Assimilating

            We often romanticize travel. Most often we will get away for a weeklong holiday or a weekend trip and will feel inspired and refreshed. A quick change of environment is just the cure to take us out of our normal routine. 

            Trying to live in another culture however, more often than not comes with a wealth of emotions. A permanent change from "normal" is a bit of an adjustment. In all of my travel experiences it has always been a roller coaster of highs and lows with a lot of misunderstanding, uncomfortable situations and frustrations along the way.  It is not easy to change environment, language, and culture all at once.

            When this happens it can become easy to get frustrated in the little things.  My short list right now would include the heat, the chicken head in my soup at lunch, cold showers, and mosquito’s. But honestly these things aren’t what really bother me they are minor adjustments.

            The feeling of being misunderstood, receiving blank stares after just constructing a sentence I swore used correct grammar. The inability to fully express oneself, this is a lonely place to be.

So why you ask with all of these difficulties do I continue to travel???

Because it is worth it. More important than my own personal comfort I am concerned with my personal growth. I like to be challenged. I like to overcome obstacles. I like to do things I originally thought I could not. Yes assimilating is hard, especially when you are on your own. But having been through this before, now I know that it is part of the process and in the end I would not trade the lessons I learn along the journey for any fading comfort.

So as there are frustrations and differences to get used to, if I focus on the positive changes it makes the process a lot more fun.

Positives such as the things that I enjoy: for example how I can hop on the back of any passing motorcycle and get anywhere in town for around 50 cents.  Or whenever I am riding a bus somewhere and start to become hungry or thirsty, no doubt in about five minutes someone will come aboard selling drinks and snacks.

Or the things that make me laugh:  like today as I walked down a dirt road, which contained houses barely standing with pieced together walls, I was glad to see that the essentials were still met. When I say essentials I mean a big ass stereo. And how generous those people are, because instead of pointing the speakers inside to listen to their own music they point them outward for the rest of the community to enjoy. Gotta love it, but that doesn’t beat yesterday when I saw a women on the back of a motorcycle holding an entire washer and dryer. 

There are also the “wow, that just happened” moments to be thankful for.  Like the times when I have agreed to tag along with someone and suddenly found myself at a Colombian wedding or at the deathbed of their dying uncle (true stories).

 I can simply be thankful to be alive another day. Which Friday, as I sat on the backseat of a motorcycle speeding down a dirt road I seriously doubted that would be a reality. For some reason my driver thought that we were in a race against all the other bikes and he needed to come out victorious. We did.

            Yes, when assimilating you have to appreciate the changes and be willing to go with the flow. But more importantly you must use the difficulties as learning experiences. I am learning more and more that although there are differences between us we as humans have a lot more in common than we think. I am also becoming aware of the ways in which we try to make ourselves seem very different.

            We do many things to distance ourselves from our fellow man. Sometimes it is because of competition, we look to be better and therefore see the other as an opponent. We define our life by what we can accomplish and we need to continue meeting those standards to feel good about ourselves. When we live like this our identity is in what we can give, produce, and achieve. That sounds exhausting. It is not wrong to want to produce good outcomes but when they become the source of our self-esteem, it is destructive. Henri Nouwen writes “ In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments-the result of our actions-to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we have created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”  It was not until I had felt like I had completely failed until I understood this and realized where my identity and fulfillment was coming from.

He goes on to say “When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.” (Out of Solitude)

            Sometimes we distance ourselves from others because of our perceived sanctity. I know that this has been a particular vice for me. I have thought of myself as a good person who makes good choices, thinking that my good actions save me. This is the biggest most detrimental lie we can tell ourselves. The moment we start believing we are good or better than someone else because of our actions or choices is the moment we become elitist and begin to elevate ourselves and segregate from others. That is not radical love that is piety. Real love is realizing that my sin is equally as bad as any other persons. If I claim to follow a guy who would hang out with thieves and prostitutes and I consider myself to accomplished or moral to befriend someone, then somewhere along the way I have missed the message.

            Therefore I am thankful for the difficulty that comes with assimilation because it helps me not to become too confident in my own accomplishments. As I struggle to speak the language and fit in, I am kept humble and enlightened to not consider myself as better or more important than any other.

Therefore as you encounter life’s hardship I encourage you to learn through the difficulty, have and adventurous spirit, laugh at yourself, focus on the positive and in the end it will be “vale la pena”

In the words of the band Rebelution: “you can gain the world for the price of your soul but I hope you take the road less traveled and I hope you find the courage to grow.”

 -Chad