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JAYHAWKS ABROAD
MOVING FORWARD
By Betsy Tampke
The best thing about traveling around Central America were the people. They were cool vagabonds, vacationing middle-agers, and full on weirdos. I met them everywhere—riding in the ferry, hiking to a waterfall, searching for the proper bus station, or simply staying in a hostel.
My favorite hostels feel like islands (them being located on an actual island is inessential but obviously a clear plus). They have little to no internet connection, no television, and sometimes not even private rooms. In addition to offering little to no privacy, these hostels also steal away every other form of outside entertainment, leaving everyone with no choice but to grab a book, play cards, or swap stories with the 6-20 other people they find themselves surrounded by.
At any one gathering it is common to have three languages (at least) weave in and out of each other like a complicated lopsided braid, each member trying to be conscious of the language that the other members speak best. The two dominating languages are Spanish and English as almost everyone present is proficient in at least one of these. However, no one's second language is perfect and this leaves many native-English speakers occasionally translating for the native-Spanish speakers and vice versa. Additionally, the Europeans (usually, though not always, Dutch, German, or French) will exchange quick words and phrases to each other in their native tongues that (much to my dismay) no one can understand but them. I like to imagine that these gatherings are like United Nations meetings. That is, if every United Nations delegate was an early 20 to late 30 something year-old with limited income, sparse education, and a propensity to gravitate towards dangerous activities (such as deep jungle hiking, surfing, cliff diving, waterfall repelling, and riding local buses at night). Actually, United Nations should look into some kind of international bonding activity like this because after spending many-a-night surrounded by people from France, England, Canada, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Bulgaria, and Venezuela, I actually have greater respect for their countries and I don't think there was a single argument among us. Wait, no there was one argument (it was about smoking and we entered into it by accident).
In his or her own way every traveler is different. Some people work on boats. Some people work temp jobs. Some people are waiters and waitresses. Some people don't work at all anymore. Some people are students. Some people are about to be students. And other people just seem to have money for no reason.
They are from everywhere and have been everywhere. They are from uptight wealthy families and poor dilapidated ones. They got straight A's and went to good universities to make their parents proud and they started drinking at age 12, dated 20-somethings in their teenage years, have over five tattoos, and never graduated high school. They worked as a librarian for 5 years before they decided to quit their job and travel. They've never worked a day in their life. They have been to Argentina and hiked through Patagonia. They saw Machu Picchu. They answer questions about Russia and Thailand and tell stories about how when they were in China they were waiting in line for two hours to get train tickets only to have the clerk see that they were white and shut the gate on them.
They are more adventurous than me—or perhaps more idiotic than me, but in the world of travelers sometimes that line feels blurred. They paid Captain Shay $5 to ride between cows and pigs in the bottom of his boat to avoid a $30 ferry. They showed up to Costa Rica without any clear sort of plan. They took a "Chicken Bus". They climbed down into that bat cave the hostel owner took a group of us to, while I stood by the mouth and watched with my mother's voice pleading don't do anything reckless playing over and over again in my head. They are proud of their adventure-hood—wearing the places they have been and near death experiences they have survived like patches on a boy-scout uniform—and they are unashamed of the amount of time they have spent un-rooted.
They travel in pairs—as couples or friends. They travel in groups of three or four. They travel completely alone. They travel to work. They travel to study. They travel to find themselves, and they travel to lose themselves.
They leave behind wives, husbands, fiancés, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings, and children. Some of them have been traveling for so long that they don't leave anyone behind anymore when they go. When we asked a late fifty-something year-old—jan about if she ever had a husband or children she shook her head and laughed.
"I forgot," she said and shrugged her shoulders.
Yes, everyone is different. Just as every country is different and every bus is different and every time I try to turn on a hostel kitchen stove it's different. But in another way every one I've met and me are all exactly the same.
We're all running away. Running away, hiding,
escaping, avoiding, evading, whatever you want
(continued on page 6)
OFFICER DIVERSITY:
KU CAMPUS HAS MOST HISTORICALLY DIVERSE POLICE FORCE PAGE 3A
POWER OF THE PAST EVENT PROVIDES UNIQUE LOOK INTO HISTORY
PAGE 5A
THE MIGHTY MIKE HAWK, CATWALK II & KING MIDGET
SEARCHING RETENTION:
STUDY FINDS THAT LEARNING A LANGUAGE ISN'T IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER
HYBRID CLASSES:
ALLOWING STUDENTS
A FLEXIBLE WAY TO
ATTEND CLASS
AARON GROENE/KANSAN
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