i want to go to Ecuador :(

for the last couple of weeks i’ve been thinking about going back to Ecuador, like its something i need to do before i get to be too old to really appreciate what it is to set foot in a place before i consider it to be just a place for “vacationing”  i know that my tia Paola just visited; my cousin Ricky, my brother Ivan and our friend Simon are visiting during the new year and I am insanely jealous.

I can only blame myself.  i was asked by my brother about 3 or 4 years ago to tag along with him, and I simply said no.  I wish i had an explanation for this.  I think it was because i thought it would be too boring, that in the end i would still be dependant on my uncle and aunts with day-to-day situations (walking around, sightseeing, transportation, etc.)  Ideally i want to go by myself.  obviously it would be super-rude to go to Ecuador without touching base with relatives, so i guess i wanted to avoid it altogether. 

I wonder why it is that now i’m having these thoughts.  my financial suck-ness could not get worse in the matters of surplus cash, so even a domestic trip i would consider out of the question unless i didn’t mind being broke for a month.  the immigrant in me pictures a reverse diaspora where many like me, who have lived most of their lives in another country, would like to come back for a couple of weeks and see what comes of it.  but ultimately there’s a huge apprehensiveness (is this even a word?) on my part.  Ecuador never really belonged to me or vice versa, the same way I don’t necessarily belong here, even though I am a U.S. citizen.  For anyone who might think I’m weird for this, i believe Nationalism as a concept is something of a farce, a tool used for political purposes only to let you down in the long run.

I had a dream last night where my brother Ivan’s sister was here in the States on military leave or break (confusion sets in when i couldn’t identify what country she was fighting for).  She had just come from Iraq and found her way to Pennsylvania.  My brother insisted we go visit her.  By the time i woke up, I never did get to see her.  Yet I have this mental image of what she may look like, and at this point it is hard as hell to illustrate that into words.  To me it’s just a face, it may be a memory of a picture I may have seen some years back. 

that dream makes so much more sense to me now than it did eight hours back.