throughout
2006, i´ve sent random emails describing what i´m up to. maybe you´ve
enjoyed them, maybe you haven´t.. regardless, i get the feeling that i
won´t be sending another groupmail for a while, and thought i´d end
this spate with random snippets from other people´s lives, since you´ve
only really heard from mine over the last year. i get such a buzz from
meeting other people, even if they turn out to
be absolute wankers (fortunately, the non-wankers to wankers ratio is
about 99:1), and this is only a *tiny* sample of who i´ve met since
setting foot on this continent. be good all of you, and don´t do
anything i wouldn´t do...
love,
yuen
30 years ago, Raúl fell quite ill and was bedridden for a few
months. He lived in a small village and lost contact with his
then-girlfriend, who unfortunately didn´t have the approval of his
family. (She tried to get in touch with him, but his brothers told her
that he didn´t want to see her.) Raúl got married, had 4 kids, but
throughout the marriage often thought about his childhood sweetheart,
sometimes to the point of crying himself to sleep. His wife knew about
her, but thought that it was a phase and that Raúl would forget.
Eventually though, the marriage disintegrated. 9 months ago, by chance
or fate, the childhood sweetheart bumped into Raúl´s mum on the other
side of the country, and a week ago, Raúl worked his last working day
on this side of the country to go and live with her. They´re in their
50s, they know it´s too late to have a family, but they know that they
want to spend the rest of their lives together.
For the most
part of his 36 years, Anibal has been the type of guy who´s not scared
of anything. 3 years ago, he had a son. 3 weeks ago, the milkbar that
he has in the front section of his house got held up. This gave him
some food for thought, and now he´s scared of a lot of things, for his
kid´s sake.
In
their respective youths, Laura, Jorge, and Chango did the whole
travelling thing. They´ve done the walking 10km to get to the nearest
hostel, they´ve slept under bridges, or in abandonned houses, they´ve
gone days without eating. They´ve made friends who they´ve lost contact
with as soon as they left them, they´ve made friends who they´re still
in contact with, and they´ve met the requisite morons that exist all
over the world. They´ve scaled mountains, seen the sights, and have
heaps of memories. For various reasons, they´ve stopped the active
travelling, and are each doing their own passive travelling: Laura and
Chango have a campsite and a youth hostel respectively, and Jorge gives
lifts to backpackers whenever he can, and they *all* light up when they
start talking about travels and sharing experiences.
Juan´s
been globe-trotting for 4 years, and is thinking that at 30yo, maybe he
should start thinking about settling down for a more ´standard´ life.
His latest conquest, an Argentine girl, wants to stay in Argentina, and
he likes her enough to stay with her *if* he was already going to stay
in the country. But he´s always thought he´d prefer going to Australia
to set up a business there. On the other hand, she´s a good girl, she´d
make a good life companion, she´s great in bed.. But he´s not even sure
if he *does* want to give up the travelling hat.. what should he do??
A woman in her late 30s, sitting next to me on a cross-country bus, was writing a letter. i couldn´t help but read parts, ´it´s
hard to believe that this is the last time i´m going to be making this
journey ... i don´t understand why ... i packed your clothes away last
night, i can still smell you in the house ... do you remember that time
in Salta? ... ´
and
then there are those times where you can only guess at what´s happened,
like the type of experience which would prompt someone to grafitti in
metre-high letters: ´THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES ME HAPPY IS KNOWING THAT
YOU´RE GOING TO ROT IN HELL´
(more photos: 'people' gallery)
