Collegian Column #1

I'm going to go ahead and re-publish my first column here, because the original that Ari typed into the computer (thanks Ari!) contained some changes made by the Collegian editors, which, no surprise, I don't approve of. I was originally thinking of calling this column "Lost In The Andes." Okay,

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I will be gone from Willamette this semester. I will be traveling through South America for three months and one week with five Willamette students and one from Knox College. When people ask me why I’m going, I get uneasy, because I start to think of all the things I hope, but don’t dare say.

What I would like is to be able to state my purpose and intentions, nobly, rather than to blanch at this embarrassing cataract of malformed and dubious longings and aspirations that swells up occasionally.

Some of these are hopes for myself: Maybe I’ll gain a new perspective. Maybe I’ll get in shape again. (Again?) Maybe I’ll learn Spanish (unlikely). Maybe I’ll learn Kichwa (much less likely still). Maybe I’ll turn into a man! Oh god…

But even worse are my expectations for the land and the people, the ignoble byproducts of a life of media saturation. They’re an unholy gumbo of “The Three Caballeros,” “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Romancing the Stone,” sundry Wikipedia entries, Tintin, and more Disney comic book adventure stories than I care to count.

I’m looking forward to seeing cute little gauchitos, and cannibals with sharp teeth and glistening yellow eyes. Perhaps a lost cache of molded Incan gold. Has El Dorado been discovered?

Enough of all this foolishness! Of course I know the world isn’t really like that. Maybe that’s why I’m going? Because I don’t know what it’s like? Anyway. In subsequent columns (which hopefully won’t be so heavy) I’ll report on our own South American adventures, as we make our way south from Quito to Santiago, and attempt to fix some meaning to this trip beyond that of a vacation.