Today, I wrote a kind of creative version of what my days here feel like. I did not write it originally with the intention of posting it here, but I thought that you might appreciate it anyway. 

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I've been to the beach before, but I've never lived by the ocean. I like to walk next to it late at night. The waves are powerful and rhythmic, providing a type of stillness through their incessant motion.

 

Each morning, I pass a stretch of rice paddies on my way to school. Because of their novelty to me, rice paddies in the morning seem every bit as fascinating as the ocean at night. I would like to spend a day working in them to feel the sun beating down on my face, the sweat stinging in my eyes, and the mud in between my toes.

 

I envy the paddy workers because they surely go to bed each night with the deep satisfaction known only to those who labor outside. I envy them further because they seem to posses a special intimacy with the earth.

 

In the afternoon, I go to the home for the severely disabled orphans. This place is filled with foul breath, blank stares, and urine collecting in bags.

 

This I expected. What I am surprised by is how quickly I have come to love them, how much it pains me to see their discomfort, and how much joy they can bring me through their laughter.

 

In the evening, I teach English at a night school for street kids. Some of them are astonishingly bright, and I often forget that they spend the day begging and selling cigarettes. Today, however, I did not forget for a minute. Today, we made Christmas cards, and I saw the kids fight over the scissors, glue, and glitter with ferocity and stealth unknown to children that grew up depending an adults.

 

Each night before falling asleep, I read a little bit of many different books. I search my room for bugs that would come to attack me in the darkness after I turn off my light. I lie down on my firm mattress on the floor, and I think about the very different world of Cambridge Massachusetts that I will return to next September. I think about the people that I miss, and I wonder if they will be different when I get back. I know that I am different already. Eventually, I fall asleep.