Beginnings

End of OTS Global Health Semester; San Jose to San Vito:

Finally the day arrives after months of preparation, and for a brief moment, you forget everything that brought you there. It is an infinitesimal moment in which you know you expected to, are supposed to feel a burgeoning sense of accomplishment, purpose, and vitality. But instead you have suddenly opened your eyes after a long dream and realize you don't recognize anything around you and don't know which move is the correct one that you expected to, are supposed to make then and there.

As I stepped onto a bus in San Jose, Costa Rica, after having stowed away all of my possessions in the cargo hold, I found myself facing rows of unfamiliar faces staring blankly back at me. And I forgot everything. I felt the weight of all my decisions fall into my hands but I couldn't quite comprehend the passage that I was making. I found my seat and dug through my bag to find a notebook. I haphazardly it opened to any page that would look like all of the rest with frenzied, half-formulated notes about my research scribbled in all directions. I read those notes until they became familiar again and I could feel sure that they were mine.

My arrival in San Vito six hours later brought me to familiar sights and sounds. Yet even as I unload the contents of my bags into a cabin at the Las Cruces research station that I came to know so well during the semester, my uncertainty lingers.