We are the stories we tell ourselvesI love this line. It comes from a wonderful TEDTalk by a famous Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur. As the line suggests the Story is a metaphor for life, and following the beautifully suggested logic, we are the directors of the lives we own. Or a single one, a life of my own.

At times, like now, like tonight, or should I say this morning rather, I randomly wake up for no obvious reason. My mind is boggling me. Something is up. Something is cooking. Something is bothering me from inside. Some random thought is knocking inside out. I got used to recognizing this feeling not as a bad sleeping problem, but rather… but rather as a blessing — the time and need to talk to self. As if my mind would wait till I’m present, not disturbed by external factors of the busy day, or of that always pressing need to be awake and present during the day, the need to react to the very day’s existence. Isn’t the daylight bothering you, conditioning you to wake up, demanding you to act upon it. Oh, it’s distracting in so many ways. The darkness of the night is true. But where I am..

It’s been just a year, it’s been quite a year, it’s been an era.At times I wonder what is the power of symbolism behind the tradition of drawing the lines, looking back assessing and concluding, making resolutions, but above all — saying thank yous. And above all I do. For the year behind I want to say thank you to every single person I have met traveling the World, to every stranger who passed by, to flight attendants and pilots who made no delays, to every host I stayed with, to every person I have interviewed, to every person whom I could not interview for any reason, to every one of my friends who supported me, to all my wonderful family who support me always, and above all, I am grateful to myself.

7 days ago I was «there». «There» is the place when you are not «here», whereas here is home. Here is the place where you are met by the people you know, and walk down the streets you walked thousands of times. The first thing I did on the first morning back here — I put on the 10 cm high heels and went on running errands, yes, high heels make me feel at home.

Big, noisy and colorful ‘chicken buses’ full of people, compete speeding fearlessly by taking over one another, leaving a hard thick black smoke tail, on the way to Sumpango, a small farmers’ town in Guatemala, about 2 hours drive from the capital. I hopped off at the gas station on the main road where we agreed Oscar will pick me up. After waiting for 30 minutes under the sometimes intense looks around, I saw a small silver Nissan approaching. Oscar smiled from inside of the car and with the nod invited me in. A short drive along the narrow somewhat gloomy streets of Sumpango brought us to one of many entrances along the fences on the paved street. Every house in Sumpango is fenced above the human height.