I know that there are tons of women around the world who claim to feel the same way - and I refer to the first part of the sentence - and it might be even true. There may be women who packed up their belongings, went to an Ashram to meditate for a while, or moved to Italy and have gained 30 pounds since. Or have found love in Bali or any other exotic location. I think it was such a huge success because so many of us could identified with Elizabeth (maybe our marriages were on the rocks, maybe the comfort of our lives started to feel suffocating and our job meaningless, we were trying to fight off depression, trying to find underlying casues of depression, getting more depressed in the process, doing yoga but still not finding inner peace not to mention enlightenment ) and felt that "hey, I could take a trip somewhere, too!"
I did. I went to Peru to do some volunteerwork in the rainforest. I remember getting out of the plane in Puerto Maldonado and feeling all choked up - I had this very strong feeling that I was where I had to be. I was looking forward to all the great adventures and all the interesting people I was just about to meet.
I was totally miserable. The trip to the biological station deep in the forest was a nightmare. Despite being in the tropics it was freaking cold and the rain was pouring the whole seven hours and all I wanted was to go home (but first, to get dry). When we got to our camp I had to get over my first shock - the doors of the little cabins were non-existent. There were nothing on the windows. I mean, come on, we are in the forest, full of dangerous animals - that can obviously come and visit us whenever they want.
I wasn't really sociable those first few days. Hated being woken up at 4 in the morning to walk along a muddy trail to count all the animals we encounter. (How can you count a group of squirrel monkeys that swing through the branches 20 metres above your head?).
Eventually the forest (and the people) wore down my resistance and I found myself feeling more alive than ever before. The rainforest can have this effect on you. Your senses - those that you harldy ever use in your daily life in the city - finally come alive. Not just your sense of smell, for example (I was able to smell a group of pecary in no time - which is not a big wasistdas considering they are quite stinky) but your sense of balance and your sense of wonder also. Yes, it might be tainted with fear - am I gonna be eaten by a big old jaguar? - but even that thought can help you finding your place in the big picture (yes, you can be someone else's dinner). You are part of the web of life.
I did not think for a moment that counting forest animals or jotting down notes about macaw behaviour at the clay-lick will save the world. I guess it would be naiv for any volunteers to have such high aspirations. But at least part of our money provided extra income to some local people, who in turn might not had to resort to illegal logging, for example. (I hope that was the case, at least).
On the other hand, spending hours in a hide at the riverbank writing down what the macaws do at the clay-lick every 3 minutes (7.00 - one macaw scratched his head. 7.03 two macaws scratched each other heads...) gives you plenty of time to wonder which direction your life is going (negative direction) and what you should do about it (something). And that's when the thought (if I can call it a thought - more like a gut-feeling) came - I wanna translate Eat, Pray, Love.
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