At my thesis defense, just prior to my university graduation in December 2006, my professors asked me what my post-college plans were. I told them I planned “to de-institutionalize for a while.” After almost five years spent in an academic setting and working with NGOs in my spare time, I had become disillusioned with the impersonality involved with “saving the world.” I needed to get out in the real world, breathe fresh air, and meet people, not as “subjects” or “communities” or “populations,” but as people, as friends. I decided to start traveling, though I never did get very far. Much like the monarch butterflies and birds of all types, I now make a migration between my home in the north and my home in the south.
Before I decided to make Mexico my second home, and after my first visit in 2004, I spent any time I could south of the border, learning how to speak Spanish, hold a taco, and dance salsa. Mexico is so much a part of me now that when I hear about the “tortilla crisis,” for example, it not only pains me to hear about it, it affects me when I go to the local tortilleria. Mexico really is my home, in so many ways. The past two winters I’ve spent working in restaurants, but this year, rather than just take a job and wait for the snow to melt up north, I plan on balancing “working enough to survive” with “volunteering enough to make a difference.” I’ll be looking out for opportunities while on the ground and my first stop is Tashirat, an orphanage/ashram in Tepoztlan, about an hour south of Mexico City. I’ll spend a month befriending orphans and other volunteers, doing yoga and putting my hands in the dirt in the Tashirat garden.
It’s too early to tell where my backpack and I will go after Tashirat, but I do know that I am excited to be a part of the dedicated and enthusiastic Idealist community. ¡Saludos!
Latest posts by radroots
- Sometimes Reality Hurts for an Idealist - June 1st, 2010
- Don't Forget to Breathe! Why Yoga is Useful for Travelers - March 2nd, 2010
- How to Fundraise With No Funds - February 11th, 2010
- A Lesson in Life: Accepting the Unknown - February 3rd, 2010
- The Perks of Being a New Volunteer - January 29th, 2010
