Christmas morning — Essaouira, Morocco

I smelled the boat before I heard it: the salty, sour, oppressive tang of fish guts. I choked on my breath. Does nobody else smell this? I scanned the dock for someone else wrinkling their nose, only to find everyone breathing normally. So, I too pretended that sour diesel belonged in my lungs just as much as any other air.

I heard the boat before I saw it. A fear of birds made sudden sense as I ducked below hundreds of seagulls shrieking and colliding, wings slicing so close that I felt the slap of their feathers against my ear.

After the stench, and the birds, rested the boat. Fishermen sprayed down the dock and picked at the blood-red net. My lips curled into a smirk. If I was going to spend Christmas in Morocco, it would be here.

When I told people that I would spend Christmas in Morocco — a country that didn’t celebrate Christmas — I fielded blank stares and gentle protests.

How about the Christmas markets in Germany?, suggested a European friend that I’d met in Argentina.

Come with me to Rome!, offered an American soon leaving Marrakesh.

I refused. I wasn’t giddy for ornate cathedrals or twinkling markets. Instead, I craved a new Christmas — one that belonged to nobody but me, empty of ritual. I would touch the sand on December 25 and smile slyly; Christmas would be a secret I’d whisper only to those I chose to share it with.

At the dock, I didn’t hear Christmas — just the daily percussion of bargaining and food scales. I dangled my feet over the Atlantic. Seagulls ducked and swayed while I sat atop the walls of a fortress that once protected the city.

In the evening, I whispered Merry Christmas to friends across an open-air dinner table, feet planted on a cobblestone walkway. We shared tagines filled with chicken and lamb before exchanging tiny trinkets we’d discovered in the medina. On our walk home, we spotted tinsel and plastic Christmas trees strung outside an innocent basement bar. Christmas… in Morocco?, we said to each other. I looked through the doorway, and Essaouira blurred.

We giggled past the mistletoe and drank shots with a man in a pirate costume, feet stomping along to live reggae music with strangers.

Sheltered in this basement, I shouted: Merry Christmas! — a secret just for us.

Postcards is a (new) series of micro-essays from the places I’ve once called home, each shaped by a photo. If you’re looking for more, explore my longer essays: on climbing a mountain in Nepal, why some strangers are kind, my Eritrean heritage, and saying goodbye.

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I boarded an 18-hour sleeper bus from Iguazú Falls to São Paulo, tracing the goosebumps on my arms from the blasting AC. Two guys from Rio sang, “Bem viiiinda,” as I found my seat, their words melting even in frigid air.

I smiled warmly, but my throat recoiled.

I repeated their words until I connected “bem vinda,” to Spanish’s “bienvenida.” Welcome. Still, I didn’t hear the music.

People said Brazilians sang when they spoke — that it was rhythmic, warm, musical. But what I heard was vowels collapsing onto each other. A language without the crisp edges of Spanish, or the tight corners of English. This sounded like watercolor, when all I had known was ink. And for 18 hours, I couldn’t find the melody.

I will hate this language forever, I thought, teeth clenched somewhere between Iguazú and São Paulo.

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A year later, I returned to Brasil — but only because I had nowhere else to go.

I flew to Brasil from Sarajevo, frantically fleeing the frat boy vibes of ‘European summer.’ Brasil brought me back to my favorite continent, with so much left to explore.

Prove yourself to me, I dared Brasil. Make the most of your second chance.

"Tudo bem?,” a cashier asked me in Florianópolis, an almost-island off of Brasil’s southern coast.

“Tudo bem. Tudo bem?,” I replied, a phrase that fell out of my mouth on reflex.

And so began all of the ways that I settled into Brasil. I watched YouTube videos in my studio apartment that taught me to say, “can I try this?,” and “where is the bathroom?” I spent sunny afternoons staring at the Atlantic, rushing into too-cold waters. I filled grocery bags with caju juice and açai. But still, I dreamed of running off to Buenos Aires — a city I understood, only a bus ride away.

Until, slowly, I began to hear it.

Not all at once, but in moments:

• A stranger in a coffee shop teaching me when an “r” turns into an “h” and when it rolls;

• A friend calling me carinha in a voice note, with affection that didn’t need translation;

• Someone teaching me the word cafuné — the act of running your fingers through someone’s hair.

Or maybe, it was the 37th “Tudo bem?”

Not just how are you, but: are you good?, are we good?, isn’t life good?

The noise turned into rhythm. I didn’t understand the words, but I began to hear the music beneath them.

So I joined the chorus, off-beat and off-key.

And I began to ask myself: why were we singing?

Why did Brasilian Portuguese sound so different than its Portuguese mother?

In Lisbon, my host explained the differences to me at his kitchen table. Obrigada, or thank you: in Portugal, the ending is tight, almost swallowed. In Brasil, it opens like a flower.

But why?

One theory is this: climate shapes sound. In humid places, sound floats. Vowels stretch, breaths extend, and consonants soften. In dry places, sounds snap shut, because dry vocal cords can’t sing.

It made sense. Every language I’d known before — the American English of Chicago, the Tigrinya of the Eritrean highlands, the Spanish of the Andes — came from dry air. They were shaped by places where sound doesn’t linger.

But the more I listened, the more I saw: climate shaped sound, but culture shaped song.

Portuguese didn’t float across the Atlantic and warm itself in the sun. It morphed and changed in the many mouths that spoke it.

One of my closest friends in Brasil used to be a history teacher. He isn’t anymore, but he loved to teach me about Brasil’s layers — migration, loss, resistance.

And I wondered, did language remember that?

So I began to notice how Indigenous languages, like Tupi, gave Brasilian Portuguese its soft consonants, nasal vowels, and unique vocabulary. And how Afro-Brazilians — forced onto this land — infused the language with rhythm and melody, drawn from Yoruba, Bantu, and other West African languages shaped in equally warm air.

These weren’t peaceful mergers. They were voices meant to be erased. But the melodies stayed.

And I went back to my friend, the history teacher, who told me that today’s Brasilian Portuguese echoes not just them, but the French, the Dutch, the Italians — all those who arrived and became, forever or for a moment, Brasilian.

In Portugal, speech is tight, fast, and efficient — built for cold winds and crowded cities. But in Brasil, words stretched across vast lands. Music — samba, forró, bossa nova — folds back into the language until song and speech blur.

Sound travels freely. There’s no reason to speak small, so people don’t.

Because the music didn’t live in the language; it lived in how people used it.

In São Paulo, I went to a salon to get my hair braided.

"Oi, linda! Tudo bem? Entra, entra!" (Hey, beautiful! All good? Come in, come in!), a stylist said to me, her voice rising like a melody as her customers filled the space with laughter. When I didn’t know what I wanted for breakfast, they ordered me everything: tapioca, pão de queijo, bolo. They clapped as I tried each one, and my face flushed.

“Oi, querida,” someone else said to me as she kissed me once on each cheek. This was Brasil’s casual intimacy, the way that amor, querida, linda — love, dear, beautiful — are shared like pocket change between friends and strangers. I stumbled over my words, not knowing how to say amor back without sounding like I was playing a part.

Brasil’s culture, too, was shaped by the warm air. Warmth — like vowels — stretched longer here.

And in every tudo bem, I hear it.

Not, how are you?

But, are you good?

Are we good?

Isn’t life good?

As I traveled around Brasil, I heard the playlist — same language, different tempos.

In Rio de Janeiro, it’s samba. Every word flirts, and s turns into sh. Amoooooor, Cariocas call out as they walk to the beach.

In São Paulo, it’s jazz. The words move quickly. Paulistas have meetings to run and places to be, but they’ll remember your name. Share a book. Bring you a coffee.

In Belo Horizonte, it’s a ballad. In true Mineiro hospitality, they invite you into their story — intimate, melodic, and unhurried.

And in Salvador, it’s drums. Baianos speak in rhythm, and conversations feel choreographed — nodding heads, swaying arms. Their kindness doesn’t simmer; like percussion, it bursts.

I will hate this language forever, I had thought, teeth clenched somewhere between Iguazu and São Paulo.

But now, I eavesdrop on conversations in Portuguese as I walk into my weekly forró class. I sing along to samba and MBP in my kitchen. I send choppy voice notes across continents, smiling as my friends’ voices sing back to me.

My accent still sharpens words that should blur. My words grate on my ears, like a parrot with a head cold.

But I remember how sound travels freely in Brasil. I remember the heat, the rhythm, the people who didn’t speak small. And so I continue singing.

Very Lost is about my travel sabbatical — and now, about returning home. If you’re new here, check out some of my most popular essays: on climbing a mountain in Nepal, why some strangers are kind, my Eritrean heritage, and saying goodbye.

I swayed in a hammock, tucked in the corner of a shared rooftop in Mexico. It had been three months since I’d ended my sabbatical, and I needed to return. I’d never been to Mexico, but this – this felt familiar. The shared bathrooms, the instant friendships, the quiet exhilaration of being someplace so unfamiliar.

One hand shielded my face from the Oaxacan sun, the other texted back a friend from Brazil. I rushed through all the unanswered messages, laughed at the Instagram reels he’d sent over. I told him I was spending January in Mexico, the sun was shining, and I’m sorry it had taken so long to respond.

“EUA (USA) made you sick, MX (Mexico) was the cure,” he joked. I smiled, because it felt easy to believe. My return to Seattle had flattened me; the US felt dull. He had noticed, and now I noticed, too. But in Mexico, I met who I had become while abroad. Everything looked glittery, and jokes flowed easier.

But I still couldn’t write.

I had returned to Seattle months ago, pretending to rebuild. I passed by bars I remembered from last decade, set up artificial sunlight for cloudy afternoons. Most weeks, I would tell myself: this is the week I’ll write. As soon as I unpack this box. As soon as I get to know my boss. As soon as I find the right grocery store. As soon as I...

I pleaded with my brain to hold on to all of the essays and opinions and observations that were spilling out of me. I thought about the writing community I had made, about how I missed their thoughts and their words and I wanted to read what they were writing, too. I would poke my head in. I would return. I was just one weekend away. I just needed a little more time.

Back in Oaxaca, I sat again in the hammock. I swayed, and I swayed, and I wondered: In Oaxaca, will I write? And more importantly, why haven’t I been able to write since I returned?

Was it because of Sylvia Plath’s fig tree?

I read The Bell Jar years ago, and while I never loved it as much as everyone else did, I remembered the fig tree. Esther sees a life full of choices - love, career, adventure, fame - and freezes. She waits too long, and the figs rot.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree … One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America … I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

– Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

My travels were a long, indulgent gaze at this tree. I reached for the figs. I imagined their flavor. I held them for a moment. But I never picked.

I reached first for the life of a traveler – South America, then Europe, then Asia. At some point, I became a writer. In Nepal, I wondered if I should join a Buddhist monastery. In Brazil, I met someone who walked to the beach every day and told me, “This is what life should be.” In Bulgaria, I applied to jobs in Seattle, Spain, Istanbul, Dubai. I kept reaching.

Eventually, I picked a fig. But it wasn't one of the exotic, tempting figs whose flavor I had dreamt of. It was a fig that tasted familiar, one I’d eaten before. And as I settled into my life in Seattle, I noticed all the other figs starting to wrinkle.

And so, what do I write? Which figs do I write about?

I would return to that hammock in Oaxaca again and again, breathless and inspired, but I would never write. I would spend a month in Oaxaca, and then fly to Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, and Brazil… looking to reunite with who I was when I had stood in front of the fig tree.

And in moments, the version of me that I was looking for met me there. We went together to the mountains of Mexico, where my friends and I sat in the dirt, ate lollipops and magic mushrooms, and watched the sunset. We picked out produce in the market, prepping for the meals we’d make alongside others in our beautiful, rooftop kitchen. We sang together – at the top of our lungs – in the streets of Brazil, and hugged friends who had only met the version of us that we loved. We had so much to ask, and so much to say.

But in other moments, she waved from afar. She peeked over my shoulder as I made notes in my phone, promising myself that I’d write them out next week. She gave me the side eye when I decided to leave Brazil sooner than I had planned, because proving myself in a new job became more important. She watched with concern as I returned to Seattle again, going on friend dates and date dates and wondering why I couldn’t connect with anyone in the ways that I had become used to.

I didn’t know who I was. Was I her? Was I not? Was I someone wholly new, and I hadn’t figured her out yet? And so, I abandoned Very Lost, and the community I had built here. Writing forces you to look at yourself, and I never felt brave enough to look at myself with conviction. I didn’t have a story that felt meaningful, because I had struggled to find meaning.

Because my greatest fear had always been: what if there was no meaning?

I was afraid I’d chosen wrong. That I’d wasted time abroad. That I’d come home too changed to belong, or not changed enough to stay gone. Will looking too closely only make me miss a story that has ended?

So, I couldn’t write. I let the memories fade, and then felt guilty about them fading. And as the weeks turned into months, I felt too guilty to return here. Maybe I wasn’t a writer anymore. Maybe that story had ended, too.

I thought I would write in Brazil, in Washington D.C., in Mexico, but I’m writing this from home – in Seattle – staring at a half-unpacked suitcase that I trip over when I walk to the kitchen. Because an unpacked suitcase is a choice too, isn’t it? It’s the end of a story.

And even though I’m not ready for that ending, I’m no longer one week away. I’m here, sitting with who I was.

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Thanks for reading Very Lost! If you’re new here, check out some of my most popular essays: on climbing a mountain in Nepal, why some strangers are kind, my Eritrean heritage, and saying goodbye.

Very Lost is about my travel sabbatical — and now, about returning home. Subscribe to read monthly-ish essays on travel, identity, and in-betweenness.

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If by lived, I could say her office — a repurposed house boat floating on a dock in Eastlake, or Westlake, one of the posh neighborhoods hugging Seattle's Lake Union.

I step onto the boat, and it shifts slightly. I regain my composure, and I introduce myself.

I had a panic attack on the way to work, I confess to my new therapist as I stare out the window.

After therapy, I tell my friend L. that my therapist lives on the water. That's incredible, she tells me. Did you know that water calms us?1

I only spend three sessions with the therapist on the water, quickly growing sick of her telling me to breathe this way, and that way, when I knew how to breathe. But I remember what L. tells me, that water calms us, and I start chasing water.

Years later, I return back to the water — in another hemisphere, on another ocean.

I took the last transcontinental flight of my sabbatical over a month ago, flying from Sarajevo to São Paulo. I'll settle here, I decided. A year earlier, I had spent 10 months in South America, since then spinning stories about alternate lives I’d make on my new favorite continent. And with my return, Brazil became the first country — besides my homeland of Eritrea — that I've ever intentionally returned to. There's too much to see, I usually think, but something about returning felt so sweet.

So for a month I lived in Florianópolis (better known as Floripa), an island off of Brazil's southern coast. I walk 200 meters from my studio apartment to the crashing waves of the Atlantic, passing by blonde-haired horses and over waving sand dunes. I relish the salty wind and the cool sand of Brazilian winter.

I charm locals by asking them, "what's your favorite beach on the island?" One takes me to Joaquina, hiking barefoot up high dunes and through rainwater lagoons until we reach the final rock cliff, looking towards Africa. Another takes me to Jurere, a resort beach of western tourists and high class shopping. And another watches the moonrise with me at Campeche, a monthly tradition of friends, families, and lovers watching the full moon break above the ocean's horizon.

One afternoon, I marvel at the palm trees outside my window, knowing my visit is temporary. Floripa has welcomed me, but it is not home.

I had returned to Brazil to practice returning.

After a year and a half of travel, I was tired. It was time to settle, and I had reluctantly accepted that — more likely than not — this would mean a return to the United States.

My first attempts at return were in April. After several rounds of interviews at two US tech companies, I lost my breath. I felt panic in my chest. So, I stopped. I backpacked the Balkans: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia.

And then, I flew to Brazil. Brazil was a reset.

I applied to five jobs a day from my studio apartment in Floripa. When my heart quickened, I took off my shoes and ran into the sand dunes. With each step, I buried myself in the sand a little bit deeper. I watched how the waves charged forward and then retracted, how they stretched to reach just a little bit further than they had come before.

And then, I got interviews. In one week, I juggled 9 interviews with three companies. My eyes darted between notes and time slots, terrified of confusing one interviewer with the other.

Whenever I found an hour to spare, I walked back to the water. I sat, legs extended, on the beach log that marked the trail back to my apartment. Catching the sun's warmth with my palms, I watched as the waves returned back to me.

I waited for my interview results by the water, pacing my breath with the ocean's movement. I celebrated two job offers, leapfrogging through the chilling water to shock myself into a decision. I accepted my equally chilling fate by the water — that I will be returning to the United States, and that I will need to work hard to make it home again.

Now, I'll return back to the waters of the Pacific.

I'll take the flight that officially ends my sabbatical, from São Paulo to Seattle. I'll sign an apartment lease, balance work calls with Portuguese classes, cook dinner in an air fryer.

And I have struggled to share this, to find the words to update you here. Because though I am going home, I will still be VERY LOST. I will still have to re-adjust and rebuild in the United States. I will still have to publish the unwritten travel stories on my to-write list. I will still have to examine who I've become after I've left and returned. And I’ll do that here, with you.

I think of the waves leaving and then returning, never exactly the same.

Thank you for reading VERY LOST. Here are a few other articles that I’ve loved lately:

• Issue 3 of Unlocked, which was curated by (+ edited by ), includes my last essay in its monthly roundup of BIPOC voices.

• I thought of ’s recent essay, Am I Still A Woman Who Wanders?, as she also examines what it’s like to plant roots again.

• I loved the style and substance of ’s Between Two Worlds: Kamala Harris and the Complexities of Navigating a Mixed Race Identity.

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Heads up: The essay below is heavy. It focuses on the 1992 - 1995 Bosnian Genocide, which I spent a considerable amount of time learning while I was in Sarajevo. If you choose to keep reading, thank you.

The man who took my clothes had no hands.

This is my introduction to Sarajevo, a city that had spent 44 months under siege, less than 30 years ago.

Survivors walk around the city —some who were only children then— with missing shins and long-gone arms. Bullet holes pockmark the buildings along Sarajevo's main thoroughway. Don't blame us if we don't smile at you, one woman tells me kindly. We all have so much trauma.

Sometimes, as I walk through Sarajevo's Baščaršija, or Turkish bazaar area, I forget this. I look wide-eyed at the tourist stands, the baklava shops, and the dominating, medieval architecture. Then, I remember.

I hand over my laundry to the man with no hands. He pushes them into a laundry basket with sharpie-drawn lines labeled 10, 20, 30. I give him 10 euros.

I spend the rest of the day visiting four —yes, four— genocide museums. That evening, our hostel owner, Igor, would greet my trembling lip with a Didn't I warn you not to do that?, followed by several shots of rakia, Eastern Europe’s favorite spirit. I would need it.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

My first evening in Sarajevo, I walk into our hostel’s common area, throwing down my backpack and crossing my legs on a floor cushion. My accent reveals my nationality, and one of my new hostel mates says, Your country is a mess right now, isn’t it?

I purse my lips, exhausted from my train ride, trying to formulate the best way to say, well, yes, while using as little energy as possible. Igor, thankfully, overhears our conversation. He exhales his vape pen and pops in from the patio’s open door.

You think America is bad? Have I told you about our system here?, he says.

Bosnia is made up of two separate entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (majority Bosniak), and the Republika Srpska (majority Serb). Sarajevo, the capital, is divided between them. The Republika Srpska flies the Serbian flag instead of the Bosnian one — they even had to switch it out before a visit from Biden.

That isn’t even the most confusing part. The country is led by three presidents representing three ethnic groups: Bosniaks (predominantly Muslim), Serbs (predominantly Serbian Orthodox), and Croats (predominantly Catholic). All three presidents must agree to enact policy — a strategy meant to prevent another civil war.

The only thing they’ve ever agreed on was cancelling Pride, Igor tells us, explaining Bosnia's convoluted system over another round of rakia. I look up at the rainbow flag hanging above the patio’s sliding doors.

The Bosnian Genocide

Back at the laundromat, I walk back to the hostel to meet two others. We walk the three blocks to Sarajevo’s Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, promising each other emotional support as we braced ourselves for the visit.

I enter the first exhibit. Pictures of battered bodies line every wall. First-person stories lay below, painting the vivid memories of survivors. I inhale, and hold my breath. Don't read everything, you won't be able to handle it, Igor had warned us. I ignore his advice, until my stomach splits open and I can't ignore it anymore.

I don’t know much about the Bosnian Genocide. I try to make sense of the timeline, categorizing it against every other mass tragedy I’ve been forced to learn of.

In 1992, Bosnia & Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia, much to th displeasure of its Serb population. The Bosnian Genocide covers the widespread ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks (and, to some extent, Croats) by the Serbs during the 1992 - 1995 Bosnian war. Bosniaks are killed and terrorized en masse. Mass graves litter the country, from border to border. Over 8,000 children are born from genocidal rape, many of whom are looking for their fathers today. What kind of feelings do you have for a father born from this?, I wonder.

The most notable tragedy of the Bosnian War was the Srebrenica Massacre, where over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were murdered in the town of Srebenica over six days. Snapshots of these victims, smiling and in their best dressed, line the first exhibit of Gallery 11/07/95. Tarik Samarah, a Bosnian and Sudanese photographer, captures stills of loss, of hope, of heartbreak in Srebrenica’s aftermath. I look at the photos of Srebrenica’s survivors taking the bus, drawing blood for DNA tests, and digging through the rubble for pieces of their loved ones. I circle the exhibit again and again. I stare at this picture of a mother and her child, clinging to a toy, and I hope with such silliness that my presence here will make them feel less alone.

The irony was that Srebrenica, a majority Bosniak Muslim town, had been declared a UN 'safe zone.' But when the Serbs attacked Srebrenica, Dutch peacekeeping soldiers didn’t offer citizens shelter or protection. In contrast, when the same Serb army attacked the town of Bihać near the Croatian border, French forces allowed Croat civilians into their compound, preventing a massacre.

Why?, is the question that echoes.

Denial is an integral part of genocide and includes the secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on, and destruction of evidence of mass killings. Complete annihilation of a people requires the banishment of recollection and suffocation of remembrance. Falsification, deception, and half-truths reduce what was, to what might have been or perhaps what was not at all.
Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide

The Siege of Sarajevo

I leave the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide alone. Across the street sits the Siege of Sarajevo Museum, a combo ticket I had already committed to. I enter, promising myself not to read everything, because I already know I can't handle it.

I piece together the details of the siege. It stretched across 1,425 days — from April 1992 to February 1996 — the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. Serb forces deliberately targeted civilians with sniper shots and grenades; over 13,000 people were murdered. During the siege, Serb forces withheld gas, electricity, medical supplies, and water for months at a time — a strategy we’re seeing repeat throughout history.

To understand the siege of Sarajevo, you must understand how it is built, I read on a screen in the Siege of Sarajevo Museum.

When I leave the museum, I look around. Sarajevo sits in a basin, surrounded by hilltops and mountain ledges where the Serb army stationed, readying their aim at citizens walking the streets. I look up at the Yellow Fortress, where tourists and teenagers now climb to for sunset, and imagine a sniper there, taking aim at my forehead.

In the period covered in this indictment, there was no safe place for the people of Sarajevo, not at home, school, hospital, from a deliberate attack. Prosecutors Summary, Indictment against General Galic, ICTY

IV. A Children's War

Throughout the war, Serb forces shelled children's wards in hospitals daily; on one of the siege's first days, they destroyed Sarajevo's maternity ward.

All the genocide museums in Sarajevo tell the stories of children targeted by Serb forces as they played outside, walked to school, or slept at home. One panel tells the story of a boy who wasn't allowed to play outside one day, watching from his bedroom window as his friends are killed by a grenade. Another tells of a girl who saw a grenade fall on her parents, her grandmother holding her back from running out to 'save' them.

I walk into the War Childhood Museum, my third museum of the day, finding comfort in the Museum's child-friendly approach in portraying war from the eyes of children. Exhibits highlight the items that brought children comfort: a bright blue stuffed bunny, a can of biscuits, a first pair of Levi's.

Beside fragments of a playground set, Haris Barimarc tells the story of another close call:

And just before we started to play, a grenade hit that structure we had just moved away from. It was 2:50pm. The detonation knocked me to the ground and I lost consciousness... On that day, Azmir Bradarac (1976), Sanela Hadžiomerović (1978), Aldina Čolpa (1979), and Admir Ċolpa (1985) were killed at those chin-up bars. Dženita Hadžiomerović, Adriana Gilgorijević, and I, Haris Barimarc, were all wounded by the shrapnel.
War Childhood Museum

I move onwards, and stand solemnly for several moments in front of the contemporary exhibit: three items from children of Palestine and three from children of Ukraine.

I think about how the Bosnian genocide is often framed as a European anomaly. Can you believe this happened in Europe?, one tour guide had told me. On a civilized continent like ours?, seem to be the words underneath.

I imagine a future where, I hope, Sarajevo has healed, but another city is flooded with adults — only children at the time — with missing shins, long gone arms, yet again. I wonder how long it takes for a tragedy to become a history, a 'lesson learned,' a 'never again.’ I become angry that we have to wait for this. I become angry at the cycle.

I walk back to my hostel as the sun sets, texting a friend that I’m too nauseated to meet her for dinner.

You look bad, H. says to me as I sit down at the hostel’s kitchen table and give him a half-hearted smile. I tell him what I had been up to. Igor overhears our conversation from the patio, snickers at the emotional whiplashing I put myself through that day, and pours all of us shots of rakia.

In total, I spent 4 days in Sarajevo, much of it focused on war tourism. But still, Sarajevo — and Bosnia — has so much more to offer than its scars: beautiful architecture, glistening lakes, sweeping mountains.

The next afternoon, I sit on the patio with Igor, admitting that I felt guilty spending so much time on Bosnia's darkest moments. Was war tourism even ethical?, I asked him.

You Americans think too much, he laughs at me. We want what happened to be remembered.

We also want your money, he adds with a wry grin.

I relax.

You are now leaving the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, 1992-1995. Thank you for 'giving life' to human hearts that no longer beat. May those hearts lead you to times without pain, suffering, and cruelty towards each other.
Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide; Sarajevo, BiH

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Thank you for reading VERY LOST. A special thank you to those who have become paid patrons of VERY LOST, who receive paywalled essays and other perks.

Some reads from the past few weeks that I’ve loved:

• ’s essay on translated works and relationship with the poetry of her mother tongue

• ’s reflection on loveless games

• ’s memoir on the home she loves in a place that doesn’t love her back

After goodbyes in Sofia, I loaded myself onto a minibus to Skopje, Macedonia. In about two hours, we reached the Bulgaria-Macedonia border, driver ushering us out of the vehicle and rushing to find the immigration attendant on staff. I hid in the shade, making small talk with fellow passengers.

Have you been safe traveling all alone for so long?, asked a concerned Macedonian man after hearing how long I’d been wandering the world. Yes, I said. Mostly, it’s been fine. The other backpackers and I discuss where we’re staying and our plans in Skopje, before we’re finally beckoned out of the shade.

As we queue to step into a new bus on the other side, the Macedonian man walks back over to me. Your hostel is on the way to my house, he says. My wife is picking me up, you’ll come with us.

Confident that he wasn’t a murderer, I grinned at his unexpected kindness. His wife walked me to the door of my hostel, leaving her phone number. In case you need anything, she said.

Many times in the past year, I’ve been startled by the kindness of strangers; I’ve thought about why kindness, in the West, is so hard to find.

In Macedonia, I felt a kinship I didn’t expect. The history of Macedonia (which I learned while hiding from summer heat in the Museum of Macedonian Struggle) paralleled the history of societies I have long admired, including my own. It paralleled the societies that I run towards, because I’ve learned that resilience and shared struggle is what creates kindness.

For five centuries, Macedonia sat under the Ottoman Empire; for 80 years after that, it sat within Yugoslavia. The Museum of Macedonian Struggle focused on the last 100+ years of its quest for self-reliance, from the 1880s to 1990s.

One of Macedonia’s turning points was the Ilinden Uprising of 1903, an unsuccessful but critical moment in Macedonia’s fight for independence. The “gemidzii,” a group of young Macedonian anarchists, attacked foreign-funded facilities to draw global attention to the Macedonian cause — while prioritizing the protection of innocent life.

“Their sacrifice and faith in the righteousness of the chosen path made their deed immortal and left a lasting mark in the collective memory of the Macedonian people, showing that life without freedom is meaningless.”

—Ilinden Uprising exhibit, Museum of Macedonian Struggle

Ottoman rule proved to be ruthless and oppressive for Macedonians, with the combination of Turkish authoritarianism and local rebel groups creating a Macedonia that was “perpetually drenched in blood.”

After the Balkan States broke off from the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, self-determination for Macedonia became only more complicated. In the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), Macedonia was divided between Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria — a split that ignored the ethnic makeup of the region. It was absorbed into Yugoslavia following WWI, finally establishing its own republic within Yugoslavia after WWII. Throughout these wars, Macedonians continued to fight suppression of their language and culture, as well as rule from a communist dictatorship. Their resistance persisted until eventual independence in 1991.

The day before I walked through the Musuem, I wandered into a busy restaurant. The staff shuffled into order, pushing forward what I assumed to be their best English-speaking waiter to say hello. As I ate my gnocchi, he sat across from me during his breaks to bookmark the must-see places in Macedonia on my phone, ask about what brought me to his corner of the world, and make sure I knew exactly how to get to my next destination.

I watched him call the bus station for the third time, intent on getting me a reply to a question I hadn’t even asked of him. It was so kind.

I’ve often thought about how the kindest people I know are those lacking some facet of privilege. I’ve pondered about how empathy requires some knowledge of adversity. A 2016 study echoes my observation — people who have experienced setbacks become kinder, more compassionate members of society.1 The same was true, I theorized, for societies as a whole. Collective struggle creates collective empathy, collective systems of care. These collective systems are often forgotten in the world I grew up in, but not the worlds I choose to fling myself towards.

In Macedonia, the Ilinden Uprising — a symbol of unity and collective struggle — placed high value on shared responsibility. Habits of community reliance built during the Ottoman rule and Yugoslav era carried to today, with Macedonians leaping towards me to make sure I was cared for.2

How can I carry this kindness with me?, I wondered, thinking of all times this past year that a stranger’s compassion has startled me.

How can I remember to offer help so generously to strangers?

How do I tell shared stories of resilience in societies that can seem so fragmented by background or belief? Is there a shared history to tell?

How can I see adversity better myself, and help others to see it, so our shared empathy grows together?

How do I create the communities that startle me?

As I prepared to leave Skopje, I asked the woman running our hostel if she could help me get a taxi to the bus station.

You’ll come with me, she said to me with kind eyes. I’ll drive you.

Thanks for reading VERY LOST. A big thank you to my newest paid subscriber, . As generous people to continue to support me here, I’m revamping what I can offer paid subscribers. You can learn more here.

Here are a few other reads that I’ve loved lately:

• I curated the first issue of Unlocked, a publication showcasing work from BIPOC writers and creatives on Substack (the platform I use to send these newsletters).

• interviewed me for her publication, Freedom Focus — read it here.

• writes a complicated perspective on what it means to be both Black and gay, and how she now chooses to identify herself.

• wrote an explosive essay recently on the fallacy of living danishly, but her past essay from the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide truly captured my heart.

• My favorite thing from Black Music Month has been ’s essay on Childish Gambino and Tyler, the Creator dancing in the desert.

Hi, I’m Zefan — and this is VERY LOST.

VERY LOST is a space for people who feel different in different places — and are obsessed with why.

VERY LOST is not not a travel blog. I won’t convince you to visit Lisbon or Bali. I’m interested in how place shows us our own bravery, creates unexpected kindness in strangers, unlocks different versions of ourselves, or can feel like home in a moment.

I’m Zefan. After a Big Tech layoff, I spent two years living and traveling through 25 countries. As I tried to make sense of how these experiences were reshaping my identity, VERY LOST was born.

This space is where you’ll find:

• Stories centered on my lived experiences across 50 countries

• Essays rooted both in my Eritrean heritage and global wandering

• Reflections on how space and geography shape the people that we become

Thanks for getting lost with me. I’m glad you’re here, and excited about where we’ll go next.

—Zefan

Today is supposed to be my last day in Sofia, sad partings at the coliving hotel I had volunteered at — or, worked at in exchange for a room — for the last two months.

I sit at the bar after most have left, delaying the finale. Let me just charge my phone before I go, I tell the bartender. The most brutal reality of nomad life, I’ve learned, is the goodbyes. To leave parts of you as parting gifts in every new home you create, held by all the people who have kept it warm. My fingers clasp around Sofia’s parting gift, not ready to loosen my grip.

I send a text to a friend, telling him that, maybe, I will change my plans to stay in Sofia a little longer. I’ll just miss it too much, I think. And as soon as that message is sent, my phone stops working. I try to close my messaging app to open up Maps. I’m stuck. I try turning my phone off. It refuses. I try charging it. No, it tells me — it doesn’t want to leave Sofia either.

I look over at my friend J., a dad from Belgium making a new home in Bulgaria. Two weeks ago, J. had consoled me while I locked the door to my room for days, spiraling over a messed up job interview. I look to him now. How do I move without my phone?

J. and I spend the next hour walking around Sofia’s Studentski neighborhood, peering through phone shop windows for signs of life on a Saturday evening. We see K., an American who became my thought partner during the Kendrick vs. Drake beef. K. points us in another direction. Still, we find nothing. Knowing we’re out of hope for the night, we call M., a Sofia local who we remember used to repair phones. Sit tight for tonight, he says. I’ll pick up your phone in the morning.

A convenient excuse to drink until sunrise, J. gives me his room for the night. Another friend, S., offers me a place to stay for the rest of the week. With no reason to leave, I stay in Sofia a little longer.

The love tastes different in the homes you build as a nomad. Isolated, you cling to the friends you’ve made to make sense of a new world. Excited, you flash-create a lifetime of shared experiences to reminisce on. Unencumbered by who you should be, you reveal hidden secrets and in-process truths — because if they judge you for it, you’ll never see them again, and if they love you for it, you’ve found a kindred soul in this unknown place.

This community — this love — makes even the most unexpected places special. I had worried about my time in Eastern Europe, searching “Black + Eastern Europe” on Reddit for weeks prior to my arrival. I arrived cautiously into Bulgaria, with zero knowledge of the culture — looking for nothing and expecting even less. But while I was looking for nothing, I found complex flavors, unbelievable history, and the warmest people. I found hospitality that reminded me of cups of tea and second dinner plates. Bulgaria became a country I’d yearn to return to. It became a home.

Today is Thursday. Tomorrow, again, I will leave Sofia.

Yesterday, we gathered to say goodbye to another friend, H., flying back home to Brazil.

I hate this hour, she says, as we all nod in agreement.

I’m hoping you’ll be like Zefan, jokes T. We’ll think you’re leaving, but you’ll stay another week.

We all laugh, and I try to hold back my sadness. Grateful for my extra week, I still don’t want to leave Sofia.

But I think about my first night in Istanbul, heartbroken about how much I missed Nepal. Or when I sat on a plane to Portugal, terrified that I made a mistake by leaving Buenos Aires. Or my last night in Chachapoyas, after my friends and I had added night after night to our reservations, not wanting to leave our charming Peruvian mountain town. All of these places were also home.

So, I’ll leave Sofia tomorrow, with the hope that I’ll find home again. The most brutal reality of nomad life, I’ve learned, is the goodbyes.

A couple of days ago, I bathed in the romance of sitting on a European train while staring at Bulgarian countryside. On my mind lingered Eritrea’s upcoming independence day, as well as thoughts of belonging. My Eritrean identity had built the foundation of my paradigm. This means that, sometimes, I don’t feel like I belong to other communities I love.

As I thought about belonging, Nipsey Hussle’s Victory Lap jumped into my AirPods.

Nipsey, or Ermias Asghedom, had become an icon for American-born Eritreans, both in life and death. A Grammy-award winning rapper, entrepreneur, and community leader, he also dedicated his life to the predominantly Black American communities in South Los Angeles — and they revered him for it. He existed as both Eritrean and American, flawlessly.

When I see Ermias, I see the story of Eritrea, the spirit of the Eritrean people. He reminds me of how Eritrea shows up in me, and in all of us, no matter what soil our feet stand on.

Ghedli

Eritrea’s struggle for independence (1961 - 1991) is one of the longest armed struggles in the world.  After five decades of Italian colonization, Great Britain seized Eritrea after Italy’s loss in World War II. In their all-knowing wisdom (cue sarcasm), Great Britain and the United States federated Eritrea with Ethiopia, against the will of Eritrean parties pushing for a referendum. By the end of the decade, Eritrea’s largest university had birthed the Eritrean Liberation Movement. For the next thirty years, liberation parties used fiery spirit and guerrilla warfare to fight two superpower-backed Ethiopian regimes (a U.S.-backed monarchy, followed by a Russia-backed Marxist dictatorship). After thirty years, Eritrea won. Against all odds, we often shout to the world.

Eritrea’s armed resistance spans multiple generations. Every single family experienced loss in those 30 years, a weight heavily woven into our identity. This ghedli, this shared struggle, binds us.12

In Nipsey, I also saw ghedli. Growing up in Crenshaw, he spent his formative years engulfed by gang violence and turf wars. Eventually, he joined the Rollin’ 60s Crips.

“As gang members, as young dudes in the streets, especially in L.A., we’re the effect of a situation. We didn't wake up and create our own mindstate and our environment; we adapted our survival instincts,” said Nipsey.3

Ghedli means struggle, but it also means resilience. The resilience to survive, to adapt, and to prosper despite what you are given. Our tegadelti, our freedom fighters, refused to accept the environment they were given, despite the tremendous cost of resistance. Nipsey did the same.

Self Reliance

“Eritreans kneel on only two occasions: when we pray and when we shoot,” my father would say to coax bravery into me, quoting an Eritrean proverb born of the ghedli era.

My father, like Eritrea, champions one value before all else: self-reliance.

After decades of rule by the British, Italians, and Ottomans, Eritrea built an identity of never kneeling down, of never relying on anyone but herself. In the ghedli era, militias built self-reliant systems from the moment an area was liberated: schools, clinics, agricultural and water management systems. They ran their own underground networks across the country for food, healthcare, education, and communication. The resistance party that brought victory to Eritrea, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, strategized on how to get there without depending on external monetary or material support. Today, Eritrea’s self-reliance is still the cornerstone of both foreign and domestic policy. This makes her either isolationist or a fight against African neocolonialism, based on your paradigm.

In Nipsey, I saw the stubborn self-determination that I was raised with, the scowl at relying on anybody outside of ourselves. “Made my first million on my own, I don’t need your help,” Nipsey raps in Blue Laces 2.

How Eritrean, I remember thinking when I heard that he built his own independent music label back in 2010, refusing to kneel down to the traditional music industry and their obscene ownership rights. It was Eritrean self-determination, too, that I saw in Nipsey’s investments in his community. In 2017, he opened up The Marathon Clothing store, dedicated to providing jobs and a gathering space to the South LA community. He invested in schools, parks, and community spaces, and had plans to build affordable housing units. Much like Eritreans sprung up to build self-reliant systems in liberated areas, Nipsey built his.

Unity

My father, by all definitions, is a staunch Eritrean patriot. When we wrestle together over Eritrea’s place in the world — its past sins, its future wins — he jumps to remind me of one of his greatest prides of our homeland: unity. Across ethnicity and religion, we refuse hate-based violence. Our unity will never be compromised.

Nine ethnic groups come together to create Eritrea: the Tigrinya, Tigre, Saho, Afar, Bilen, Kunama, Nara, Rashaida, and Hidarab. Two religions dominate Eritrea: Christian and Muslim, at precisely 49% each. Despite these differences, neither ethnic nor religious conflict has yet to stain our legacy.

During the armed struggle era, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front held a motto close to their chest: “unity in diversity.” Before DEI was a thing, The EPLF used diversity councils — made up of reps from all ethnic groups and regions — to guide decision-making. Leaders were chosen by merit, not affiliation. EPLF not only operated multilingually, but built language schools and cultural festivals to preserve all facets of Eritrean identity. Women, too, were celebrated, making up 30% of the EPLF and holding significant leadership positions. Today, my father and I still smile about the Cathedral and Mosque in Eritrea’s capital of Asmara, sitting within shouting distance. Streets fill, both on Easter and Eid, as Eritreans shout joyfully for the holidays of their neighbors.

After Nipsey’s death in 2019, L.A.’s most notorious gangs, the Bloods and the Crips, called a truce to march together for Nipsey’s memorial. It was the first truce since the 1992 Rodney King protests. A former Rollin’ 60s Crips member, Nipsey famously performed with both Crips and Bloods. He actively facilitated truces among different South L.A. factions. He invested in and mentored former gang members regardless of their alliances. A year later, over 30 L.A. gangs had agreed to a prolonged ceasefire in honor of Nipsey’s legacy. “I think the progress that’s been made in the last year is the most that we’ve ever seen in the history of Los Angeles,” said an L.A. gang expert. Nipsey’s thirst for unity was so unquenchable that it continued after his death.

Nipsey’s father and mine, born of the same generation, were classmates in Asmara. Nipsey and I spent the same summer — the summer of 2004 — back home in Eritrea. It wasn’t until today that I learned our shared summer is what inspired Nipsey to build a new reality in South L.A.

Struggle, self-reliance, and unity are what bind Nipsey — and me — to Eritrea.

By tomorrow, I’ll have been traveling around the world for 15 months. My ghedli, my struggles, are nowhere close to Eritrea’s or Nipsey’s. But, I’d like to think that my spirit still is. Fifteen months ago, I picked up my backpack because I had refused to accept the environment I’d been given. I created my own reality, my own plan, my own template for what life and career should look like. My self-reliance has carried me through this adventure solo, and has helped me build a community of support to see it through. My thirst for unity has led to knowing and understanding people in countries I hadn’t dreamed of loving.

As I looked out the window at the Bulgarian countryside, I thought about what Eritrea had given Nipsey and I. He used it to create community in South L.A., and I can use it to create belonging in any community that I choose to call home.

For my ghedli, my self-reliance, and my thirst for unity, I am grateful.

To all those who celebrate this weekend, Happy 33rd Independence Day.

Awet N’Hafash — victory to the masses.

Thanks for reading. For republication requests, please contact zefan@duck.com.

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Fourteen months ago, I started a sabbatical after a difficult layoff — as it would be for any person who had only held the grandest desires to contribute to capitalism. My job, for as long as I’ve had one, has been my identity. My sabbatical separated me from that reality, challenging what I accepted as truth.

Since then, I’ve visited 4 continents, 17 countries, 100+ cities. I’ve tried to speak truth about the entire lifecycle of this experience: layoff, sabbatical, wondering what’s next. The greatest compliments I receive are something like:

Your honesty is comforting.

I love seeing you talk about the challenges.

I’m glad you don’t make it look easy.

I’ve always hated how social media twists perceptions and emotions. In no version of reality was I going to post drinks on the beach with mantras of, “living my best life!” So these comments, acknowledgements of the complexity of my experience, warmed me.

But sometimes I got another comment, the dreaded:

You’re so brave.

I welcomed 2024 while nestled in the Himalayas.

I found many reasons to love with Nepal, but it’s typically known for one thing — high altitude trekking. Again, I remind you: I am not a hiker. Or maybe I should say, I’m not a full-time hiker. I’ll take a half-day shift, armed with a water bottle and a sandwich bag. Anything more is not in my job description. And if I go on a hike, I felt entitled enough to have enough oxygen. Controversial opinion, but gasping for breath at 4,000m while my nose frosted and my quads buckled under seemed unappealing to me.

But by March, I found myself gazing upward from Pokhara, Nepal’s gateway to the Annapurna Region, named one of the most beautiful places in the world. What exactly was I supposed to do??

Weeks earlier, I had vented to friend about how I hated being called ‘brave.’ My sabbatical didn’t start bravely; it started with a desire to run. Warriors run towards battles, not away from them. How was I brave?

My friend challenged me, arguing that you can’t have courage without fear. That I was not just running away from my world, but running towards the unknown.

“You’re a scared little shit,” he told me. “But you push through.”

I received his words, but I didn’t believe them.

I’ve tricked him, too, I lamented.

I.

Three months later, I find myself gasping for breath, only 1,500m in the air. It’s Day 1 of a six-day hike to Mardi Himal Base Camp, an easy 4,500m (or 14,764ft) above sea level. My mediocre cardiovascular health isn’t what threatened to kill me — at least not yet — but an ill-timed cold that crept up the night before. I wage war with each stone step on this trail, stopping to hold my head in my hands, or to sweet talk my nostrils into letting in more breath. It’s early March, but I hardly look at the rhododendrons coaxing open spring. Fear envelops me. How will I continue when I already felt miserable? Why didn’t I stay home? How exactly did I expect to climb 3,000m more?

We camp in Dhampus, a Gurung agricultural village. My friends gasp at the Annapurna range immersing us and smile at exotic bird calls. I go to sleep.

II.

On Day 2, we climb 800m — about the same ascent as Washington’s Mount Si (which I’d always passed up for Little Si, a much more manageable task). My friends ask if my head still felt miserable, and I gnarl back at them, almost offended at the question. I begin negotiating with myself: How far do I have to make it before I can respectfully turn back?

We exit the agricultural highlands, weaving our way through Annapurna’s dense forest. Normally one to breathe into the forest, I wail over smelling nothing — not the moist soil, not the thick moss, not the occasional orchid. My breathing labored and head aching, I dance carefully around new, uneven terrain.

This path returns me to parts of the Camino. There, I also trudged along, socks soaked, ready to give up at any moment. Back then, I had made an agreement with myself: I always would commit to 10 more steps. I could give up whenever I wanted to — as long as I took 10 more steps. My mind gaslighted my legs into believing its exit ramp was 10 steps away.

So, on Day 2 in the Himalayas, I climb from Dhampus to Rest Camp; miserable, angry, tired, and 10 steps at a time.

III.

Day 3 dawns at 2,600m. They say that altitude sickness attacks you here, but with my DNA directly imported from the East African highlands, I figure altitude sickness just isn’t about me. I’m wrong. On Day 3, my genetic predisposition does not save me.

Today’s 1,000m ascent is supposed to take 4 to 5 hours; it takes me almost double. I leave the forest, climbing into alpine terrain where life is rarer. Less vegetation opens up expansive views of Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, and Fishtail — and with no trees to offer protection, very rude winds crash coldly into me. I take breaks behind rock faces, defrosting my cheeks and gasping for breath in the thinning air.

I scold myself for the audacity to even commit to this hike, and the audacity to continue when my body threw me a viral Hail Mary. My coughing intensifies.

I climb the last 100m ascent in the dark. Walking into High Camp, trekkers had already gathered around the fire, and friends cheer my arrival.

I wonder —again— how I ended up on this damn mountain.

IV.

On the last day of ascent, I wake up at 3:00am, headlamp and I racing to reach Mardi Himal’s Upper Viewpoint before the sun did.

It’s now been four days since my nostrils turned against me. They finally open a bit, and my head pauses its throbbing. Unfortunately, I’m 3,500m in the air and my body’s oxygen addiction causes its own problems.

While my lungs beg for more breath, my legs skid down frosted paths. Boots crunch over snow as I debate quickening my pace, if only to provide more heat to my body than my 4 layers of clothing have given me. My anxiety treats every icy step, shrouded in darkness, as a life-or-death decision. Will my crampons keep me from somersaulting off the mountain’s edge? Another reason I’m not a hiker, I think.

Consumed with my ever-brimming temper tantrum, I barely look up at the stunning Milky Way above me. How the hell did you let us sign up for this, I say to myself. This is not fun. We don’t belong here.

At some point, I think back to all the TikToks I’ve watched about gentle parenting, and I soothe myself with a compromise. It’s okay if you don’t make it by sunrise, at least you’ll make it.

Three hours later, sunlight began to drizzle. Just enough to see shapes, to see an endless swath of mountains envelop me. This is not my natural habitat, I thought to myself, finally feeling a little proud about what I’d accomplished.

Bathing in the infinite view, my steps slow. I spot a couple that I played cards with a few nights prior. With them, I grab hold of a second (or fifth?) wind and push towards to top.

Ten steps at a time, I arrive in time for sunrise’s finale. I’m greeted by a class of trekkers, all excited to have arrived with the sun. Air still freezing, I embrace the warmth of a graduation — friends cheering, laughing, commiserating about what we had done.

We all gasp at the view, camera rolls overflowing.

Note: The amount of snow and ice meant that novices couldn’t continue to base camp, but let’s just call that someone looking out for me.

I spend the next two days making my way down Mardi Himal.

Once back in Pokhara, my quads rise up in protest. I lay sprawled in bed, scrolling TikTok, resurrecting only to pick up a day’s supply of momos from across the street. This idleness left my brain with a little too much time to think. If I had literally just climbed a mountain, do I need to revisit this whole bravery thing?

As much as I thought I was above antiquated ideas of bravery, I still gaze wide-eyed at an homage of bravery I’ll never meet: Achilles — chest puffed, charging fearlessly, seething with righteous rage. A Greek epic, not an American second guessing. An original GOAT, Achilles’ tragic flaw was failing to protect his single point of vulnerability — the area behind his heel. The lesson: guard your Achilles heel. Am I right?

I am no Achilles, nor will I ever be. I did not charge fearlessly to the Himalayas. I shuffled anxiously, regretting my arrival on the mountain more often than I did not. No Greek epics will be written about my sabbatical, either. I did not charge towards these past fourteen months; I meandered, hiding behind rock faces, stopping to catch my breath. Doubt swept down on me like an avalanche, sudden and overwhelming. But if my choices were easy, would they still be courageous?

So I pick apart my momos, deciding on this: my bravery is not Achilles. It is anxious, it is compassionate, it is calculated. My bravery doesn’t say to me: don’t gasp for breath. It tells me to gasp, and gasp, and then to continue climbing.

So, I guess I am brave. I guess we all are.

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What I’m Reading

’s first essay — on how the death of his best friend drove him to see better and do differently — has captivated me.
Read: Weekly Outpour #1: Finally writing a first. Opening thoughts.

I love ’s 10-word stories, and sitting with a story’s impact for longer than it takes to read it.
Read: Why Love is Fleeting | A 10 Word Story

tackles the Africa is corrupt narrative with economic and historical analyses — a well-explained POV that hits close to my heart.
Read: Thoughts About Corruption in Developing Countries

A few friends and I created , a writing community for BIPOC & global majority Substackers. Come write with us at lockedin.substack.com.

All of our experiences are based on karma. How do we have sympathy for people with bad karma? We recognize that we have made the same mistakes in some life, and that we are privileged only in this life.

—My notes from Kopan Monastery

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An hour before I was about to start a 7-day course at Kopan Monastery, my yoga teacher pulled up. He jumped off his motorbike, my backpack balancing on its handlebars and my daypack wrapped around his shin. On the back of his bike was A, one of my dearest friends from Kathmandu.

“He drove with his leg up on the handlebars the entire way,” she exclaimed.

Earlier that day, we’d all gone to a local Ayurveda hospital. Our teacher, always eager to show his students the real Nepal, jumped in to translate between us and the doctor as we probed for alternative answers to anxiety, PMS, and muscle pain.

By the time we filled our herbal prescriptions, I noticed I was running very late.

“Just go, we’ll get your bags,” they both told me.

Once at the monastery, my teacher dropped my monstrous backpack at reception and we sipped teas at a cafe near its gates.

“Remember, you must have such good karma to even be here. Not everyone has the chance to visit,” he said, while dropping all the advice he wanted me to hold close as I started my time at Kopan.

His active care, in every situation, inspired me. Every morning, he greeted our class with brimming enthusiasm. When one of us felt shaky, he gently coaxed us to confidence. He looked for ways to help: introducing some of us to friends and experts; bringing others trinkets, medicines, and rare Nepalese texts; offering the back of his motorcycle to anyone who had to run an errand after class. Even today, some of us are still in contact with him. His compassion felt like good karma to me: navigating rush hour traffic with his leg resting on the handlebars, balancing my monstrous backpack, while my friend held onto the back rails.

“You must have good karma too, because you’re also here,” I joked back at him.

The three poisons that lead us away from enlightenment are attachment, anger, and ignorance. They’re also the emotions that cause suffering, especially attachment.

For seven days, I immersed myself in Buddhism at Kopan. Starting at 6:45am, fifty of us would gather in our prayer hall, sitting cross-legged and gazing reverently towards the monk leading our morning meditation. One of Kopan’s nuns, a Canadian woman in her late 50s, shared with us six hours of lectures per day, weaving Buddhist teachings with contemporary science, relatable anecdotes, and even some internet memes. Our course focused on emotions, and the Buddhist understanding of them; primarily: attachment, anger, ignorance, and compassion.

In the weeks after our course, I thought about attachment. I thought about my attachment to reputation as l posted on LinkedIn a month later, sharing my one-year unemployment anniversary but dancing around the news that I’ve starting applying for jobs. Actively, not passively, and not leisurely, but with the fervor of someone who’s ready to return home. I held that urgency like a dirty secret, because was I really going to be the type of person looking ferociously for a new job? I’ve been defined by my big career hits, and then by my bold sabbatical. Would my next role come with the same level of prestige?

“Attachment to praise and prestige is the most difficult attachment to get rid of,” said our teaching nun back at Kopan, sharing how she’s been able to let go of most attachments in life, but not that one. I, too, had pushed through many attachments this year: an attachment to my own room, to stability, to comfort, and even to sitting toilets. My attachment to prestige, however, was the last one standing.

Compassion has three components: noticing the suffering of another sentient being, feeling the pain (empathy), and acting to ease the suffering. Compassion is not pity, attachment, empathy, or wishful thinking. It is also not conditional or self-regarding.

My last day at Kopan, I found out that a family member I love had died. I found out because I cheated. I turned on my phone before our last morning lecture, before we were free to return back to the world. I turned on my phone to a series of, “can we talk?,” texts from my parents. I replied with a quick, “is it urgent?”, and was alarmed when my mother sent an immediate response back: “yes.”

In Kopan’s meditation hall, most of us always sat in the same place. I sat in the third row, on the left, slightly off center. A friend of mine often sat in the first row, at the very edge. The two of us became friends because, honestly, we kept awkwardly staring at each other. She was the first Black person I had seen in Nepal, and her curls engulfed her face with a level of volume I have always envied. She saw me that morning looking glum, and ran over to offer me some candy. “Here, take some!,” she beamed, blushing with embarrassment when I explained to her that my melancholy was a little more complicated.

The next day, she would call me with her own personal drama, and we’d talk on the phone for an hour discussing what she should do next. For the next two weeks, we would stay close to each other. Without a thought, we acted on our shared compassion, always jumping in to ease each other’s suffering.

I thought about compassion when I read ’s essay a few weeks ago (Is the Internet Making Me Useless?).

Alex pushes on the same questions I’ve asked myself and those around me as we talk about Gaza. Are we operating with compassion? Are we acting to ease suffering? How much pity, attachment, and wishful thinking cosplays as compassion in discussions on Gaza — and on many global crises? How much is rooted in peer pressure, in reputation, in desire to look like we care? And most importantly, how do we change?

I walked away from Kopan, and from Alex’s essay, with a commitment to act. I committed to turning empathy into compassion.

Things that cause suffering: birth, sickness and injury, old age, death, not getting what we want, getting something we don’t want, loss of what we want, having a body and mind.

My first night at Kopan, a monk found me sobbing, leaning against a statue, bags on a patch of dirt surrounding it.

“Why are you crying?,” he obviously asked me.

It was dark, and I couldn’t find the building I was staying in. Because I arrived late, I was shoved to one of the older buildings in the back of campus. I tried to remember the intricate directions to find it: take this staircase, then this one, go down the alley, turn on this dirt road, then cross this mound... I didn’t remember the directions, and had paced the same area for 45 minutes. I soon became convinced that I’d be sleeping outside, finding solace in the fact that a monastery was a pretty safe place to do so.

Luckily, the monk who stopped my crying was able to point me in the right direction. I walked into my room, laughing at the fact that I’d come to Kopan to learn to ‘control my emotions,’ and on my first day I’d already completely lost it.

Buddhism’s been a way for people to seek enlightenment for some time now. Its popularity surged during the 1960s counterculture movement, riding on the rise of hippie culture and free love. I’ve admired Buddhist philosophy for the past decade, appreciating its distinctions from Abrahamic religions: a rooting in compassion rather than obedience, celebration and collaboration with modern science, and an emphasis on introspection and internal questioning to reach nirvana.

As I left Kopan, I thought about how I wanted to integrate Buddhism into my own life. I realized this: as much as I valued Buddhist teachings, this religion, too, had been romanticized. Buddhism centers around messages of peace and love — as many faiths do — but as I looked for an antidote to Abrahamic religions, I realized the vast similarities between them all. Tibetan Buddhism comes with a strict hierarchy. It is ruled by men often born into the role, who sometimes used that power against those who have less. It includes traditions that I view with skepticism, like raising babies as reincarnations of famous religious leaders, and moral views that clash with mine, like notions about gender and sexuality.

I broke my illusion of Buddhism, instead realizing that any social structure that humans touch will show scars. Buddhism still does, however, provide an impressive, science-backed framework to improve our human experience. It pushes us to analyze how our mind impacts happiness, to sit closely with ourselves in meditation, to develop our own sources of wisdom, and to cultivate compassion for all living beings. In understanding ourselves, we understand our own mortality, and we understand those around us.

The beauty of Buddhism is that you’re allowed — and encouraged — to take only what serves you. Whatever you use will move you closer to enlightenment in this life. Anything that’s left, you can learn in the next one.

All I know is that I, myself, exist.

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So I’m curious:

• What are some attachments that you’re trying to get rid of?

• Where are some places that you’ve gone looking for ‘enlightenment’?

• How do you try to show compassion when it’s overwhelming?

Share Very Lost

Last week, some amazing people and I kicked off , a writing community for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color / the global majority. beautifully led our first session last Friday, and we’ll write together every week. Subscribe to LockedIn here to join us Fridays @ 9:00AM ET. It’s something special. 🧡

“Are you really going to drink that?,” J., a bubbly divorcée from Wisconsin, asked me as I stared down a glass of melted butter.

After my yoga teacher training, I stayed in Kathmandu to dive deeper into a practice that’s often seen as complementary to yoga — Ayurveda. A holistic system of traditional medicine, Ayurveda originated in India and is often integrated into modern healthcare systems across South Asia. In other parts of the world, it’s considered alternative medicine.

I’m generally not a fan of alternative medicine (or anything that hasn’t been peer reviewed, tbh), but something pulled me to give Ayurveda a chance — perhaps the brilliant Ayurveda doctor who taught our anatomy class, or the influence that Ayurvedic principles had on our food, our meditation, our yoga practice. If I wanted to truly know yoga, I had to know Ayurveda.

So 48 hours after I graduated with my yoga teacher certification, I started a 2-week Ayurveda treatment; specifically, a Panchakarma cleanse. Panchakarma, literally translated as “five actions,” is a cornerstone of the Ayurveda health system, with healthy patients undergoing the comprehensive detoxification process about once a year.

Traditionally, the five treatments — each targeting a different imbalance — were:

1. Vamana: controlled vomiting, balancing Kapha, or the water element;

2. Virechana: administration of herbal laxatives, balancing Pitta, or the fire element;

3. Basti: enemas with medicated oils or herbal mixtures, balancing Vata, or the air element;

4. Nasya: nasal administration of herbal oils and powders, also balancing Vata;

5. Rakta Mokshana: blood-letting, for total detoxification, but not used anymore.

Don’t worry, I didn’t do all five. Here’s how it went.

Note: This issue might be a little TMI for some; if you’re not painfully curious, you can always skip to the conclusion.

Initial Consultation

My first meeting with my Ayurveda doctor, she took my wrist, felt my pulse for an awkward length of time, and said, “wow, you’re really unbalanced.” Curious to see if she was a snake oil salesman, I asked, “hmm… how?”

She diagnosed my dosha as Vata-Pitta (or Air-Fire), with imbalances in both. This came with symptoms like dry skin, bloating, high anxiety, irregular appetite, trouble concentrating, and a few other symptoms that were… actually true. Intrigue and skepticism battled in my brain; is this uncanny, or are these just the symptoms of every burnt-out westerner that walks into an Ayurveda clinic?

My doctor then provided me with my treatment plan: I should never again eat foods that are dry, cold, spicy, or fermented; and for the next two weeks I would undergo virechana, basti, and nasya to balance me out.

Virechana

“Are you really going to drink that?,” J., a bubbly divorcée from Wisconsin, asked me as I stared down a glass of melted butter.

My Virechana treatment started with drinking increasing amounts of ghee, or clarified butter, every morning until… well, until it came out the other end. Ghee is believed to draw out toxins accumulated throughout my body, bringing them right to my digestive tract to be flushed out over the next two weeks.

The doctor had warned me that drinking ghee is the worst part of Panchakarma. On Day 1, I chugged 40ml of ghee — unpleasant, but bearable. By Day 4, the staff put 160ml — a full glass — of melted ghee in front of me. The day before, I hadn’t eaten a thing besides the 1,080 calories in my glass of ghee (something about drinking a glass of butter just kills your appetite for the rest of the day). Luckily, Day 4 was my last day.

The morning of Day 5, I was given a herbal laxative — the most repulsive cup of tea I’ve ever consumed in my life (on par with drinking ayahuasca). Virechana marked the first treatment that would purge toxins from my body.

“Make sure you go between 7 and 27 times,” my nurse said. Too many times, and they’d give me medicine to make it stop; too few, and I’d have to drink more of this devil’s tea. I had never felt so determined.

After 5 days of digestive turmoil, I was allocated two days to recover. My appetite did not return, which was fine, because all I was allowed to eat for those two days was kitchari, a tasteless mix of rice and mung beans.

Basti

After five days of virechana and two days of rest, I started basti treatments — medicated enemas, twice a day, for 7 days.

Never in my life did I ever think I would get an enema — why would I do that to myself??? — but when I had looked into research on Ayurveda, basti had been one of the most studied treatments (see this NIH study, or this one). So naturally, it was the one I was most excited for.

My technician always administered my basti treatments after a Abhyanga massage and some time in the steam room. It was an attempt to relax me, in addition to mobilizing toxins to start making their way out of me. So after an hour of trying to let go while also telling myself, how can I relax when I know what’s happening next?!, I’d turn to my left side, stretch out my right leg, and get pronged in the *you know what.*

After the prong, you hold the herbal concoction for 30-45 minutes. Each day the amount is increased by 100ml — from 500ml to 1200ml. My first day, I chatted lightly with my technician while waiting for 45 minutes to pass. This is supposed to be hard?, I joked. Oh, how naive I was. By Day 5, was crying, screaming, and squeezing my technician’s hand as she stroked my hair. I sprint to the bathroom at 28 minutes because, well, time is a construct and that was good enough.

As uncomfortable as the experience was, I loved basti. The rumors were true — basti left me feeling lighter (thank you, clean colon), less bloated, and even, as some friends pointed out, with healthier looking skin. One of Basti’s biggest benefits is enhanced digestion and nutrition absorption, as well as detoxification. In Ayurvedic medicine, it primarily targets Vata imbalance, which causes dryness in the skin, joints, and other parts of the body. So it made sense; more nutrients, more moisture, less toxins, better skin.

Nasya

Nasya is supposed to be a deeply relaxing process in which the technician drops medicated oils through your nasal passages; these oils are meant to support brain health, improve emotional balance, and detoxify the head and neck region. It was the one my technician was most excited to give me, so much that I added an extra day to complete it. “This will be so good for you,” she had gushed.

My nasya experience started with trying not to choke on the smoke of burning holy basil, followed by trying to not burn off my nose as I breathed in medicated steam, and then trying to control post-nasal drip as what I can only describe as very spicy oil was deposited into my nostrils. Not as relaxing as I hoped.

In the end, I lost about 3kg from my Panchakarma cleanse. Over a month after I completed my cleanse, my skin still looks better, my bloating subsided, my energy increased. Even more so, I’m increasingly conscious about what I’m putting into my body, because — well — I saw it all come out.

Ayurveda earned my respect, and with that so did other alternative healing techniques. I didn’t have to believe the reasons they were supposed to work, but I could notice that, through correlation or causation, things happened. Ayurvedic medicine said that my Vata imbalance, for example, caused too much ‘air’ in my body; brain flighty, tummy bloated, skin dry. Basti corrects ‘Vata imbalance,’ and, for some incredible reason, addressed this seemingly random group of symptoms. It promoted internal rehydration, which showed up in my skin; it hydrated and cleaned out my colon, which reduced bloating; and perhaps because of its impact on my gut microbiome — which were only now learning has significant influence over mental health — it treated my anxiety.

I’m still following a somewhat Ayurvedic diet. After a few days, I noticed that my diet recommendations (no dry, cold, spicy, or fermented foods) pushed me towards meals that had always made feel better anyway. I still take a series of herbal supplements recommended by another Ayurvedic doctor, because they were right about Ashwagandha after all, so shouldn’t I try some others? I’ll stay open to considering alternative medicine, not because I’m convinced that Ayurveda has it 100% correct, but because I’ve started to become curious about unexplained connections and medical interventions we haven’t proven yet.

There's just too much we don’t know.

I’m curious: What practices and beliefs do you have a healthy level of skepticism about? Are there any that you believe wholeheartedly?

What I’m Up To

One of my favorite Substack articles this week was from , who talked about the sometimes damning advice to “step outside your comfort zone.” Even though I’ve done exactly that this past year, I’m cautious about shouting this often-heard advice. To leave your comfort zone, you must first have one.

Mama's Pancake Breakfast

Comfort Zone

“Step outside your comfort zone!” I understand that encouraging people to step outside their comfort zones is well-intentioned but how can you say that to people who never have the choice? Who have been out of their comfort zones all day and night? It is a common experience for people in lower socioe…

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2 years ago · 14 likes · 14 comments · Carrington Epperson

Not that anyone else but my mom noticed (sorry, mom), but this is my first update of 2024. It wasn’t intentional. I landed in Kathmandu, Nepal on January 1, and spent most of the time away from my phone — becoming a certified yoga teacher, trying ancient healing practices, looking for enlightenment in a Buddhist monastery, and hiking the Himalayas.

Most people end up this corner of the world looking for answers, and I have to admit, that was part of why I ended up in South Asia. Much like my experience with ayahuasca, my answers were a bit inconclusive, but, in some form, they existed.

I’ll share more about these experiences over the next few weeks, and I’ll start with my proudest one so far — becoming a 500HR certified yoga teacher.

I ended up in Kathmandu because of a yoga teacher training. The course somehow promised to take me from a yoga newbie to an advanced yoga teacher (bold move).

I’m not a yogi. Before my teacher training, I’d rolled up to maybe twenty yoga classes in my life. I liked the idea of yoga, and the philosophy seemed quite interesting, but I never felt like it was for me. Neither thin, nor white, nor blonde, nor overly flexible, a western yoga class constantly made me feel out of place. But I also knew that the type of yoga we had adopted — whitewashed, westernized, commercialized — wasn’t real yoga, and I thought that real yoga was worth discovering.

So I ended up spending four weeks in the Himalayan foothills, studying yoga philosophy, anatomy, theory, and movement for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Hip Openers

By the second week, my classmates and I had developed a rhythm. We’d gather at the same large table in the dining room, each day sharing how our bodies hurt a little less. My first cry wasn’t until the end of Week 2.

After our two-hour morning class, I lay on my mat in savasana. We’d focused on hip stretches today. “Sometimes hip openers will make your students cry,” our teacher had said. I laughed at this, mostly. There’s been a lot of discussion about how trauma is stored in the hips, but I didn’t believe it. Still, I don’t know if I do. But as I lay on my mat, breathing deeply, a few tears rolled down my cheek.

I don’t know why I cried. Perhaps I was tired. I was often sore, often frazzled, often tired because I wasn’t sleeping as much as I should. I don’t know if my hips released stored trauma, but I do know that I had been exhausted by the last two weeks, had finally laid down, and someone — indirectly — had told me it was okay to cry.

After a few quick tears, I felt ready to conquer the day.

Tarot Cards

Every Saturday, my classmates and I had a ritual of rushing to the farmers market during our 60-minute break. One of our yoga teachers, Deependra, told us about it our first week in Kathmandu; since then, we’ve eagerly awaited each Saturday, dreaming about croissants, sweets, and other treats waiting for us.

One Saturday, myself and three of my classmates stopped by a Tarot station at the market. For 1000 rupees (about $7.50) this teenage looking Tarotist gave us a 15-minute reading about what the new year would bring. Seems cute, I thought. But by the end of the day, all four of us were in tears.

One got misty-eyed before we left the market. Another one of us started full on sobbing in the cab back to the ashram. The third cried at some other point that I can’t remember. I, of course, snuck out soon before the end of our 12pm yoga class to have a cry in the stairwell.

We’d all had intense readings, fueled either by some mystical power, or a performer who was really good at reading us. “I kind of felt like I shouldn’t have been there,” one of us joked as we recounted what we had all heard about each other.

My reading was an assortment of traumatic reminders, veering in several different directions, going deeper and more specific than I had in any way expected:

“Why do you feel like you’re unlovable?”

“It’s okay not to talk to people who have hurt you.”

“Your grandmother is watching over you.”

I laughed most of it away in the moment. “I would’ve sobbed immediately,” a friend who overheard my reading said to me, and I was proud of myself for holding it together.

Two hours later, it came. I held it in for 30 seconds, and then I ducked out of our Ashtanga class to collect myself. At this point, we were all used to seeing each other crying; a classmate came out to give me a hug, another came to bring my water bottle, and I spent the next several minutes sitting on the stairs outside our yoga hall.

A Sprained Ankle

My third cry also happened on the stairwell, a few days later.

Back in December, I had twisted my ankle falling off an ATV in the Sahara Desert (I know it’s almost impossible to fall off an ATV, let’s please not talk about this). I was mostly fine, but I spent many minutes of my yoga teacher training dancing around the limits of what a healing ankle could do. “Please keep it together,” I would ask my ankle while standing in Tree Pose. “Let’s move you a little this way,” I would say when I just couldn’t sit on my heels. Perhaps if I wasn’t pushing it for 8 hours a day, it would’ve healed in a week — but three weeks in, it still hurt.

One evening, I stumbled on a pothole in Kathmandu, and my ankle really started to hurt. I limped around the rest of the night, and skipped yoga classes the next day, sulking in my room and watching The Diplomat on Netflix. All felt fine, and I jumped back into class the following day for our 12pm Astanga session, except I still felt like I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t jump back into downward dog. I couldn’t balance on my toes for Chair pose. My back angle couldn’t stabilize me in a lunge. I couldn’t pull my heel to my butt while seated. I felt utterly useless.

I ran out of the room during our break between classes, completely frustrated with body. It wasn’t just my ankle. There were so many poses I couldn’t do; I already felt so behind many of my peers — most of who had been practicing for several years. I was way over my head signing up for this program, I wasn’t ready, I couldn’t pull my weight, and now I also had a bad (or worse) ankle. The frustration quickly turned into tears.

My friend caught me in the stairwell, and I’m glad she caught me.

“We all have things we’re not good at, you know my hips are so tight and I feel so behind everyone else!,” she reminded me. “And so what if you have a bad ankle right now — if someone came to your yoga class and told you they had a long-term ankle injury, would you tell them that they couldn’t do yoga? This is making you a better yoga teacher, and it’s not permanent.”

And she was right. I still don’t know if I have any desire to actually teach yoga, but I do believe that yoga has become such an ego-driven gymnastics competition, when it was never intended to be that way. “It’s not about the asana,” my teacher once told me as I shared my frustration with certain poses. I had turned yoga — like everything else — into something to win. As I look back, I’m glad I had a bad ankle, I’m glad I jumped in as a newbie, I’m glad I was limited; because if I wasn’t, I would’ve been so focused on winning a competition that I’d miss what I came for.

Graduation Day

My last tears came on graduation day.

For the week leading up to graduation, my classmates and I couldn’t stop talking about the end — what we’d eat (or smoke, or drink), where we’d go, what we’d do next. We expected that it would be hard to say goodbye to each other after 4 weeks of trauma bonding, but we also felt excited.

Before graduation, we sat in a circle in the yoga hall we’d essentially lived in for the past several weeks, and we let it all come out.

“I haven’t even talked to my friends in the past four weeks,” said one of us. “You guys have been my friends, you are my friends.” And I felt that, too.

It was an interesting dynamic. We’d lived together in a pressure cooker, 8 hours of classes per day, plus 3 hours of meals. We’d seen each other fail numerous times, grow frustrated, fall asleep at the dinner table, celebrate the occasional success. The experience was binding, it was unique.

And so, many of us cried on graduation day, as we took turns talking about what this experience had meant to us. I don’t remember what I said that made my throat start to close up — something about how I didn’t expect all of these strangers to see me through so many different emotions — but I quickly passed the mic to my friend next to me before I started ugly crying, only for her to start sobbing before her first word even emerged from her throat.

After we’d released all of our heavier emotions, we walked up to get our certificates, spent an hour or so dancing, and then went out for a team dinner at the ‘fanciest’ restaurant in Kathmandu we could find. It was an incredible night.

I don’t quite know how I ended up at a yoga teacher training in Kathmandu. It was part curiosity, part need for a detox, part craving for a challenge, and part “will I ever get this chance again?”

I had meant to fly to India soon after my graduation, but I ended up spending a total of 10 weeks (and counting) in Nepal. It became a country that, for many reasons, I fell in love with, I felt safe in, and I wanted to learn more in.

I’ll share more from Nepal soon.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how it will feel to go back to regular life. And I ask myself the same set of questions:

“Will I be the same exact person I was before I left?”

“Will I be able to remember how this felt?”

“Will I remember this at all?”

When I found about my layoff — and for the first couple of months afterwards — I couldn’t figure out how to function. I cried over what I considered a stain on my resume, one that would leave me undesirable. I struggled to fill my days with routines that didn’t center around spreadsheets, emails, and productivity. I stared into the unknown with absolute horror, because I couldn’t stand to let anything go wrong. This complete fear of not having security and not serving the needs of someone else — of just letting myself exist — was what had to be dealt with.

As I picked up Spanish in South America, my favorite word became, “ojalà.” It was one of the first words I learned in Columbia, and my friends and I would say it often. Does this bus driver know what he’s doing? ¡Ojalà! Will we still make it to the club after drinking a bottle of Aguardiente? ¡Ojalà! Will we ever meet again? ¡Ojalà!

Ojalà, if you didn’t catch on, means something like hopefully or let’s hope so. It’s borrowed from the Arabic term inshallah, but doesn’t carry a religious meaning. I used the word ojalà often (always to the amusement of native speakers), and it began to carry significant meaning for me — it defined my trip, and defined the experience of just existing. Hopefully, it all works out, but I’ll be okay if it doesn’t.

And so I knew ojalà would be the way I would remember this feeling, this trip, this experience long after it ended.

Yes, I got ojalà tattooed inside my elbow. To a person looking directly at me, it reads upside down — but that’s intentional. This tattoo isn’t for others. It’s a reminder for me. (Embarrassingly enough, I remembered later that one of my friends in Medellin did it first, but he forgave me.)

And as I’ve stared down at ojalà over the past few weeks, its significance to me has only grown. It’s balanced quiet optimism with poised acceptance; it acknowledges the weight of the world while embracing the possibility of change.

Global News

I went back and forth for for days about sharing my thoughts on the heightened Middle East crisis. It’s an ongoing crisis that I — like many — have studied closely for some time; to skip its mention on an update about my thoughts, my actions, my comings-and-goings, felt dishonest. However, I won’t proselytize here. If you do read thought articles about the crisis (which I very much hope you do), may they be from credentialed experts, fair-minded organizations, first-hand storytellers, and varied news sources — not from me.

As we make our way through the public discourse, however, there are a few reminders I’ve shared with others (and myself), that might be helpful here.

• Multiple truths can exist at once. That’s often how we’re misled — half truths, missing data, and conveniently-left-out stories. Don’t believe what you hear wholeheartedly. Piece together the full version of the truth to inform your stance.

• We’re all entitled to have an opinion — that’s just a consequence of our increasingly globalized world, as well as our shared humanity. However, we’re also responsible for rooting our opinion in the lived experiences of those who are directly impacted, as well as analyses by experts. Beware of armchair analyses.

• Be skeptical. There is no such thing as an unbiased source, or an unbiased person. Consider why someone is telling you something as much as what they’re saying. Understand the track record of the sources and people that inform you. Be curious about what’s not being said. Let all this inform you as well.

These are reminders that I’ve applied since adolescence to every debate, every discussion, and every public opinion; their importance (and the difficulty of following them) has only grown.

What I’m Reading

Currently, I’m in Alicante, another town where I’m spending most of my days on the beach (I’m enjoying it while I can!). The Girl With The Louding Voice, by Nigerian author Abi Daré, is my current read. Set in Nigeria and dealing with serious social issues at the intersection of gender and class, it tells the story of a young woman that just won’t give up. It’s beautiful, inspiring, and a incredible story.

Historically a medieval pilgrimage, faithful Catholics walked to Santiago de Compostela (the burial place of St. James) seeking penance for their sins. Today’s pilgrims walk the Camino for many reasons: spiritual enlightenment, recovering from tragedy, cultural exploration, or pushing themselves to the limit.

My motivations for the Camino were largely the latter; I wanted to do something that seemed ridiculously, unnecessarily hard (as many of my friends back home pointed out, we have cars now, what was I doing?). I wanted tangible proof that I could get through pain, frustration, and impatience to reach a goal.

Preparing

After landing in Porto, I scrambled to prepare for the next two weeks. I shipped my big backpack directly to Santiago, opting to carry three days’ worth of clothes (and other necessities) in a smaller daypack. I went shopping for some Camino staples: hiking socks, blister tape, and a sleeping bag. I picked up my pilgrim credential, where I’d collect stamps along the journey.

My Camino began in a suburb of Porto, where I had the chance to meet one of my internet (turned real life) friends, Bidi. “Just walk to Spain,” she told me, promising I wouldn’t get lost.

Walking

The Days

Every day on the Camino started — and ended — the same.

There were some standout days; I spent my birthday in a beautiful, 5-star castle on a hill in Viana do Castelo, courtesy of a generous friend of mine (hi, I know you’re reading this).

But otherwise, my days (in which I walked anywhere from 12 - 35km) followed a standard formula:

• Wake up before sunrise, eat a piece of fruit, and start walking.

• Keep going until I found a café (if I was lucky), or until lunch (if I wasn’t). Make some new friends along the way.

• Start walking again, and obsessively check the Buen Camino app to see where I could end the day.

• Check into an albergue. Shower immediately. Hand wash my clothes, put them out to dry, figure out dinner with other pilgrims.

• Lay out my clothes for tomorrow and do it again.

All I had to do, on any day, was walk. At the beginning of my Camino, the days were unbearably hot. In the middle and the end, it rained (and flooded, and stormed) daily.

Many days, I wondered if my Camino was over: when I woke up so sore after a 40km day that I couldn’t move (I took a rest day, and vowed I’d never do that again); when my shoes mysteriously went missing (I took a taxi to the nearest town and bought new ones); when my foot hurt so much that I was terrified I had a stress fracture (I made an educated guess, wrapped it in physio tape, and kept going). I spent the majority of my days tired of walking, wondering why something hurt, or dreaming of when I could change out of my wet socks. I told myself I could give up at any time, thought maybe I would, but oddly never did.

In the boredom and the pain was the greatest lesson I got from the Camino — mindfulness. I’ve practiced mindfulness before, but only in moments; maybe when I was trying to fall asleep, or washing the dishes. On the Camino, I lived it. Kilometer after kilometer, I started to notice every little thing about myself. I noticed which of my smallest movements were inefficient. I paid attention to where I was tense. I decided when to take a break, and how far to keep going, not based on some master plan I had devised days ago, but on how I was feeling. It was a completely foreign experience for me, and a new connection with myself that I hope I’ll always hold close.

The People

There was something incredible about doing something difficult in community. You’d shout “Buen Camino!” to every passerby with a backpack, you’d partner up for days with someone you met on a park bench. Without ever speaking a word to each other, some people you saw on the trail over and over again felt like dear friends.

I thought I wanted to do my Camino alone, but it didn’t turn out that way. One of my first days, I met an empty nester in her 50s taking a grand adventure across Europe. She’d wanted to do something like this for years, and her husband adoringly supported her by following her location like he was playing a video game, always telling her when she was off track or it was about to rain. Another day, I walked with a “church mom” from Korea, who stopped to pray at every church we passed and ultimately convinced me that I should be taking more breaks. We walked together until the border of Spain; while crossing into Spain on via boat, I met a retired French explorer who had seen almost every country I’ve ever dreamed of visiting. We swapped travel stories, and he eagerly tried to sell me on the charms of Paris, for the next 15km. I walked with corporate burnouts who had just quit their job, addicts who had defeated their addiction, heartbroken humans recovering from deaths and divorces, and fellow adventurers traveling the world. Everyone had come to push themselves, and together we kept going. Whenever I questioned my own resilience, I borrowed someone else's.

The Places

I walked the coastal route of the Camino Portuguese staring in Porto; it was slightly longer than the more popular central route, but completely worth it. Walking the Portuguese portion of the Camino was by far the most rewarding, with small fishing communities and cozy, rural albergues.

Once we crossed into Spain, especially in the last 100km, I could feel us reintegrating into “real life.” The camino passed through touristy beaches, charming colonial towns, and even small cities. I struggled to adapt to the change. I preferred dirt paths over cobblestone, and estancias over large towns.

Finishing

I often joked with my friends that nothing would stop me from reaching Santiago; that I would crawl if I had to. Despite this fiery confidence, I walked into the Cathedral of Santiago completely shocked that I had made it.

The morning of our arrival into Santiago, almost our entire albergue left together, before daylight, powered by pure adrenaline. We all ended up walking our own pace, and I relished having some alone time to reflect on my experience, but we kept each other updated via a group chat, and I met up with one friend for the last 8km to Santiago. We skirted towards the finish line, obsessively trying to avoid looking at the distance markers counting us down. Gushing with anticipation, we imagined what it would feel like to walk into the Cathedral.

I imagined walking into the Cathedral to roaring applause and a victory parade; maybe I’d drop to my knees and start sobbing, or run a victory lap around the square shouting with joy. When I finally walked into the square of Santiago de Compastela, sometime around 1:00pm, all I felt was astounding relief. I made it, and I had definitive proof that I could reach a finish line even when it was painful; I could do hard things.

What’s Next

After the Camino, I decided to spend a week or two relaxing on the southern coast of Portugal. Once I’m ready to start moving again, I’ll jump into Spain so I can keep practicing my Spanish in a new corner of the world. If you’ve ever been to Andalusia and have any recommendations, let me know!

Every year on my birthday, I chose a word to define my year ahead. Not a new year’s resolution, but a theme. Last year, I chose precision. I was looking for stability; to precisely and deliberately work towards goals that I felt were foundational to the rest of my life. I pictured my life in Seattle, my career at Amazon, and a very adult life of hosting dinner parties with friends, building on my corporate talents, and watering plants.

This past year has been anything but stable. Since my last birthday, I’ve lived completely out of a suitcase — a stressful string of vacations and business trips, a cross country move, and then a layoff that sent me hurtling through South America. It was, in almost every conceivable way, the opposite of what I wanted this year to be.

This year has been difficult, but I don’t regret it. I talked on LinkedIn about how learning Spanish through immersion, as well as a series of other mishaps, has taught me lessons about failure that I would’ve never learned in an office. And not just that, but it’s challenged my perception of what I’ve long considered important. This year, I stood in front of the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia, Iguazu Falls in Argentina, and Machu Picchu in Peru, wondering how my life could have ever felt complete before this. I laughed with new friends in Sao Paolo and Buenos Aires, imagining alternate lives in which I just chose to stay. I wondered how else I could make my life bigger.

What’s Next

One week ago, I left South America. As a few of my friends can attest, leaving, for me, felt difficult. I came to South America thinking I’d go on vacation for a few months before re-entering my “real life” in the United States; instead, I felt like I had found new homes several times over. I sat in my Uber to the airport wondering if I should just skip my flight, if I should just stay.

I did, very reluctantly, fly from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Lisbon, Portugal that day. As much as I love South America, I wanted a new beginning — and I wanted to take a really long walk.

When I send this newsletter, I’ll be on my third day of the Camino Portuguese, a 280km pilgrimage from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compastela, Spain. I’ll walk about 20km a day for two weeks (give or take a rest day), carrying three days’ worth of clothes in a 40L backpack. If the rumors are true, it’s going to be painful, I’m going to get blisters, and I may not finish it at all.

Celebrating my birthday on the Camino was an intentional choice; most people who walk the Camino have a reason. I first heard about the Camino from a German I met in Bolivia, who walked the Camino after a 10-year relationship ended. He told me about a friend he made on his Camino — and who he still talks to — who walked the Camino 8 times after his daughter died; each time he walked, he would see her.

I don’t have expectations for my Camino (I learned this lesson from my ayahuasca experience), but I hope that I’ll further reflect on what I’ve learned in this messy, chaotic year, and how I’ll apply it going forward. I hope that, in some way, it can mark a new beginning.

And that includes keeping this community more updated. Expect to hear more from me before the next 14,695 miles.

The past month, I’ve thought a lot about how to make this trip “meaningful.” I never really found an answer. It probably ties back to my ayahuasca journey; do I really need that answer? So instead, I’ve decided to just do things as I felt like it. It’s a process that I don’t think many of us are used to; I can’t think of the last time that I made a decision purely because I “felt like it.” Even hopping on a plane to Colombia came from a place of logic — I’m burned out, taking this time off will make me a more valuable asset to capitalism in the long run, it’s cheaper to exist in South America anyways.

As I started experimenting with what I’m actually doing out here, I started posting more to Instagram. It’s been a wonderful way for me to process my daily experiences (and emotions), as well as build a consistent community as I struggle with the exhaustion of making new friends every 3-4 days. If you want to hear from me more often, say hi over there at @zefanonthego.

Otherwise, here’s what I’ve been up to the past month.

Leaving Ecuador

After spending a full month in Cuenca, I finally exited Ecuador. The city of Cuenca is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that I highly recommend to any type of traveler — clean streets, drinkable water, beautiful architecture, cheap taxis, and all the modern conveniences.

There’s also a sizable expat community in Cuenca, pretty much exclusively made up of retired Americans. While I found a few backpackers under 50, I also enjoyed getting to know all the people who had left their entire lives — near the end of it — to move to a tiny city on top of the Equator. Most were working class men or couples that just couldn’t afford the US on a pension anymore. Many were recently divorced and wanted a new start (read: an Ecuadorian girlfriend 30 years their junior). For whatever reason they ended up in Cuenca, they had built a fostering, supportive, expat community that couldn’t be found in the United States, either. It was almost a second chance to built the co-reliant community that we were all supposed to have in the States, but had at some point lost. For that reason, my time in Cuenca — albeit a bit boring — was also quite special.

After my month in Cuenca, I took a night bus to Peru — specifically, Chiclayo. The city was nothing special; I actually spent all day in my $15 hotel room (Chiclayo doesn’t even have hostels), but it was a transport hub to the rest of the country.

Chachapoyas, Peru

Chachapoyas, nestled in the Amazon cloud forest, is pretty off the standard backpacker path (when I ran into another westerner on an organized tour, he commented with, “You’re a long way from Lima!”), but it brought the magic. Most known the ancient ruins of Kuelap, which were supposed to be the “Machu Picchu of Northern Peru,” but have been closed for damage since last year, it also wasn’t too far from Gocta Falls, the 3rd highest waterfall in the world.

Overall, Chachapoyas — or Chacha, as the locals call it — has been my favorite destination in South America thus far.

Huanchaco, Peru

Currently, I’m perched in a coffee shop in Huanchaco, a surfer town outside of one of Peru’s larger coastal cities, Trujillo. It’s not my favorite. Food is expensive, the town is overrun by European surfers, and it’s very easy to forget that I’m in Peru. It’s always a difficult experience for me to visit an over-touristed place. While I understand that I, myself, am a tourist, it’s also underwhelming to find an experience that mirrors exactly what I could find in the United States — something I didn’t come for. I also squirm at the thought of contributing to the over-tourism that destroys local communities.

For the next week or so, though, this will be unavoidable. Once I arrive in Lima, I’ll be starting the “gringo trail,” or a tourist path used by most western tourists as they make their way from Lima to Cusco. I’m intentionally rushing through it, and during my month in Cusco I’m excited to work with a local tourism agency on marketing and digital media — because then I’ll be able to give back to the community, if even for a little bit.

I’d been curious about ayahuasca for a while now. It’s not the reason I came to South America, but once I was here, I couldn’t miss engaging in this tradition within its native culture. Also, yes, I was down to finally uncover the meaning of life and completely cure my anxiety, because who wouldn’t be? (For those unfamiliar, ayahuasca — a hallucinogenic plant containing DMT — has been studied extensively as a highly effective treatment to depression and anxiety).

For almost a week, I stayed with an indigenous Kichwa community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, about a 30 minutes drive (and a lengthy boat ride) from the nearest town. Like many tribes across the Amazon, the Kichwa have been utilizing ayahuasca as medicine for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Mother Aya, as she is affectionately called, is integral to the Kichwa way of life. She is so important that newborns are given a teaspoon of ayahuasca to start their lives with wisdom and health. She is considered the mother of all plants, allowing the Kichwa to connect to the soul of the Amazon. I felt so grateful to be welcomed into this community, and I knew that they would provide me with a safe, pure experience.

Night One

Over the course of about five days, I would take part in three ayahuasca ceremonies. They say you should go into the ceremonies with an intention, and I had mine: I want to know what to do with my life. I knew this phase in my life gave me a fresh start, an chance to do and be anything — but there were too many options. Where do I want to live? How do I want to earn money? What do I want? Who do I want to be? All of these questions begged me for answers that I could not give.

Before our first ceremony, my group — two guys from Germany, one girl from Morocco, and I — were prepped on what to expect. First, we would be given rapé, a tobacco mixture blown into our nose to open up our third eye (the rapé left me incredibly relaxed, with my sinuses clearer than they had ever been). Then, we would sit for a limpia, which translates to cleaning. An elder would cleanse negative energy around us as we prepared for our experience. After the limpia, we were given our cup of ayahuasca. We’d drink the medicine, follow it with a glass of water, and then take a few breaths by the fire before sitting back down on our floor mattresses. There, we’d wait for the medicine to do its work.

Ayahuasca is best known as a purging medicine. For most, this takes the form of near constant vomiting. For many, it also comes out the other end. The lucky few (none were in my group, though I hoped it would be me) purge in different ways — crying, laughing, something of the sort. This purge is highly important and believed to cleanse the body of illness, ailments, and trauma. (Many stories have circulated about ayahuasca curing cancer and other diseases; this study reports that ayahuasca does have antiviral and anti-tumor effects.) After I swallowed my ayahuasca and sat back down on my mattress, I cradled my bucket (generously provided to us all) and waited for the magic to happen.

As soon as I started puking, I realized I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. I had prepared my brain for fear, for panic, but not for this intense nausea that had me clutching my stomach in fetal position during the few moments between vomit sessions. An ayahuasca trip lasts for six hours; I have no idea how long I was puking for, but I was terrified it would never end. Whenever I had a moment of peace, I would try to remember why I was there: What do you want to do with your life, Zefan? Think! Is the ayahuasca telling you anything? Then, I would lunge toward my bucket, and my thoughts would change: What have I done to my body? I’ve literally ingested poison. This is horrible. I am never doing this again.

Eventually, I reached for my bucket less and less frequently; after what I assume to be a few hours, I was done purging, and stared at the ceiling of the maloka while clutching my stomach. I was done asking myself questions, angry that ayahuasca had made me terribly sick without bothering to provide me with any grand revelations. I laid there listening to the hundreds of insects making noise across the Amazon, waiting for it all to end.

And then, I felt something pleasant. Something I had felt perhaps once or twice before. A feeling that I was intertwined, inseparably, from the universe, from everything around me. Some describe it as ego death, the loss of a distinct sense of self. I imagined the universe as a circle, and I — along with everything else — was running across its perimeter, all at once, like light. I basked in the comfort of being everything and nothing, until I fell asleep.

The light of dawn woke us up, and we returned to our casitas. I clutched my stomach for the rest of the day, convinced that this was all a waste of my time and I would never do it again. I’ve experienced ego death before. While it was beautiful to experience again, it wasn’t what I came here for. I could get there without the constant puking.

Nights Two & Three

When I complained to a friend back home, telling him I was done, he convinced me to finish what I started — so at 9pm that evening, I found myself again under the maloka, sitting for a limpia, anxious about the hours ahead. I vowed to spend that night asking myself questions a little less rudely; instead of demanding to know what I wanted to do with my life, I would reflect on: What makes me happy?

I took ayahuasca two more times on this retreat — three in total — and these experiences were much more pleasant than the first (read: less puking, though still a lot).

Less purging gave me more time to sit with the ayahuasca as DMT flooded my brain. The second night, I thought about how, even though my own self wasn’t distinct from the universe, it was also the only thing that I could be 100% sure existed. For someone who spends most of their waking moments looking for approval from others, this was poignant. I felt that none of this approval was real, and in some weird way, nobody else was as real as I thought them to be. I was the realest thing, the only real thing.

On the third night, I was convinced my heart had stopped beating. I felt it beat twice, and then I felt it stop. I looked for it in my chest, panicking that I couldn’t find it. I almost called someone over to raise the alarm, hoping that the jungle clinic would have a defibrillator, but decided to wait.

For some reason, I let myself accept my death. I thought about my life in total — and was relieved to feel that, in total, I was somewhat satisfied. Then, I thought about the unavoidable reality of death, and that whether it was now or later, I would have to face it. For all my big questions, no matter how well I answered them, I would die. They seemed smaller, less important. Getting the “right” answer felt like a futile exercise. Nothing I did actually mattered — and that felt awesome. My only responsibility in this world was to do good and to have fun, and face the end peacefully when it came.

The Answers

I didn’t walk away from my ayahuasca experience with Mother Aya telling me to go start an avocado farm in Gabon. I didn’t have visions of mystical spirits revealing my most hidden traumas or answering my deepest questions. I didn’t have answers to any of my questions; my anxiety about the future was not cured. Everything I had discovered, I — on some level — already knew. (A friend described my experience as a Kung Fu Panda moment.) However, I did walk away with a sense that the questions I had weren’t as paralyzing as I made them to be. I can take time to figure the answers out, and those answers don’t have to impress or be approved by anyone else. In the end, my joy will be all that mattered. And if I can’t get my answers right now, I’ll take my peace.

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What I’m Up To

This week, I’m in Cuenca, Ecuador. Considered one of the safest cities in South America, I’m enjoying a little break from watching my pockets — and my phone — so closely. There’s a thriving expat community, mostly of retired Americans looking for a temperate, affordable town with quality healthcare. I’ll be spending a month in Cuenca to slow down a bit before I cross the border to Peru.

It’s $10/night. There’s no closet (so I’m using the rug), the shared single-unit bathroom is outside (literally outside) and down the stairs, and an aroma of mildew hangs in the air. But it’s my own, private room, and that’s pretty awesome. But still, I sat in my bed while I reminisced fondly about my life a few months prior: a beautiful apartment, premium gym membership, and exclusive co-working space.

Much of this pain is self inflicted, of course — I have the financial option to skip the bus stop and opt for a private transfer, or opt for an Airbnb instead of a hostel. But living in Washington, D.C. pushed my lifestyle into far more expensive territory than I was comfortable with, and I wanted a total(-ish) reset.

There’s not much else to share this week; no interesting observations or insights. After living in vacation mode for the past 2+ months, I’m finally starting to settle in and decide what I want from my next several months in South America (and beyond).

What (Else) I’m Up To

This week, I’m in Baños, Ecuador — the waterfall capital of, quite possibly, the world. One of my first few days, I took a chiva, or a South American party bus, through Ruta de las Cascadas, a stretch of about 20 kilometers that features 11 insane waterfalls. The chiva stops at a few on the way, and you can hop a zipline, walk (or jump) off a suspension bridge, or take a little hike. It was such a beautiful experience, I might go back for an encore.

Baños overflows with locals on the weekends — some sort of version of Ecuadorian Disneyworld, but during the week, it’s a small-town oasis. I felt so relieved to finally be able walk safely back to my hostel at night, or pull out my phone in the middle of the street. Eggs are cheap ($1.25 for a dozen), probably because of the large symphony of roosters that wake me up everyday at 5:00am (and one guy who starts his shouting at 2:30am — what’s his deal?). It makes sense that Baños is the place where my brain decides to completely shut down.

This weekend, I’ll be heading into the Amazon rainforest, a trip that I’ve been excited about for months now. To support responsible, sustainable tourism (and of course, learn about the Amazon from the truest experts), I’ll be staying in a Kichwa indigenous community. Internet access will be limited, so I’ll share more in two weeks.

More soon.