Normal to Me, Incredible to Others

It's hard to believe that I've been home for a month already! I spent some time with two friends from Peace Corps this past week, and it was so nice to have the chance to catch up and compare our post-PC experiences thus far. We're all enjoying being back in the US, spending time with family and friends, eating foods and visiting places that we missed. Despite talking to my host family since I’ve been home, at times Guatemala seems like a dream. Although there were days and weeks of my service that seemed to drag by ever-so-slowly, the entire two years went by faster than I could have imagined. And now that I'm back at home, in the lap of luxury, it seems impossible that I could slide between these two worlds so easily. I spent two years in a drafty room, washing dishes and clothes by hand with cold water, and now I’m soaking up heat by the wood stove and enjoying the conveniences of modern appliances.

Everyone wants to know how I'm adjusting, if it was a shock to move back to the US. But honestly, it hasn't been hard at all. Despite the fact that I lived a very different lifestyle in a very different country for two years, things at home haven't changed too much. Sure, my baby cousins are bigger than the last time that I saw them, it's much colder than it was the last time that I was home in June, and there is a brand new Tim Horton's in Ithaca (with delicious coffee and gingerbread doughnuts!) But things have really just moved along at a normal place while I’ve been somewhere else. Being isolated from the fast pace of technological advancements in the rest of the world has left me feeling completely lost when considering buying a new phone. When talking to a lady at Verizon last night about new phones, I explained that I have been out of the country for two years. “You probably don’t even know what 4G is, do you!?” she exclaimed. (As a matter of fact, I had no idea).

Dad asked me the other day if my host family would ever be able to visit us here. The thought made me stop short. What would Sole, Nando and Emelin think if they walked into our house with wall-to-wall carpeting? What would they think of the comfy sofa and recliner? The indoor plumbing, with water that runs 24/7? Even hot water if you want it! The refrigerator, chest freezer and pantry full of food? My family is pretty average as far as Americans go, but I am certain that my host family would feel quite out of place and perhaps even uncomfortable if surrounded by what we call “normal”. And yet it wasn’t very hard for me to adjust to their “normal” in rural Guatemala, and then back to life in the US. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know what they’d think of our house, as it is unlikely that they could ever get tourist visas, and impossible that they could ever afford plane tickets.

As I'm writing this with the TV on in the background, a commercial just came on asking people to sponsor poor children. You know the kind I'm talking about, the ones that shows dirty children with incredibly sad faces. "You'll probably never meet children that live in this poverty, see the results of malnutrition, or see the look of despair in their eyes", claims the man standing among children in a poverty-stricken village. I have seen poverty and malnutrition, though perhaps not to the extent that this man has. But the look of despair in a child's eyes? That's something that I haven't seen quite so often. In the two years that I spent among Guatemalans, they taught me so much more than I ever could have imagined. Of course I want to remember all the Guatemalan slang that I picked up, how to prepare pepian, dance Duranguense, and wash clothes by hand (you never know, it might come in handy again!). But most of all, I want to remember how to be happy with the lot that life hands me. I can’t say that Guatemalans are always happy because after all, they’re just as human as the rest of us. I often heard adults complain about the rising cost of living, the corrupt government, and the poor education system. Teenagers protested when I gave them homework assignments or exams, and little kids cried to be picked up or fed. Yet despite snotty noses and muddy hands, even the poorest children amazed me with their ability to entertain themselves all day in the back yard, walk long distances without the help of adults (who were usually carrying the smaller children) and master adult tasks at a young age (such as making tortillas or hoeing a field) with a smile on their faces. Men and women worn out by a life of poverty and physical labor amazed me by their willingness to go out of their way to help neighbors even worse off than themselves. And yes, in general, they were happy and didn’t complain much about being poor. Perhaps the people who I lived among can’t even imagine a way of life any different from the one that they know, though they strive to make things better, in some way, for their children. I hope that I can live the rest of my life remembering these amazing people, being forever thankful for the chance I had to live with them, and knowing that I am incredibly lucky and blessed to have been born into this life that we call “normal”.