With the end of 2013, my year as a Fulbright grantee also comes to a
close as does this blog. I applied for
the grant my senior year of college, not knowing what I wanted to do, where I
wanted to go or even how I aimed to get to my unknown destination. However, I did know that I wanted adventure,
that I wanted to learn, and that most of all I wanted to take chances and maybe
if all went well, I would find myself along a road of happiness while
discovering more about our curious world.
Little could I have imagined that I would have such a wonderful year:
meeting incredible people, developing professional skills, and growing as a person—themes
that have been a part of my journey in each of my international experiences as
well as my educational opportunities in high school and college.
I set foot in an airport for the first time in my life in June 2006 to
board a plane bound for Slovakia where my mind expanded. My travels to Slovakia and since (Germany,
Peru, Kenya and South Korea) have forever changed the way I see the world. It’s not just the big things, but the simple
things too. Beauty lies in the small
moments: the excitement of small children waiting in the dirt outside their
adobe homes to watch you teach their mothers to bake a cake, ugali and a warm
cup of tea served up by an old grandmother in her mud hut as she thanks you for
teaching her grandchildren, the letters received from across the ocean at the
holidays, the willingness of university students to take time out of their busy schedules to explain things about their
culture that you are struggling to grasp, and the warmth of hugs and kisses
from friends and family.
Growing up in rural Nebraska, I took for granted the change of the
seasons, the fragrance of freshly cut grass and the lilac blossoms in the
spring. I didn’t know the blessing of
peace and stability, nor of understanding those around me. I now see each moment of life as a miracle, never
ceasing to marvel at the kaleidoscope above—the changing clouds, the sunsets,
the storms. We are like the weather—like
the particles in motion working together, doing our separate tasks. Sometimes we create a sunrise or sunset, but
at other times we become caught us in ourselves and sabotage ourselves. The atmospheric conditions just keep on changing
and there is no one who can stop it.
Culture varies. Languages evolve. Hope lives.
I’ve learned that there is much truth in the African proverb, “If you
want to go fast, go alone. If you want
to go far, go together.” Some of us have
blue eyes and silky blonde hair. Others
have green eyes and curly red hair, yet still there are those with smooth dark
chocolate eyes and hair black and stiff like steel wool. Our languages are distinct—some are nasal,
some guttural, some tonal and others with clicks. Our values, traditions and taboos can be as
extreme as the ocean floor and the sky.
Despite all these differences, we
are the same. Our faces break into
smiles when we’re happy. We clench our
teeth in pain or anger. Children learn
to crawl, walk and speak, to jump and sing at roughly the same ages all over
the world. We all experience hunger and
thirst. Aging escapes on one. It really is easier and quicker to do many
things on your own as you need not concern yourself with understanding anyone
else. Yet to succeed, to accomplish
great things, to have someone to pick you up when you fall—you must slow down
and invest in others. In this way we can
all go far. We can reduce the prevalence
of poverty, ignorance, crime and disease.
Each of us can make a mark and together we can paint a masterpiece. I’ve learned things about myself and about
humanity that I hadn’t known before. I
discovered bright meadows, shadows and caves.
Arriving in Germany in 2007 as a naïve teenage girl, I quickly hit many
bumps as I struggled with the language, was placed with an abusive host family,
was pulled into a nightlife scene that I had never before seen, and looked for
friends to fill the voids of those I’d left behind. The journey was tough, but I came out ahead
with a loving host family, stronger values, a good control of the language, and
a few good friends with whom I continue to share life today. My adventure to Peru a little over two years
later was also filled with many misadventures, but helped me discover the joy
of volunteer work and opened my eyes up to the work of the NGO world, something
that would later lead me to Kenya. I
didn’t fly halfway around the world to Kenya to see cornfields, to learn to use
pit latrines, to listen to magical tales or to be pinched by hoards of children
and adults alike, who just wanted to see if I was as human as them. But then, that’s the point of flying halfway
around the world—to experience what you didn’t expect to.
After all the hatred, all the love, all the differences and all the
similarities I’ve encountered, it is hard to sift through the sand and know
what’s valuable, but I’ll always have a treasure chest of memories. In some ways I see more clearly, in other
ways my vision is hazy at best. The one
thing I do know is that I will never be completely at home again, because part
of my heart will always be elsewhere.
That is the price I must pay for the richness of loving and knowing
people in more than one place.
