Over and Out

It’s been just over a month since I left Brazil. The reflections come in long journaling sessions, a buzz from the Whatsapp groups I’m still in, the daydreaming stood behind the counter at my new job, seemingly in everything and nothing. Back in rural Cheshire, it’s difficult to find reminders of my year in Brazil. Sometimes I think of it and it seems like a lucid dream, as if it never happened. And other times, I make brigadeiro or I see the thermometer climbing back up (hoping maybe, I’ll get to wear some of those clothes I loved in Brazil). Once, a Brazilian came into my work speaking Portuguese, and like a fool, I grinned the rest of the day. I’m still unclear as to why her and her British boyfriend moved here, but they seemed confused as to why I moved back too.

There is a monotony to being back. I’m fully aware that there was monotony to my life in Brazil but let’s just say that my 4 half days a week apprenticeship gave me a little more time to experiment with than I have now. Almost immediately after returning, what would prove to be the biggest struggle of being home so far hit me: the lack of brain food. In Brazil everything stretched my brain. From just having a chat with my host family, oh sorry it has to be in Portuguese, to riding the bus, which just so happened to be cultural immersion, living like a local and contemplating how public transport affects the lives of those who cannot afford cars, every moment gave me food for thought. And on landing home, I was smacked in the face by an empty plate.

So, I began searching for some intellectual nourishment, and happened upon a podcast. It’s called “The Habitat”. It follows a NASA experiment in which 6 “astronaut-like” volunteers are sent to live in a bio-dome on an Haitian island, which provides the most Mars-like landscape we have on earth, to essentially road-test the most important equipment for setting up a colony on Mars: the people. As the episodes went on, I started to find some odd connections with what these people were talking about and going through. To the crew trying to support the Parisian as he processed the Paris attacks from afar, I thought of some of the fellows from the US as they heard of the Pittsburgh shooting, and then many subsequent. I thought of the Venezuelan fellows who, despite not being space colonisers, had a foggier idea of when they would be able to go home than that astronaut did. When they reflected on their hopes to leave the habitat with “five new best friends” and realised that this just wasn’t how human socialising worked, I laughed to think of my own expectations of my host family. When one of the volunteers decided that this was the perfect chance for her to learn to play the digeridoo, I glanced at the alfaia I built and shipped home.

30/09/18 Ele nao protest, Praca XV, Florianopolis

At the end of the series, the presenter reflected on what she had learnt about space travel and colonisation through these six simulated astronauts. She said that she had heard many varied reasons as to why we should set up a colony on Mars, from protecting the human race from extinction, to developing new technologies to testing the extremities of human capabilities. But she said that, from what she heard of the audio clips sent by the volunteers, there seemed to be one thing motivating them to get through 365 days in a bio-dome and spacesuits. Curiosity. Because finding what was out there was cool. Because using new technologies was cool. Because testing your limits by putting yourself in the most alien place you could imagine is cool. And I thought about why I took a gap year. About how, however many labels I tried to put on that feeling, that urge to make me go, “I want to learn about a new culture”, “I want give my time for other and the environment”, “I was to push my personal development”, there is something truthful in what those fake-astronauts discovered about themselves. We can give ourselves many rational reasons for why we do the wild things we do, to justify it to the world and to our limited time and budgets, but ultimately its curiosity that pushes you through the tough spells. None of us would have made it through the year (GCY fellows or fake astronauts) on just new technologies and a desire of mutual understanding, its because finding what is out there is cool.

Also, big thanks to my mum who first commented that “GCY Re-entry training” made us sound like astronauts. You made this year possible for me, and it’s never bad making your daughter feel like she’s capable of exploring what is completely unknown to her.

Note: I have no affiliation with the production or marketing of "The Habitat".