Silence is not necessarily bad, but it is just easier to write when you are in crisis. Could it be that I'm bored? My Mom says that the closer thing to happiness is peace. I'm at peace.  The first post after a long time is harder to write, as if you had to justify your absence or write something so brilliant to make up for your dissapearance. I won't do any. I have a dog. I've been wanting a dog for more than eight years and I finally have it. His name is Marte, which means Mars in Spanish, as he is a little reddish, fury and fiery ball. Victor says that I have a good eye for dogs as I tend to choose the energetic, funny, independent and smart ones. That said, I sometimes wish I had chosen the calm and quiet one from the pack. I guess we don't have the ability to choose something that doesn't reflect who we are. I'm not saying I'm funny, energetic or smart, but I have a tendency to get myself into trouble.

I'm officially a consultant, which means I'm in a deeper time-management problem than ever before.

I'm 36 and live with my boyfriend in the hipster neighborhood of Mexico City - which means that I really don't live in Mexico City but in a bubble of fashion designers, lattes, organic food and mezcal cocktails. I miss New York like crazy but I wouldn't move back for now. There is still plenty to discover.

I'm divided and in love. When in New York I love New York. In Mexico City I love Mexico City. In Guadalajara I love Guadalajara. I commute one month to New York the next to Guadalajara, even when this means missing - or not even building a routine in Mexico City. I used to be tired of travel for work, but I now travel each month by choice.  I just spent ten days at our Upper West Side apartment and reminded myself how much I miss the energy of New York, the gold rush added to a constant need to be out there. The constant fear to miss out. But, what are the things you should let go, how to prioritize? I'm about to become 36 and I don't own any property, have any substantial savings or have children, but I have not missed out of many other life-changng experiences. It is now, that I'm getting closer to 40 that the question becomes inevitable. Should I miss out of having children? Should I miss out of a life of adventurous travel? Should I miss out of opening my own business? Should I miss out of living in a new city? Should I miss out of buying a home? And if not, where? Where would you buy a home if home is transitory? And, can I have it all? I want to keep living in the places I call home, I want to keep traveling to places unknown, I want to keep learning with any new project I undertake, I want to build a family of friends and probably children, I want not to be alone while learning to be so. I want to stay in love with what life brings. 

My Mother's neighbor is a pianist, so every morning when I visit we wake up to her rehearsing. On a particular Saturday morning like today my Mom  knits and I draw flowers, and we can stay like this for many hours.  It is sunny and warm outside, and for a strange reason her dog is not barking .  The occasional helicopter flies above the neighborhood and I ask my Mom if she thinks the police is looking for another drug lord; she raises her eyebrows not knowing the answer. Today feels so peaceful even when tomorrow morning Otto, my dog, will die unexpectedly.  Calm could feel suspicious sometimes, but its definitely good to slow down for a moment and enjoy my Mother while we are still kind of young. 

The good thing about having moved to Mexico City is that I get to go back to New York at least every two months. Ideally I would split my time by half between both places, which means enjoying the sweetest things of both and leaving the bad before it starts to crawl over you.  It is when you leave when you start to see those blind spots you missed because you were immersed for so long in such a dynamic and ever-changing place. For starters, the not-so-hidden fact that New York is extremely expensive. I’m 35 and have almost no savings. I don't own a property or even a car, I have very few things I can call my own, and really, who will care for my wardrobe? Not that I measure my life achievements based on material possessions, but unless I earn enough to live in the neighborhood where I want to live, eat where I want to eat, wear what I want to wear, and still save money for retirement, I’m not coming back for good. The other and most important piece is that New York reminds me of how lonely life can get. I’m not talking about the contemplative loneliness that gets you in the mood for writing. I’m talking about the I-don’t-want-the-weekend-to-come loneliness, as you fear the 6:00 PM mark on your watch every Friday. I was lucky enough to find great friends, those kind of friends that I see myself sharing the nursing home with. But for many years New York felt like a rollercoaster of great people that moved out of the city after two years. Each time leaving me crushed.  New York is a great place to live, but you need a family of friends, and knowing that Truman Capote lived in your building or that the world’s diversity is represented on a subway train is not sufficient. I change my previous statement, I don't care so much about the neighborhood, or the food, or the clothes. I won’t move back to New York unless someone can assure me that my great group of friends will still be there. 

I left New York in October. I thought it would never happen. You see, when you go from surviving to living and almost thriving in a place as hard and beautiful as New York it is almost impossible to leave.  But I did, after eleven years. I also left the job that took me around the world (literally).  I have to be honest, the idea hasn't fully settled yet, but I also feel proud of myself. This seems to have been one of the biggest detachment exercises in my life. It’s now four months since we arrived in Mexico City and it doesn't feel as bad as I expected. Mexico City is quite a vibrant city, full of contrasts but also inspiring. We’ve managed to land in the neighborhood where most of our friends live, we bike everywhere, architecture is amazing and we get lots of sunshine in our apartment.  I miss New York, being a New Yorker, and being Programs Director (my former job title), but it also feels good to strip yourself from any labels and concentrate on what is left - yourself.

Some people thi...

Some people think my life is glamourous, but traveling around the world is not only left for jet-setters, it  also includes missionaries, doctors, theatre troupes, backpackers and regular people like me.  It has been a week since I came back from Liberia and my body is slowly catching up. Cold sores, a sinus infection, cramps and now one of my molars is fractured, as it seems I've been grinding my teeth at night out of stress. "I don't understand how you do it?" Alex asks, "You go to these places and listen to these stories. How can you come back to your reality and not feel affected?" Truth is, I sometimes do. I still remember the story of the man who witnessed the killing of his son by armed guerillas some years ago. "They opened his chest with a knife, took out his heart and eat it. They believed my son's heart would make them powerful." This story kept me awake for a few nights. I also got to see the other part of the story where people are rebuilding a country and children are being raised without images of war.  It's funny how you can feel emphatic and at the same time, it is hard to relate. I have never been at war, but I certainly understand resilience; I am from a country currently fighting a war, but I know that violence is not the only thing that exists. "I will never buy a house or invest outside Liberia," Shadrach mentioned during one of our conversations, "I'll go to Cambridge and get my pHd but I want to live here."  My friends emphasize that we take certain things for granted, electricity, Sunday brunch, public libraries, street jazz, transportation systems and nail polish. What is that which is taken for granted in the places I visit? Possibly cassava leaves, spicy food, children raised by entire communities, festive funerals and drumbeats.

Night out in Sekondi, Ghana

I try to absorb in as much of Africa as I can while drinking Star beer at the makeshift bar on the street in Sekondi. We’ve been working in Ghana for four days, but we haven’t seen much besides the office and our hotel. The Veivaag Hotel, built with Norwegian investment, hosts mostly European engineers working on the oilrigs offshore. After drinking a couple of bottles of South African wine my colleagues; contrary to gender stereotypes, shared their love stories.  Will and his wife managed to get married after contradicting Indonesian traditions; Glenn met his wife at age 5, and Ali, who is getting married in a month, is planning for a Muslim wedding under the Ghanaian tradition. “Will I ever get married, again?” I wandered as I took pictures of young well-dressed men dancing to high-life on the street. There are so many pieces of my life-puzzle to get resolved; the challenge is both scary and exciting. I love my life, even when it is reign by ambiguity. A dog sits on the middle of the street to eat a piece of fish, flower-printed curtains decorate the surrounding houses, loudspeakers play African Pop and women on our neighboring table start circling their hips to the music. The weather is just perfect, warm and slightly humid. We are heading back to New York tomorrow and as a glass of Amarula is brought to our table I breathe in as much of Africa as I can. “Are you sad?” I ask Ali. “Yes, because I do not know if I’m ever going to see you again,” he replies. “Are you ever coming back to Ghana?”  I hope so. Breath-out.

The white light...

The white light gets me tired. It could also be effect of the malaria pills. It may be the fact that after a 24-hour flight delay, we got to Ghana and start working from the onset; or that I’ve been eating too much rice, afraid of getting sick by eating fresh salads. I’m resting in bed sleepless and upset that the only options on television are a Steven Segal movie or a Nigerian soap opera. I got Leonera with me, an Argentinean movie that I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time. One of those items that remain in my suitcase, trip after trip and yet to be used, along the ciprofloxacin and a small bottle of St. John’s Wart. “It is funny how you get used to the landscape”, I tell Will as we drive by fishing communities along the coastline close to Ivory Coast. I feel no longer surprised at the sight of women carrying heavy loads of all kinds of materials over their heads, ovens made of mud to smoke fish, barber shops filled with men and mosques across from grocery stores named after biblical passages.  I guess that is a good sign; when the different becomes part of the regular. 

Late night thoughts in Sierra Leone

We crossed the river at night, the eventual lightning from the coming storm illuminated our way into the island, where we disembarked and lead our way to the camp using torches. It has been already a long day, riding for almost 7 hours from Freetown. I’m in a room lit by a candle and I can hear the storm and the bugs creeping outside. Will, Alex and Denilda are all in their rooms across from mine.  There is no running water and there is a big rat sitting immobile by the toilet.  I drink cognac and smoke a cigar trying to conceal the heat. We have no access to internet, no cell phone reception and we do not know precisely where we are. Chimpanzees and pigmy hippos live in this island, along with black mambas and a British researcher that spends her days observing chimp behavior. Being under these circumstances, adds to the feeling that there is a certain something that makes Sierra Leone really interesting. I’m not sure if it is the lack of infrastructure and electricity, the fact that candles are more common than light bulbs, the spicy food, the calypso music, the white sands, diamond mines, or the war-deteriorated buildings along the road. It feels vibrant and alive, crude and raw. Opportunities are rising from the ashes, as it continues to be a hot spot for foreign exploitation.  I’m sweating, the candle is consuming fast and noises from unidentified animals are coming from the bushes. This is going to be a long night.

I could hear my...

I can hear my Mom singing to a Janis Joplin song through Skype. "Are you listening?" she asks. "My generation was blessed with great music." I call her often and we sometimes leave the speaker on as each of us do our stuff; I guess it is a way to keep ourselves company.  "I use to steal my father's radio every day from 8:00 to 9:00 pm to listen to the Creedence Program," she says remembering her teenage years as she plays Have you ever seen the rain? There is a nostalgic feeling to this song. My uncle Andres carried a Creedence tape in his car and played this song every time he dropped me at the airport when my summer vacation in Mexico City was over. "Do you like Home Sweet Alabama?" my Mother asks. I can't reply, I'm ready to go to bed and for all I know she will stay awake until very late searching for old songs on YouTube.  Nostalgia and internet are a powerful combination.

Some of us...

Some of us have steady jobs, some of us have dead-end jobs, some of us have inspiring dream-like jobs, some of us are jobless. Some of us have children, some of us don't. Some of us are married at 24, 34, 44, some of us are not, some of us are desperately seeking for a partner, some of us are gay, some of us wish to be single. Some of us know our mission in life, some of us don't, some of us don't care, some of us walk endlessly to find it. Some of us blame the others for our bad decisions, some of us take responsibility to change the patterns. In life and personal decisions, no rules apply; inspiration does. There are many ways to milk a cow, to crack a nut, to write a poem, but there are many more ways to lead your life. We learn by observation, but again, there are many ways to observe, so we select what to get inspired by. The key, I guess, is to make sure you get exposed to as many different examples of paths to select your own. For the first time in a very long time, I feel finally walking on the right direction. Where am I walking to is still uncertain, but I don't care about it anymore. "What happened to Brenda in Africa?" people have been asking continuously and I can only answer that I let go. "I imagined being naked, metaphorically," I clarify as I share the Africa epiphany, "and all my belongings and attachments are taken away from me. What would I rescue? What would I keep with me?" The answer is nothing, I have myself. "Am I ever going to have full clarity on what I want?" Arloinne asks as we walk down Alvaro Obregon from Roma to Condesa in Mexico City, "I came back from Europe expecting Mexico to bring back the possibilities, and now I miss Berlin and my life there." According to my mother questioning hasn't ended even at 60. My recent words of wisdom: It is what it is, so keep walking and make the best out of it.

From Lagos to Calabar

I listen to Norteñas as we fly from Lagos to Calabar, close to the Cameroon border. I'm so tired that the line between dreams and thoughts has become blurry. The music takes me to Sinaloa and images of man wearing Texan boots and cowboy sombreros get mixed with storylines of hunters and gorillas in the forest. We just spent two weeks in Sierra Leone working with partners to develop the initial story for a drama on chimpanzee conservation; tomorrow we'll sit down with scriptwriters from Nigeria and Cameroon to agree on the story for gorilla conservation in the border between both countries. I sometimes wonder how I ended up working in all these parts of the world, a question that probably many people wouldn't - or can't afford to - ask themselves. I'm lucky. Life has provided me with enough content to write a book, which makes me feel a sense of guilt for not even trying. Dream and reality remains blurry until the stewardess hands me a plate with chicken and yam. Next to me a Nigerian 20-something man plays with his iPad impatiently; he is returning home for the May 1st holidays. The cheap pink toilet paper in the restroom reminds me that this airline not only tries to cut any possible costs, but that is not really reliable. I rather go back to the dreamy state I was before. As we prepare to land, the Norteño playlist is coming to an end and for a moment I wish I was landing in Mexico. Why I decided to leave in the first place?

Teddy bears and miners

My guess is that the teddy bear was given to them by a Westerner, assuming that this will allow them to collect more money. In any case, they are not only beautiful, but after a long trip and while waiting for the ferry in the coast across from Freetown the least thing you would expect is to see two cute children smiling on the beach. We sit across from the Chinese and British that work for African Minerals, or so we assume as vans are bringing them in small groups from the airpot. It seems that every flight coming into Sierra Leone is bringing loads of mining workers, from engineers to security forcers. "Do  you think they are miners or mercenaries?" I texted some of my friends from the plane, as we waited in Conkary on our way to Freetown from Paris. For a moment I'm puzzled, the sight looks like this: men in their forties, all with deep Southern accents, covered in tattoos, wearing Harley Davidson t-shirts and John Deere caps and some are even toothless. This may sound like prejudice, but this is definitely not the usual group of people I imagine traveling to anywhere in Africa. I get texts back asking me to stay away from them and a "please be careful". I assume my friends think I'll be snapping pictures at them - which by no means is a bad idea.  Victor texts right before departure to remind me that some kind of coup d' etat is happening in Guinea-Bissau. Sierra Leone's civil war ended 9 years ago. Seems so far and yet it is so close. In the meantime we wait under a palm tree for our ferry to arrive. It will take almost two hours to arrive into Freetown and I'm so hungry that I can only think on the promised "pepper-chicken" and a glass of beer.

Life is happening...

Life is happening everywhere at this very moment. Wherever you go you'll find people making transactions at the local market, laughing on each other, having a beer in the afternoon, playing soccer, or flirting at the corner. To an extent, I believe that creating beauty around us is a manifestation of "life happening".  Taxi and truck drivers add stickers and hang decorations to their vehicles in Asia and South America, flowers are displayed outside homes in flowerpots or empty tomato cans in Spain, Colombia and Nigeria,  Indian temples are covered in colorful dust, men in Rwanda wear golden watches matching their golden teeth, women wear lipstick and high heels to ride motorbikes in the mountain highways of Laos or to cross the Tijuana-San Diego border. Beauty dispels fear; it unifies and humanizes. A few years ago, at the peak of the Iraq war, a different image was shown during the morning (French) news, an old man was sweeping dust outside his grocery store in preparation to sell cardboard hearts and bonbons to celebrate Valentine's Day. When you think about this you might feel there is no place you wouldn't go. The biggest risk, as my friend Mario says, is that life could happen regardless of your involvement, and passes you by.

I tend to forget that (genocide) everything involves regular people...

At the DRC Border

We were stopped by the DRC border patrol officer today for taking a picture at the border. "It is strictly forbidden to take pictures here. What if I go to your country and do the same?" he scorned us while holding my camera trying to delete the pictures. A few minutes later, after being released, we were laughing. "Come on Brenda, you should know better by now," Will said in his usual sarcastic tone. I'm sure I'll tell an exaggerated version of this episode one day, even when the real version already sounds scary. We've been working all day, so we haven't seen much of Rusizi yet. We walked along the river that divides the two countries and let the night fall as we stood outside Hotel Du Lac getting French and Kinyarwanda lessons from the training participants.  It might be that this is a border town, or that Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, but there is always people in the streets. They all seem to be going somewhere and most of them carry loads of things, from eggs to wood. To my surprise, we don't get a lot of attention here, as compared to other countries in Africa. Only a few children yelled "Musungus!" at us with excitement, and that was kind of cute.

Rusizi

"If you look to your right you'll be able to see baby volcanoes," Will says as we are driving along a buffer zone of the Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda.  We arrived last night to Kigali and today we drove seven hours to Rusizi in the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are here to train local NGOs and radio producers on how to produce a radio drama and a communication strategy that will promote the protection of chimpanzees in this part of the world. This was a beautiful ride as the landscape changed from rice to tea plantations, misty mountains and villages built in adobe; people walked all along the highway carrying all sorts of things on top of their heads.  I'm now sitting on my bed covered by a net and trying to prepare for tomorrow's first training session. I've done this all over the world, but I still get a little nervous the night before it starts. A block away militaries guard the border between Rwanda and the DRC.  "Do you think we can cross to the DRC without a visa?" Katie asked - to my surprise - sincerely excited.  I rather not. "We are staying at a hotel run by nuns, so there won't be any beer," I exclaimed a little worried. "By day two we must have figured out where to get it," Will replied reassuringly.

...come to terms...

I’m freezing. The landlord hasn’t been turning on the heat lately. My guess is that Polina is watching Russian films in her room; she got back a few days ago and is still carrying with her the nostalgia of the other place. I’m about to sleep but for a moment stare at the stack of half-read books on my desk. The sight is daunting. When I was a little girl I tried really hard to start the new school cycle with an organized backpack and neat notebooks. To my eternal disappointment at the end of each school year my backpack was a mess, stained with ink and pencil, and the notebooks, missing a few pages, had notes in blue, black and sometimes even green ink.  I tried really hard to be someone that I wasn’t and failed year after year. So, in that spirit and considering that today is the Chinese New Year, I have made up my New Year’s resolution: stop worrying about all the half-read, half-done, half-thought, half-everything.  “Be kind to yourself”, I pronounce loudly as I type, “and come to terms with the fact that it might be fine to leave the bed unmade sometimes.”

Note to self: Get over the fact that this is who you are.

Which way to go?

Today is Christmas. We are driving through foggy-mountain highways crossing La Sierra Madre towards Xalapa.  We drive quietly listening to some country music. Enrique, my Mom’s partner, stops to buy a bag of pig-shaped sugar cookies that people sell on the side of the road in this part of the country.  “Do you remember the time we went to Veracruz for the holidays?” Pepe asks as I nod trying to remember a trip that happened more than 20 years ago.  It’s hard to imagine how we pictured ourselves as grown-ups back then. “What is it next for you?” I ask as we take pictures of the cookies against the foggy backdrop.  “I’m not sure.” He shrugs his shoulders. For the past two years he has been teaching at the School of Architecture in Mexico City, after living in Venice, Barcelona and New York.  He has a love for knowledge that is only proportional to his lack of interest for a relationship. “I’m still interested in urban planning,” he says, and I know he hasn’t found his place int he world yet.  Two days ago I was interrogated by some other members of our family, the usual questions intended to make you feel you’ve been driving in the wrong direction for the past 33 years.  “It is terrible that cities are built around cars and not human interaction,”Pepe asks interrupting my thoughts and making me feel relieved that I have a cousin that even when he doesn’t know where he is going, he knows what he stands for. At 35 he doesn’t know nor is interested in learning how to drive.

Fruit flies

After doing the last Christmas shopping I sat at Sofia’s tounwind; bags were already packed and there was nothing else to do but relaxbefore flying early the next morning. Leo, the bartender, gave me a glass oftheir best champagne and while chilling at the bar I simmered into a millionthoughts.  These last few days havebeen one of the few moments in which I’ve spent time with myself; a very much-neededsilence between trips and with just a handful of friends in New York.  It was when Leo refilled my glass that everythingwas clear to me: I’m a New Yorker; my life is here; not somewhere else. I’vebeen living for so long with a longing for the other place, for the ones I leftbehind without acknowledging what I have built for me here.   For a moment I thought about the fruitflies that appeared in our office a couple of months ago. They stand on our coffee mugs and annoyingly circulate infront of our monitors. “It feels that we’re working in Ecuador or India”,Lindsey would say trying to kill one. My theory is that we brought them from one of our trips and for a reasonthey are thriving in their new environment. What is needed to survive and grow?For the flies it seems that sugar and a cozy environment suffices. This is ofcourse considering that the metric is to survive and reproduce extensively andnot to be happy, fulfilled, loved, empowered, and so many other complexdefinitions of success.  New Yorkis challenging, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as lonely anywhere else and theconcept of anxiety took a new dimension. At the same time it has given theopportunity to try my strength, friends have become family and it has seldom beingboring.  To challenge oneself mightbe a good way of thriving.  Althoughsome of us feel in the paradox of wanting to anchor and keep sailing, there isnot necessarily a dichotomy as we might find people to sail with. Probably, aswith the fruit flies, the wind of inspiration or a tourist will take me to anew port.