Outdoor adventures in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, with some occasional reflective storytelling.
I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook memories. Sometimes they drag up ugly photos from my braces-fille high school years, or pictures of people I was once close to but through time and space no longer see. Other times they remind me of amazing moments like rafting in the jungle or a date at the…
Read MoreSaturday evening found me sweaty and in tears. We had just been told that our reservation, which I had made a month or so in advance, had been cancelled, because we had shown up after the 4 pm check-in cut-off. This was after I had called the day before to confirm my reservation, and had…
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Have you ever gotten sick abroad? If you have, you might be aware that ideas about sickness are different from place to place. Read on for an Ecudaorian approach to enfermedades. Prevention is key! Ways to prevent sickness include keeping your windows shut against the cold air, not being a vegetarian and consuming plenty of…
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I was recently home for a week, having been gifted an airline ticket by a dear family friend to be here for my big sister’s baby shower. Being home after having lived abroad almost 1.5 years reminds me of all the little things I appreciate in the States and also of things that occasionally frustrate me…
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On the morning of Wednesday, November 16, I did something I never thought I’d do. I told Peace Corps staff to send me home. In Peace Corps lingo, I “early terminated”. Within just three hours, I was packed up and in a Peace Corps car on my way from our training town to the capital…
Read MoreSeven days ago, PC Moz 27 touched down in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Since arriving, we have gone through a series of vaccinations, lugged our hundreds of pounds of baggage around a few times, moved in with our Pre-Service Training (PST) host families, and started taking Portuguese language classes. It’s been an eventful week,…
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This isn’t exactly what I had in mind. I’d been envisioning “closing off” my year in Ecuador with a nice, 1500-word blog post summing up my experiences there and what I’ve learned from them and how I’m different now etc. I sat down with my laptop and some notes scribbled on the back of an…
Read MoreOne of the hardest lessons I’ve learned since living in Ecuador is that friendships, even ones you think are forever, sometimes fall apart. Sometimes one person is more to blame, and sometimes it’s just a natural effect of being far away from each other. Maybe those relationships can be revived in the future, or maybe…
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Home. What is home? Living in Quito has made me question the definition of home, reworking it to encompass my experiences abroad. I have often wondered how long it must one be in a place to be able to say one lived there. For it to feel like home. Is three months enough? Is 10.5?…
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Family and friends joked that when I moved to Ecuador, I would end up bringing an Ecuadorian guy back to the States. That’s because my big sister, who lived in Quito from 2011-2012, did exactly that. When I came here though, dating wasn’t exactly a top priority for me. I was busy adjusting to living…
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Elizabeth Seeks 