Colombia

Richard W. Frank

Colombia

From: Richard Frank

Date: September 15, 2001

Subject: new email address

"-It always surprises me to notice how short a time is taken by events that have been so long in coming. In war, in love, in history, in art, and in everybody's life, the long preparation, conscious or unconscious, rushes to its climax and is gone. The cleverness of living is to distribute climaxes to savour them beforehand and to remember them after in such a way that the labor of their making is lightened and the memory of their passing is without regret. “

-Freya Stark, The Coast of Incense

Morning! Just a quick note to let you know that I have changed e-mail addresses due to hotmail chronically loosing or erasing my messages. My new and improved is: richardwfrank (at) yahoo.com

As for me....been hard at work breaking in my hammock, perfecting my tan, practicing my rumba, and opening coconuts on the warm prelapsarian Caribbean shores of Playa Blanca. Due to such travails I ran out of sun block, books and (most importantly) pesos so I have reluctantly returned to Cartagena (Colombia) to run errands, catch up on e-mail, apologize for the lack of rambling and verbose group letters, and get myself ready for returning to the good 'ol US of A.

Yep, after seven years, one month, and nine or ten days, seven continents, seventy countries, and almost every form of transportation I feel as if I have completed my grandiose and mono-maniacal goal to ""see the world."" It took a bit longer than planned....but, hey, anything worth doing....

Sayyid Abdulla the Yemeni watchmaker put it best: "There are five reasons to travel—to leave one's troubles behind; to earn a living; to acquire learning; to practice good manners; and to meet honorable men." My reasons at one time or another have probably encompassed all five. Since I took that one way ticket to London the day I graduated university, I have had the luck to meet some amazing people (you know who you are) and experience the sublime and the absurd, impossible adventures and mind-numbing boredom. I would not have survived had it not been for the kindness, generosity, and laundry facilities of countless people from London to Lhasa, Zanzibar to Xining. Now that I am at the end of my last two years of vagabonding with $84.71 in my checking account and a very dog-eared passport I remember my Cicero: "Is it not the height of absurdity for a traveler to think he needs more funds for his journey when it is nearly over." ...It wouldn't hurt.

As I ponder my immanent return to the states (over Cuban cigars and Colombian espresso, of course...one must gather rosebuds...), it is brought home to me that while time might seem to stand still as seasons, countries, and hemispheres melted into one another; it keeps on trucking. The serious illness of a family member, my sister's and close friends' weddings, economic uncertainty (I left at the beginning of the New Economy and return to find it long dead), and the recent bombings are only the most obvious examples.

When America and the world tries to digest the events of the last week, the US seems to be circling the wagons and headed for a war likely to be different than any before seen. One fact has been drummed into me from talking to Brahmins and campesinos, fellow travelers and NGO personnel: as the most powerful and democratic nation on earth (...with the possible exception of Sweden) we have an unique and difficult role to play economically, diplomatically, and militarily. They desire the wealth and freedom while shrinking from our unilateral and often heavy-handed actions abroad.

Yanks often appear in the world media as a diverse, apathetic, spoiled, and quarrelsome bunch concerned with their own problems and entertainment and retreating into isolationism in a time where the rest of the world needs us to be engaged and informed. Yet it is precisely because our faults are so apparent that it is easy for these latest murderers to forget our strengths. We will find those that planned these attacks and they will be brought to justice. We must make the best of a horrible situation and hold ourselves to a higher standard than our enemies. There must be an example of our resilience as well as our wisdom and justice. I would tell Bush and his generals to reread their Confucius- govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish: Don't overdo it.""

My eyes are going bleary in front of this greasy back-alley cyber cafe computer screen and my fingers are cramping from typing. You know when I get started.....Wiggenstein was right: once we have learned to use words, we must be forever using them. I look forward to hear from you and will let you know when I get a real address and get set up in Boston for one and all to visit yet another former traveler turned graduate student.

Everyone in LA and Boston be warned....I'm a comin'!

Now, I must get back to those coconuts....see, the key (as with most things) is to have a big enough stick.

Busy cutting off my dreads and jewelry and burning my Israeli rave/travel clothes,

Rich

“If you can say 'enough' you are lost. Always increase, always progress, always go forward, step not on the way, turn not back, turn not aside.”

-St. Augustine. Another dude who didn't know when to stop writing.

Settling into Boston

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