wild amounts to do. too much very strong coffee from the coolest coffee shop in the world directly next to our hostel. a weakness? perhaps.

I awoke today to a sprinting workout at 10,000 feet. My students ran hard the whole time. I thought today how proud I am of this life that we lead. The insanity that we`ve come across this semester. Robbed x 2 (laptop stolen on a night bus out from under my seat)...surgeries...illness...mosquitoes...jungle treks...late night dance parties...homesickness...singing at the top of our lungs...cooking for each other...all that we learn to take for granted.

Things have been hard, but it makes them amazing. I am so god damn lucky. I get to teach about the world economy, about listening skills, about trash. Where will I ever find this again?

Today I realized that I left home to redefine and to self-define. I did this for a year and a half because I wanted to start again and pick and choose how to go after what I truly yearn for. I did this to pare down and remember and find and connect. I did this because I love working with teenage girls and they drive me crazy much of the time but so much of the time they blow me away. They`re hilarious, and their minds are exploding, and they step up when they`re asked to and they`re just ready to face this world.

I wanted to be completely and totally into one thing. To not be spread so thin that I had excuses for not doing things well. I am invested completely. Its not an easy process. Its been really painful at times. It probably will be again before this is all through. But I`m not faking this knowledge any more. Its ingrained, deep within me. Completely.

an extreme case of writer´s block

So, its been awhile.

Sorry about that. I´ve been struggling I guess with what is novel and worth writing about.

I´m on my time off now, in a surf town called Montanitas on the coast of Ecuador. The semester starts to fly by now - my brother will be here in a couple of days, then a backpacking trip, then Cusco and Puma.

I´m sunburned. We paid $15 for a surf lesson yesterday from a bleached blonde Ecuadoran guy whose board shorts hang perilously close to his butt crack. He spent exactly 15 minutes giving us instruction and then fell asleep on the beach for the other 2 hours and 45 minutes. But he was a nice guy. So nice, in fact, that he proposed marriage to my co-teacher last night at the discoteca. She declined.

The mullet is big in Montanitas. Actually, I think mullet plus dreadlocks is big in Europe now, and there happen to be quite a few European tourists.

The guys in the rooms next to ours in the hostel have become our buddies. They´re from New York and San Diego, but are in medical school in Guadalajara. A funny blast of memory of how intently I was focused on that track for awhile.

Additionally, what else can I tell you? Does traveling ever become routine? Isnt the point that it doesnt, ever? My students need support and energy from us. They are each strong individuals, each with their own issues and needs. I need to push myself now, push myself to take these opportunities with them.

I think a lot about home. More than I should. There is something so wildly appealing about leaves changing color, the ocean, coffee shops in the Old Port, Bradbury Mountain. I am craving something deeply and I can´t quite put my finger on it, and I long on the one hand for being home and on the other hand know that when I get there that wanderlust in me is going to rear up reminding me that I´m not sated without some sort of balance.

Things I´d like to do upon returning home - so that all of you can hold me to it. 1) Take salsa dancing lessons. 2) Bake my own bread. 3) Work in Liz and Artie´s garden. 4) Host many dinner parties. 5) Kayak the Forks. 6) Appreciate the ocean. 7) Get worms. Compost like crazy. 8) Continue the trend of my work and my life coming into line. 9) Drink more wine. 10) Protest.

Not settle.

What makes a life? What are the pieces you need in it to make yourself feel whole? Do we have access to those? Do we create them?

I guess I realize more each day how big a piece of work I am. I have so little of myself figured out...and I seem to understand less as each day goes by. Yet for the first time I have some direction and back that giddy feeling of excitement and breath-holding and wondering just how all of this is going to come to pass. Purpose? Truth? Such big words. Who knows, but something that in my gut gets excited.

Oddly cathartic, stream of consciousness. Much love to all of you. I can´t guarantee that my ramblings will be any more coherent next time, but I´ll write more soon...

Heather

old hat? new tricks? where in the world...

The Traveling School gathers the tents, the books, the first aid kits, the emergen-c, the nalgenes, the poly-pro, all in the home of our indefatigable director - who has a nursing newborn, a two year old, in-laws, and three teachers all sleeping in the house. We have spent the last month and a half since we got back from Africa creating curricula, organizing lodging, arranging transportation and now we're preparing to head out again.

I can't believe how normal this has all become to me. I wonder if I'll ever really realize the skills I've come to take for granted, and the exhausting moments I've come to see as normal, and perhaps even the unbelievable, incredible experiences I get to have that come to seem commonplace.

Being home this time was just enough to whet my appetite for the other end of this trip though - for being able to be home without that weight of feeling like I'm going to be leaving soon. I wonder what it will be like to commit myself to being in one place for awhile.

But leaving this time has so much less of the desperation of the last times - fear of leaving people I love, of abandoning friends, of nervousness about the trip. It is replaced by a peaceful awareness that this is just for the present moment - that this trip lasts for these months and then I get to put together the pieces. I've gained a lot of trust in those pieces, especially since being home this last time.

So we're in Bozeman now, flying out on Thursday, in Miami for two months and then to Quito! We'll be in Ecuador for two months, Peru for a month, and then hopefully Bolivia for the last two weeks. Its been awesome to get snail mail from people in Africa - I can't even begin to tell you how much it means to get those letters...so in the vein of shameless begging, the addresses are printed below:

To reach us in Quito send by Feb. 20:
The Traveling School
Heather Foran
South American Explorers Club
Apartado 17-21-431
Elroy Alfaro
Quito, Ecuador

To reach us in Cusco send by April 1:
The Traveling School
Heather Foran
South American Explorers Club
Apartado 500
Cusco, Peru

Much love to all of you!