Sitting on Jason’s balcony overlooking the Pacific shoreline is every ex-pat’s dream – warm, gentle waves rolling onto miles of beachfront and lush greenness everywhere. This is the life, I want to think. This is paradise.Except that for me, I’m not looking for paradise. I come from an island that IS considered paradise. If that’s all I needed, I wouldn’t have left. I’ve barely been here a week, and already I feel like I’ve been here a month. Everything about Nicaragua feels the same to me, because nothing really changes. It feels like home, and my nomadic heart doesn’t want to be at home.
I visited my Mechapa host family. Whoa. Things here have changed. My host brothers, who were 11 (Erick), 14 (Helmin), and 16 (Jasser) at the time, are all now 8 years older, which means they’re all grown up n
ow. It’s kind of weird to see boys I used to watch in school parades and run to waterfalls and play dominoes with…as men.After some initial awkwardness – and a plate of rice, beans, and fried chicken that I ate by myself at the table while everyone else watched – we got over it. They showed me new additions to the house. They told me about their job, or college classes, or lack of a girlfriend, how their dad was getting fat, how their mom was about to qualify for a green card. And how I look taller and skinnier than before. Maybe even prettier. And younger.
Yep. Although I mercilessly teased them about showing game with those last few comments, I was actually kinda proud. My brothers have learned how to woo a woman.Still, nothing really changes. Taxis still take the long way, buses are still full,we still haggle over a few cents just to get the upper hand. We cram onto the sidewalk to share the corner of shade, and we all walk on the streets because the sidewalks are full.
But maybe I’ve changed. I’m more confident walking the streets these days. I still get the same stares, the same catcalls, and the same “Oye, chinita, chinita!” that once frustrated me so. But I’m not as bothered by it as before. Perhaps I came better equipped mentally, or had already created expectations of it happening. I still fume on the inside, but can now shake my head and laugh it off. 
Or maybe I’m finally growing up.
Crossed the border into Costa Rica. Was forced to stay in San Jose overnight. They advertised having cable. This is the cable I watched the Giants win the World Series on. Got repeatedly either locked out of my room, or locked in the hotel-house thing. Meh. Costa Rica gets the big X. Never really ever considered it anyway.
20 bus hours later, I've
finally arrived. I’m staying in a town called Las Cumbres, about 20 minutes outside of Panama City. I don’t know anyone down here. I have no jobs or fairs or festivals lined up. I don’t really know the culture, or food, or history. Hell, I've only seen the Canal once. I’m a little nervous, to be honest, starting absolutely from scratch in a foreign place in a city I don’t know with almost nothing in my possession – all based on a happy, comforting, being-alive sensation I had 6 years ago when I visited after having finished Peace Corps. I guess I’ve come back to see if what I felt was right. Maybe I'm home?
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