass.

Spring sunset as seen from my studio in Point Richmond, with Mt. Tamalpais in the background.

Reciprocating the Love

It's funny how we make friends in this age of blogs and forums and Facebook. Over the past few years, I've come to know the J sisters - two fellow global nomads originally from Angola but with incredibly international backgrounds - through our respective blogs. While our online friendship is super enjoyable, I wish I could meet Jo Ann and Jess in person, as I just know we'd have a great time cooking, listening to cool world music and talking about our love for writing.

While I don't foresee a meet-up in the immediate future (the girls live in France), I can still share a bit of the love here. Both Jo Ann and Jess have been awesome supporters of my life-change to become a jewelry artist, and they were kind enough to feature my work on their sites.

First Jess ran this very cool intro to my jewelry on her blog, Cartas à Filó-sofia. It's written in Portuguese, but is still worth checking out for the non-lusophone out there because she has a smashing fashion sense, lives in Paris, travels a lot and takes lovely photos documenting it all. If you can read her words, you're in for a treat as she is a talented writer as well.

Then Jo Ann, Jess' older sister, did this in-depth interview with me as part of her ongoing series of portraits on writers and artists. The original interview was conducted in English, then she translated it into French, the language of her blog. Jo Ann is a writer herself - like the "real" kind, with published novels and no alternate day job - and she really knows how to capture someone's personality and story by just asking 10 questions. If you are a writer or artist and are in need of a professional yet engaging biography, you should very definitely contact Jo Ann through her portraits site Jo Ann Ècriture.

Now, if only airfare were just a tad cheaper right now so I could say thanks in person...

Crepuscule

Where has the light gone? Suddenly it seems like frail rays of light even at four in the afternoon are a bit of a miracle; the stronger hours of morning sun appreciated exceptionally.

I feel the rhythm I settle into during the winter – the tropical, mild, delicious type as far as winters are concerned – and wonder how people manage to leave their houses in Northern climates, how I ever existed as a functional person during the many cold periods spent in New Mexico.

Granted, a part of this reclusiveness might be attributed to the special sort of blues that come with too many years lived abroad in the same 'developing' place. There is an enclosing of one’s social radius, the somewhat sad crush of similarity when discussing with a new resident or with family back ‘home’ the basics of life where you live – it is no longer the exciting discussion it once was as new details were appreciated, different customs celebrated and experiences eagerly shared – rather you are jaded, too tired to move beyond the routine stories except on really marking occasions.

It is easy to slip into a shell at this phase. You likely have a couple of core friends whose contracts don't end in the subsequent six months, enough to satisfy minimum emotional needs. The city or town is as familiar as the back of a hand, and the appeal of most destinations has tarnished. It’s more appealing to stay home, with good company – or none at all – than to go out and find live music, have a beer just for the sake of it and in the process stay out until one in the morning, or go to another of an endless series of dinners at upscale restaurants that involve semi-agreeable chit-chat with at least six other parties you’ve likely never previously met. It becomes irresistibly tempting to stay in and drink a bottle of wine or three, watch trash on TV, compulsively check email, and eat Indian takeaway.

I know. I’ve been in this phase for about the last year and a half.

But I’m at least aware of it, and therefore on occasion make colossal effort to get into a social phase (only to usually enjoy being out and wonder how on Earth I could feel so noninclined otherwise). I confess to having been a bit of a social butterfly lately, meeting several new people from the blog, enjoying the occasional girl’s night, and even a proper party or two. It’s been nice, but surely part of the reason I’ve been so tired.

Then again, maybe it’s simply the time of year. Mozambique is particularly affected by the changing length of a day because it is quite far South, doesn’t observe daylight savings, and is also located at the far edge of a time zone. All factors combined mean dusk at 5:07pm (official, as of the solstice yesterday) and, in December, sunrise at a merciless 4:50am! Think about what that does to your day to have the sun burning bright prior to five in the morning…in my experience, unexpectedly, it’s been quite nice. Although I’m far from being a morning person, I am an earlier riser and in a better mood during the Mozambican summer.

It will be strange to be a ‘new’ person in the Bay Area. I look forward to being on the fresh, enthusiastic side of conversations about cities and culture again. I hope for, with time, wise eyes with which to look back upon this experience in Southern Africa. Maybe I will be able to write about the way I wish I’d been able to do while actually on the ground. I take solace in the fact that Barbara Kingsolver apparently wrote “The Poisonwood Bible” several decades after her early experiences in the Congo. When the words are meant to come, they will.

Sotto Voce

I've been uninspired writing-wise lately, at least as far as the usual topics go on this blog. Life is comfortable, I've settled into an incredibly nice rhythm of married life and work, and the days tend to be smooth and enjoyable. While the lack of stress and drama is certainly welcome, it leaves me without the drive to sit down and write empassioned posts about development work, eating struggles, loneliness, job anxiety, housemates and any of the other topics that were my staple for the past several years.

It's funny, sometimes I think this lack of fire in my writing is a sign of complacency, or at the very least cynicism. Not surprising, as I suspect I suffer from both to a certain degree. Other days I see it as a gift to discover other, more subtle subjects to write about. When I'm not surrounded by drama, when I'm not on the soapbox about the inherent hypocricy of much of the "development" work that is done, when I'm not struggling with my own demons...suddenly I am free to write about days past, characters not yet fully formed, ideas waiting to sprout.

I'm not expecting anything revolutionary or genius - and am certainly trying to stay away from building those crippling expectations - but I lie awake each night, in the few intensely creative minutes before sleep sets in, and I imagine the protagonists of my future writing. Many of them are based on the very people who pushed me to write such intense posts since arriving in Mozambique, but they are developing into distinct personalities. I don't pretend to know other people's stories fully - and don't particularly want to write 100% faithfully about my friends, colleagues and foes - so it has been a great revelation to break free from the idea that I must be a biographer or an autobiographer if I am to write based on experience.

Yes, they say to write what you know, but I've understood that it is also okay to venture off and let life-based characters take on their own adventures, downfalls and triumphs on paper. I think the quiet, almost predictable place I am in at the moment allows for the imagination to spring forth, for the voice that was somewhat buried underneath all of the drama of the initial Mozambique years to come to the forefront once again, albeit with a much sharper tongue and some incredible experiences shaping the words unfolding.

I know what the next step is, but it is incredibly intimidating. To write, one must write. I need to write. It's time for a beginning.

650

Is the number of posts I've written on this blog since it all began in April 2005. On the positive side, blogging is something I've been able to keep up with relative consistency and that I truly enjoy. On the not-so-positive side, blogging has cannibalized my private, hand-written journaling.

I've tried several times over the past years to resuscitate my journal, but to no avail. So while blogging has made me think more about the writing process and put more effort (sometimes!) into the finished piece than when I was just writing for myself, it has also led me to abandon the kind of truthful pouring out of words that private writing permits. I realize it's possible to make posts private, or to restrict access, or to even not publish and simply leave as a draft, forever suspended in the list of posts on the control panel.

For me, however, that doesn't work. When I sit down at the computer to write, it is with my public-writer hat on. Paper and pen are for private, personal thoughts. Obviously I've shared very intimate things on the blog on several occasions over the past 3-odd years, but I realize that there are whole experiences and thoughts and events that transpired in that same period whose detail has been effectively lost because I didn't manage to journal them.

I suppose that's how it goes - habits evolve and change, entailing both things lost and things gained. I have nearly a perfect daily record of my life from age 15 to age 23, and for that I am incredibly grateful. I realize how unique it is, and I am slowly transcribing the words on unlined paper, formed with colored inks and decorated with stickers and pasted ticket stubs and ribbons and other memorabilia, to my computer. It's an on-again-off-again project, but I intend to get back to it soon. I don't want to lose that history.

In the meantime, I will keep blogging, continue with my public, open writing that has led me to meet so many incredible people. It captures a different side of me, of the experiences I have, and this too is very valuable. Only 5 more years and I'll match my journaling record!

Favorites

Still bored at work...waiting for a big meeting that has been rescheduled for 16h because Hugh Marlboro forgot about it...

So I've decided to go through my blog archives and select my favorite post from each month. It's a good way to make time pass, and I must say I've enjoyed reading back through the things that have happened in my life since I left the US back in April 2005.

Hope you enjoy the memories as much as I have!

2005
April - The Swingset in the Sandias
May - Home (part 2): Santa Festa
June - Home Part 3
July - Things I Miss
August - Hazards on the Highway: goats and bicycles and Ali
September - Blessed with a Lazy Sunday
October - The Perfect Proposal
November - Purple and Dry for the Drips
December - Humble Living

2006
January - Igreja de São Paulo
February - And Then There Were Four...
March - A Profound Moment by Ali
April - Easter
May - The Reality of Africa Finally Sinks In
June - The A-Z's of Ali la Loca
July - Bizzare-O Africa
August - Sunday Scribblings: Who Else Might I Have Been?
September - Make a Wish
October - Sunday Scribblings: If I Could Stop Time
November - The Other Side
December - Would You Like Some Cynicism with Your Development?

2007
January - The Glorious South Africa Road Trip 2006/2007
February - Saudades Trapped in Song
March - Sunday Scribblings: Superstition
April - Rain, Dogs and Cats
May - I Belong Everywhere. I Belong Nowhere.
June - My Collection of Suits
July - Random Meme
August - Alexandra Amaro Fusion
September - I'll Love You 'Till My Heart Stops
October - The First Day
November - No, Not the Singer, the Queen
December - Estamos Juntos

2008
January - Afternoon Portrait
February - Limits: They Do a Girl Good

Memorias

Yesterday, on the plane somewhere between Miami and Rio, not knowing what time it was or even if it was day or night outside the plastic window shade, I drifted into the dreamlike state just before actual sleep where my writer's mind runs wild. I composed every latent blog entry about the last three weeks, word for word, entire sentences and even paragraphs forming effortlessly, my tongue tracing soft syllables on the backsides of my teeth.

If I'd had a notebook in hand, perhaps I could have recorded those complete bursts of thought for later publication, but any writing implements were buried deep in the backpack on which my feed rested, wedged under the seat in front of me. I sighed, drifting closer to true sleep.

This happens to me often, this effortless writing stage just before my brain makes the switch to unconsciousness. In these quiet moments, free of the filters of waking life, I am able to find words, combinations of words, that express what I never quite seem able to capture on the blog screen, in the e-mail to an old friend, even in the blank pages of my neglected journal.

My dreamstate writing is flowing and alive while it lasts, then gone just as quickly once the amnesia of sleep takes over. In the morning, I am left with the blurred impressions of moments too perfect to have existed in waking life, much like one remembers an "I love you" whispered prior to surgery by a friend who has never before expressed such a sentiment, a sweet first kiss in the midst of too many glasses of wine, or the relief of a cool towel held by a caring hand that wipes away fever in the middle of the night.

Fear the Details Shall Disappear

I recently finished reading "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver and it completely blew me away. That is the kind of book I dream about writing. The characters stuck in my head for days, there were bits of dialogue that had me laughing out loud by my self (not that difficult, really, when the narrators are a bunch of girls from 1960's Georgia), and I even cried at the end of the book.

Another thing that really impressed me is how similar the Congo described in the book is to modern-day Chimoio, and to all of the rural areas we've visited in Mozambique. Many of the details in the novel - the kind of "Baptist donation bin" clothes people wear, including men donning "ladies' wear jackets", the way women pound manioc in giant mortar and pestles, the back-breaking labor that the women do while the men sit idly about, the long printed swaths of fabric used as wrap-around skirts over all other layers of clothes... It was all incredibly familiar, and I was left with the distinct impression that the author herself must have spent some significant time in her life observing the people and places of the Congo.

It's been a long time since I read a book that I enjoyed so much. I think the last one was "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay. Coincidentally both are books about childhood in Africa, told primarily from the perspective of young people growing up in countries in the midst of tremendous political change.

I was so in awe of "The Poisonwood Bible" - and really continue to be, truth be told - that it's been difficult to imagine sitting down to write something myself, even if just a blog entry.

I take solace in the fact that Barbara Kinsolver apparently wrote this book 30 years after her experiences in Africa. Many times I get in a panic because I fear that I will forget, or otherwise be unable to replicate, the experiences that I am having now in Mozambique. I'd very much like to write a proper book about what we've seen in others and lived through ourselves, but since I no longer keep a personal journal where I can write absolutely candidly, I fear the critical details of what I want to share will dry up and blow away if not recorded RIGHT NOW.

Yes, there is the blog, but there is a whale of information that I've not put up here over the last 2 years, either because it was somebody else's tale to tell (I try not to write about other people's dirt online), or it was the kind of story that I fear if published while we are still in the country could create some significant problems for us (as they have to do with blatant corruption and deceipt, both on the part of Mozambicans and foreigners we've come across).

I know that a tremendous amount of research went into writing "The Poisonwood Bible", that certainly the author didn't simply sit down and pour out all those fabulously accurate details in the space of a couple of months. I know she had to rely on other books on the subject, a KiKongo dictionary, the Bible, and friends and researchers up-to-date on the political and cultural happenings of the 1960's.

Thinking about this process, and the fabulous novel that resulted, gives me hope that I will be able to write the things I desire when the time is right. If Barbara Kingsolver was able to do it 30 years after the fact, then 5 of 7 shouldn't be too tragic for me, I imagine. Or even more, who knows. I am aware that hindsight will play a vital role in what I write and how I write it. The kind of understanding and perspective I hope for in my eventual writings about Mozambique cannot be forced to exist, and can only come about through good old time.

Keeping in Touch

I have been TERRIBLE about keeping in touch with my friends and extended family since moving to Mozambique. Every morning I think, "Today I'm going to write a group e-mail and let everyone know what I've been up to," but the task is somehow too daunting. I haven't sent out a proper group e-mail to my friends in over a year. A year! How on earth do I begin to tell them about my life, about being engaged, about living in Mozambique, about all of the struggles and triumphs of the past year. I tell myself that it's not necessary to write about all the details, that a few lines reassuring everyone that I haven't dropped off the face of the planet will suffice. But even then I can't seem to get it together to write...

Part of me feels very frustrated when I receive an e-mail from a friend back home asking what on earth I've been up to and why I never send news. This blog is public, and before leaving the US I sent an e-mail to everyone with the address, explaining that I would keep regular updates about my life on this site. Back then I didn't know what my internet connection would be like here in Mozambique, so I figured that a blog was the best option for keeping in touch with multiple people with little connected time required on my part. Every e-mail I write to family or distant friends, I remind them of my blog address and let them know that this is where I regularly post updates and photos. Many people do, in fact, keep in touch with me via the blog, but many others have never even clicked on the link. It is often the people in the latter category that then remind me how long it's been since I e-mailed, how I've disappeared from the radar of the people in my past.

I wonder why it's so hard for me to write an e-mail these days...Back when my main form of keeping in touch with friends and family was writing actual, honest-to-God letters, I never had a problem. Writing a letter was a fabulous exercise in creativity. I'd carefully select a piece of stationery and a coordinating pen color. Sometimes I'd make my own personalized paper by drawing an intricate border. Sometimes I'd paint a background before writing on top with a thick black ink pen. I'd always decorate the envelopes as well, sometimes even making my own out of colorful photos from National Geographic or Nature, carefully folding the magazine pages into the right shape, taking care not to smudge glue on the beautiful letter inside.

My friend Lambros, who I met when I was 14 at a tourist office while on holiday in Greece, was my faithful penpal for 7 years. Each month we'd each painstakingly design a letter full of news from our respective lives. He is an artist, and would often include comics and portraits for me inside the envelope. Once e-mail took over, however, our correspondence decreased. How strange that in a time when it is much easier to communicate across borders, instead of flourishing, our words to each other came nearly to a stop. We are still unbelievable friends, and each e-mail we do manage to send goes straight to the heart, but there is something about the magic of letter writing that I doubt will ever be recreated electronically.

A similar trend emerged with all of the people that I used to so faithfully write letters to each month. My friends from music camp (yes, American Pie fans, I went to band camp, but don't get any funny ideas - I played the piano!), friends from my exchange summer in Italy, my host family from Brasil. As soon as e-mail became the preferred mode of communication, I increasingly lost touch with everyone.

It's not only e-mail; it seems I have an aversion to most modern technology meant to facilitate communication. I have Skype installed on my computer, but I am always on invisible and only talk to my Mom and Dad on a regular basis. I never go on MSN or Yahoo chat, even though I know half of my friends are on my contact list. There's something about the instantaneous nature of the conversation that makes me shy away. How do I go about chit-chatting with someone I haven't talked to in nearly 2 years? What do I say? "How's the weather? What's new with you?" And what do I answer to the inevitable question that comes my way: "So, what's it like in Africa? Do you like living there?" How can I possibly begin to answer that in a chat message when I don't even have a clear answer myself?

Last month, mindful of the fact that I struggle to keep in touch with the people I care about, I did an experiment. Although it's been proven time and again that I can't reliably receive mail in Mozambique, I decided to sent out a handful of letters to family in the US and Brasil. Imagine my shock when, not 3 weeks later, everyone confirmed they'd received a letter in nearly perfect condition! Now that I know the mail service here works at least one way, perhaps I can take up letter writing again. Even if I can't explain everything about my life on an A4 sheet of paper, at least I can personalize a letter, include a photo or a drawing, address the envelope in calligraphy - anything to transmit what I feel so direly lacks in e-mail and chat rooms.

So friends, family...if you are reading this, send me your physical address. Now that the possibility of writing letters has returned to my life, you just might get a little something in the mail from Mozambique.

Sunday Scribblings - Chronicles

It's been a while since my last contribution to Sunday Scribblings. For this week's prompt I will keep with dictionary definition #2 of Chronicle and offer you a "detailed record or report," in this case straight from the joural I kept during my exchange year in Brasil in all its unaltered teenage-angsty glory.

When I wrote this I had just turned 16 years old and was on a boat trip through the Amazon with 28 fellow exchange students from around the world.

06 December, 1997

We packed up this morning and got ready to board the boat. I went to the supermarket to buy water, cookies and fruit. Then I went to town again to take pictures. Santarém was so different than Manaus or Presidente Figuereido. It was a dry, slow, poor town that had it's own hot, tropical beauty. There were little kids filling buckets with drinking water who looked scared of me until I'd smile.

We got on the boat and I'm sort of in shock. It's not an amazingly large ship or anything - it's 3 stories high, not too long. But, somehow 400 people fit on it. There are people packed together sleeping in redes (hammocks) - it's like a cattle car. We're staying in air-conditioned cabins, 4 people per room. It's incredibly squashed and I feel claustrophobic in our cabin. There's not even room to walk around. We watched a really sad movie about a little boy with AIDS - it made me homesick. We're going to be on this boad for the next 2 days. Aaahh!!

I was sitting near the rail of the boat when we set off and I got to see the "encontro das águas" (meeting of waters) of the Tapajós and Amazonas rivers. It was like a line of green against brown. I was sitting looking at the water and I began thinking abotu stuff. Who my friends really are, how I'm really alone when it comes down to it, my various experiences travelling, and home in the US. I was in a strange, pensiove mood which was a nice change.

07 December, 1997

Day two on the boat. Last night I slept more than I have in quite a while. I think it's from the lack of anything else to do. Last night, we went on a cachaça (sugarcane alcohol) mission. Tim bought it on the mainland and hid it in his shirt. Other than that, I spent the evening watching movies in our room.

Slept late this morning, took a cold shower in our small, rusty bathroom. Now we're all sitting on deck just hanging out and writing in gringo books and journals.

I feel weird. Sort of depressed, sort of bored, sort of confused. I have that panicky, trapped feeling about eating again. I feel fat - I can't escape it. I want to be sick so I can be skinny. I desperately want a scale, just so I can know how much I've gained or lost. I feel so jealous of K. sometimes. She has a perfect stomach and all the brazilians love her. She tries so hard and loves every activity we do. I feel inadequate.

I need to get off this boat. I need to occupy myself. I need some motivation not to eat. I need confidence. I need hope.

I've been feeling a bit homesick on this trip. I guess it's because I've had a lot of experiences that remind me of, or make me want to be with Mom. This was the first time I've gotten sick and thrown up without her - I want someone to hold my hair and stroke my face and hug me better. Also, the last time I was overnight on a boat was in Greece. This makes me remember what I was going through then. I feel desperate and alone.

But then I watch the brazilians here dance their seductive, latin dances and I think life will go on and thigns will be okay. These people live their lives packed into hammocks, waiting, waiting. Waiting an dwatchign the muddy river and the trees, the scenery that never seems to change. It's a slow, hot existence but they survive. I, also, will survivie.

My problems are different, pettier perhaps. I just need to keep my silver bracelet close to my heart, the knowledge from "The Power of One", the memories and lessons that are still in my home in New Mexico, my music, my photography, the memories of beaches - Grado, Greece, Tahiti, Hawaii, Brazil - and the knowledge I already have gotten here in Brazil, and I'll be okay. I can't give up, no matter how fat or lonely I feel. Each day I can start over.

I read back through these entries and, while I can literally remember the table on the boat deck I was sitting on and the pen I was using to write and the desperation of the moment as if it were yesterday, it seems like these adventures unfolded centuries ago and were the chronicle of a completely different person.

It makes me sort of sad to read back through my journals. I've wasted a lot of time already on the same issues, but at least I'm going through all this at my age and not 50 years from now.

Some things make me smile. I still love beaches and just thinking of collecting shells in the sand can make me instantly calm. We went to the beach today at Inhaca island and I collected shells and swam in the warm water for hours. It was exactly what I needed, just as it was back when I was 16.

Sunday Scribblings: The Books I Would Write...

I know, I know. It's still Saturday. But I have to work this weekend and I'm inspired to write NOW, so Saturday it will be for my Sunday Scribblings entry.

The books I would write would be about my life. I think my life is adventurous, unconventional, exciting, terribly lonely at times, and above all very real. I believe that all I've seen and felt and done would make for some pretty incredible reading, and I would start by writing novels about 3 definitive times in my life - my exchange year, my quarter-life crisis, and my time now in Africa. The second one I am not quite ready to share with the world. The last one I am in the process of living out and don't know exactly where the story would start or end. So I think the first one would be the logical place to start...

Novel #1 would be about my time as an exchange student in Maringá, a small city in Paraná state in Southern Brazil.

I would write about what it was like to live for a year with a Japanese-Brazilian family, how it was harder for me to adjust to having siblings than it was for me to get over the culture shock.

I would write about learning to play capoeira and about the fact that I never used the bicycle my host dad gave me because I was (and still am) afraid to ride a bike.

I would write about the amazing trip I took to the Amazon, where I spent 5 days on a riverboat watching the milky waters of the Rio Solimões marble together with the dark waters of the Rio Negro, and the month-long bus trip I took with 138 other international exchange students all across the interior of Brazil and down the northeastern coast.

I would write about my friend Hugo who was killed in a car accident, the first person I knew to pass away. I would write about his funeral and how I still think of him to this day.

I would write about how I met my boyfriend at the time, a guy named Fernando who loved alternative music, took me camping in a beautiful undiscovered canyon, and smoked way too much pot.

I would write about my decision not to go back to my high school in the US and apply directly to college, and how hard it was for me to make that decision because I felt my dad didn't approve. I would write about what it was like to be a finalist for my university's most prestigious scholarship and almost lose my chance at qualifying because I couldn't appear in person for an interview. I would write about how my mom lobbied on my behalf and got me a phone interview, an essential step to me being accepted to college at age 16 with a full ride for the next 4 years.

I would write about how self-conscious I was about my bad case of acne and the fact that I gained weight during the first months of my time abroad. I would write about how good I became at masking my hurt when my friends and host family would candidly comment, in good brazilian fasion, "You've really put on weight, Ali. You should stop eating so much bread." Or, "Wow, your skin has gotten quite bad lately. What have you done for so many pimples to appear?"

I would write about the first time I shoved my finger down my throat after a meal so that I would throw up all those shameful calories I'd just ingested. I would write about how I became a master of illusions, able to eat only 3 or 4 spoonfulls of rice and vegetables and leave the rest of the meal on my plate without anybody noticing. I would write about how I stopped drinking at bars and started smoking pot in the car before going out because it allowed me to forget my pain without the excess calories (somehow my will to be thin was stronger than the munchies that came afterwards!). I would write about how good the compliments felt when I was finally "thin" again, never mind the fact that I didn't get my period anymore and that my hair was brittle and falling out. I would write about how alone anorexia and bulimia made me feel, despite the happy face I always felt compelled to put on.

I would write about how I learned perfect Portuguese with no trace of an accent, and how I started to feel more Brazilian than I did American. I would write about how my shifting identitiy made me feel illegitimate, as if I were an imposter staking claim to a cultural heritage richer than my own. I would write about the increasing shame I felt for being an American, how I would go out of my way to not speak English in public, how I would dress just like all the other preppy Brazilian girls so I wouldn't stand out as a foreigner, and how much I hated when my friends would playfull call me by the nickname gringa.

I would write about how my mom came to visit me, despite the strict rules of the exchange program against visits from biological family members. I would write about how much fun we had together in Rio de Janeiro, the time we spent with my host family in Maringá, and the car trip we took together with Fernando to Iguaçu Falls. I would write about how much I missed the safe, healing feeling of being close to my mom, and how her visit came at the perfect time, when I was most in need of an injection of self-esteem and unconditional love.

I would write about how at Christmas time the main cathedral of Maringá (that looks like a rocket or a big cone with spikes at the bottom) is decorated to look like a tree with ornaments, and how all the palm trees that line the streets are covered in white lights.

I would write about how I discovered journaling as the best way for me to express my feelings, about the most exciting adventures as well as the darkest days of my loneliness and secrets. I would use excerpts of the journals I kept while on exchange to write this novel. I was a very dilligent writer back then and I wrote every single day that year, starting the day I left Albuquerque and ending the day I arrived back in the US in the Miami airport.

I would write about how much I enjoyed my host dad. He was a philosopher at heart, and many times we'd drive around aimlessly in his pickup truck and have these great debates about different cultures, and how hard it was to be a teenager, and what was missing for this world to heal itself. I got the feeling that my host dad only had these kinds of conversations with me, and every time we'd have a philosophy session in the truck I'd immediately feel less homesick and less troubled.

I would write about how cold it gets in southern Brazil, how my toes would go numb when I played capoeira barefoot, how I would go to school wearing a wool hat and gloves and 2 pairs of stockings under my jeans to stay warm in our open-air classroom, and how I learned to flip the circuit-breaker next to the bathroom at least 10 times before taking a shower to jump-start the electric shower head and get lukewarm water at best. None of the houses or buildings have central heating because it's just not worth it, no matter how cold it may get. The weather in southern Brazil is schizophrenic. One day there is frost on the grass and all you want to do is drink hot chocolate. The next day the sun is out and it's so warm you can wear shorts and go to the pool in the afternoon.

I would write about my good friends - Kelly from Australia who was also an exchange student and was like a mentor to me, Apache from my capoeira group who is a descendent of Guarani indians and gives the best hugs imaginable, my group of girlfriends from my high school class, and so many other amazing people that crossed my path during that year.

I would write about all the wonderful meat I ate that year (my host dad was the accountant at the local slaughterhouse and would bring home picanha for free) and all the new tropical fruits I tried - jackfruit, 5 different kinds of mangoes, cherimoya, acerola, paw-paw, açai, cupuaçu and so many others.

I would write about how I feel in love with a country and a language and a culture.

I would write about how my year in Maringá forever changed my life. Sometimes I think about what I would be like and where I would be living today if I'd been accepted to my 2nd or 3rd choice countries (Venezuela and Hong Kong respectively) for exchange instead of Brazil. I think it's safe to say I wouldn't have returned to study in Rio de Janeiro when I was in business school, wouldn't have met my current business partners, wouldn't be living in Mozambique, and wouldn't be together with Ricardo.

A Day of Writing

I woke up at dawn today, something extraordinarily rare for me. I was on the bus coming back to Rio, a 16-hour ride across three states, and the sun's first rays flooded through the window right into my eyes. Despite being groggy and thirsty, I was actually glad to be awake. I have been itching to write uninterrupted for the last several days, and already my mind was spinning with words.

Jenna gave me this great little notebook before she left last week and I've been carrying it around everywhere inside my purse or pocket. It's strange writing on small, lined paper after so many years journaling on blank pages in larger books, but the immediacy of it is quite appealing. I pulled out the little notebook and started to write, struggling against the bumps and shakes of the ill-maintained Dutra highway.

It's now 11pm and I've been writing nearly nonstop since I woke up on the bus. The words just keep pouring out of me, and I have to switch between my laptop and handwritten pages so that my pseudo-Carpal Tunnel problems don't return. When I'm grantwriting and on the computer all day, my forearms start to ache and the tendons in my wrist feel tight, as if they were stale rubber bands ready to snap. I've found that by switching between the keyboard and a pen I can stave off the problems for several hours. I wrote e-mails before lunch, then updated my blog and moved onto some short essay-type compositions about the concept of "home".

I feel weird today, both physically and mentally. I got a killer cold when I first arrived in Rio that mostly affected my throat and lungs. Then it migrated to my head and turned into a snot-propelled ear infection. I had to get out the antibiotics I brought along in my medical kit, before I even made it to Africa. Right now the pain of the ear infection is gone and I can breath through my nose again, but my right ear still isn't normal. The air conditioning in the bus made it slightly worse, and I feel as if my head were inside a fishtank. In addition, the inside tendon in my left knee feels *very* abnormal. I feel like if I take a step too quickly it will, in fact, snap right in half and I'll collapse onto the ground. My knee hurts and feels tight. Probably from sitting all night on the bus, then continuing the stationary trend all day while writing. Maybe I'll take a walk tomorrow and see if it loosens up.

I feel lonely and unsettled and antisocial. I don't feel like hanging out with my friends at the bar they invited me to. All I want to do is read and write and listen to music. Maybe lean over the verandah and look at the street every so often, feeling the cool breeze that always blows on top of the hill.

I ate too many brigadeiros tonight and spoiled my dinner. Beth made them this afternoon, and they are probably the last thing I should have stocked up in the fridge right now. Brigadeiros are little balls of condensed milk boiled with chocolate, then coated in chocolate sprinkles. They taste just like caramel, and those of you who know my preferences in desserts know that is one of my weaknesses. I've never been much of a chocolate person (crazy, I know), but put some toffee or dulce de leche in front of me and it's all over. Feeling slightly depressed and having a tray full of sweets in the kitchen is NOT A GOOD COMBINATION.

Yeah, I'll just go for a walk tomorrow morning. That will fix everything: my tight knee, the extra brigadeiros, and my reclusive tendencies.