Travel Meditation # 1: Time is not as important as you think.

When I lived in Oakland, I woke up at 5:35, left the house at 6:05, stopped for coffee at 6:17, got on the train at 6:31, got off the train at 6:38, and got to work at 6:49, just in time to unlock the doors and have everything presentable for before-school childcare at precisely 7:00.
I couldn´t follow a schedule like that in Colombia to save my life.
Okay, so I know that BART is sometimes a few minutes off...but here, when you get to a bus station and you ask someone what time the bus is leaving, they always tell you "ten minutes." But they don´t mean ten minutes. What they actually mean is, "when the bus is full." As in, whenever enough people happen to wander by who are going in the same direction you are.
This might drive me insane. Or, it might lead to me to a new level of enlightenment in which I am able to realize that time as we know it is an illusion best disregarded. The jury is still out, but for the last few days this new Colombian notion of time has served us well. Yesterday, we spent some undefined amount of "hours" on a bus, only to arrive at the station in San Gil at the precise moment the final game of the World Cup went into penalties. We sat down on the floor of the bus station and cheered for Italy along with everyone else with hearing distance of the television. Today, we hiked up to an amazing waterfall and on our way out realized we would be flagging down a bus (or whatever) to get us home, and we had no idea what time it was or what time the buses ran. We started walking along the road...we heard thunder...the clouds were looking ominous...and then, just as we hopped into the first passing bus, it started to pour. Impeccable timing.
Here´s one section of the waterfall - it was 180 meters in total, this was the lowest, 5 meter section.

Now this is a meditation on a different topic. After the hike, I went with Shaun, who runs the hostel we´re staying in, and Helen, a girl I met there, to the orphanage where Helen is volunteering. It´s not exactly an orphanage...many of the kids have parents who for whatever reason are unable to take care of them, and it can be just a temporary home. They work with the families to try to get them on track, but if after a year the parents are unwilling or unable to show signs of progress, the kids are put up for adoption. There are 19 kids there right now, from 16 months to 10 years old. It wasn´t a terrible place. I´m sure there are worse. But oh...I just couldn´t help comparing it to the wonderful environments my kids in Orinda are growing up in. It´s not fair! If you know me at all, you know that I adore my kids and would never wish them anything less than absolutely everything. But these kids have so little...and what they have is far better than the life they might have on the street or even with their parents. It´s just not okay...I know, I know, I´m far from the first to figure this out. But...it´s just not okay!