"We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded."
"Not to me," said Frodo. "To me it feels more like falling asleep again."
I was handed that quote by a fellow volunteer. Who'd have thought a Hobbit could so perfectly capture the strangeness of leaving Paraguay. Each day Paraguay seems further away. It is floating back into the mists of the unknown. My once daily life now seems exotic and strange again. What was the dream, and what the reality?
Currently I sit on a comfortable couch, in a perfectly climate controlled room, staring out to a manicured lawn and pool. I've comfortably slipped back into my old life, my old reality. But how can this be real? How can a world with so many options and possibilities be anything but a dream.
I can't possibly sum up these two years. What it meant, and what I did. I don't have any clear insights to the state of the world. I can't answer the question, "What is Development?" (But with some friends, a couple bottles of wine and a white board, I can try.) I can't really tell you anything more than when I started. I think I can tell you less. Certainty, right and wrong, and singular answers have all gone out the window. Maybe that's Paraguay's final gift and final challenge. I blamed Paraguay for all my confusion and struggle for the past two years, but maybe it wasn't Paraguay. The world is complicated and confusing. It just took Paraguay to show me that.
I now simply look forward to the next great adventure, drifting from one dream to the next.
