Back in Black

I've returned home to the motherland so to speak. Every time someone asks me how my trip was, I can never think of any better way to state it than, "wonderful." It really was wonderful. I've created friendships that will probably last a lifetime. I've had experiences that I never even dreamed of. My eyes have been opened again to a whole new way of looking at the world, and though this new perspective is hard to describe, it is and will be until it is added on to by another new experience.

Some of the best changes I've had are because of the simple-minded life I lived over there. Daily duties are dedicated towards survival, and it's not necessarily an issue related to worrying about if you will have enough food and water or a place to sleep. Rather, it's simply that you dedicate your daily efforts towards sustaining yourself, your family, and your livestock. You have to gather vegetables for each meal, get a fire going, cook your daal bhat (veggies and rice), walk your buffalo, cut grass for your buffalo, milk your buffalo, harvest rice and millet, and of course, make your tea. Anyways, I think you get the idea. It was a lot of physical strain, but not a lot of mental strain... just the opposite of most Americans.

Perhaps my new simple-minded approach to things will make for some fun blogposts later on, but in the meantime, I want to dedicate more entries to my experiences over there from adventure to cultural insight to various little stories. I may not be able to captivate you the way Alexandre Dumas did Parisians, but I'll give it a shot.