The Final Days

Coming back to Florianopolis was a shock. A month away from the magical island had turned it into a distant dream. Seeing the bright colors and feeling the hot sun of Brazil quickly turned the dream back to a reality and all my memories of life on the island came back to me.

Over the weekend I visited my Brazilian family, visited Praia Mole, the beach I used to go to, and attended a friends graduation party. All the things that seemed strange and exotic the first time I arrived in Floripa now seemed familiar and comfortable. The people who I had greeted as a foreigner there only to learn, I now greeted as a friend with stories and lessons to share in my now improved Português.

My next and final stop was Rio de Janerio. I could now easily converse with my previous couchsurfing host with whom I could barely communicate with before. All the smells reminded me of the feeling I had when I arrived in Brasil that first time. I remembered not being able to imagine spending a whole seven months in such a foreign land. Now it’s the United States that seems like the foreign land.

Leaving Brasil I finally understand what all the study abroad advisors meant about it expanding your horizons or giving you another lens to view life. While I considered myself tolerant of all people and cultures, I never fully understood how true it is that it takes all kinds of people to make a world. After meeting people from all corners of the globe I really understood how beautiful and important each culture is. I could look at my habits and beliefs objectively from a distance and see how they are by no means superior than any other, and in fact, like everything in the world, contain many weaknesses that must be separated from the strengths. Perhaps the greatest boon of study abroad is being able to sort out and recognize, with clarity, what is universally helpful and harmful.

Another important lesson was the importance of working or having a purpose while travelling. After a day or two of seeing a city, it became necessary to do more than passively consume packaged experiences. I needed my experiences to have a context and understand how those experiences could apply to my life at home and change my world-view. I think to do this you need to stop being just an observer and actually immerse yourself in the productivity of a place.  I had much richer experiences working, studying and meditating than visiting Christ the Redentor with other tourists. You should approach another country not as a spy gathering intelligence but as an apprentice, practicing living in another world. If you are in Brazil you need to be a Brazilian for a while. Otherwise the benefits of your journey may be superficial and short-lived.