But I'm not the only one changing. My world has flipped upside down and so has the world that I left behind. My family is moving in all sorts of good directions and I've been witnessing it through Skype. Sister #1 is moving to a new house in Connecticut and leaving her urban days behind. Sister #2 is living in Boston and has added a few more stamps into her passport. Sister #3 has a new apartment and boyfriend. My brother-in-law got a new job. My parents have a new flat in India that is waiting for me when I visit in November. And oh! I have 2 new family members that I haven't officially met yet. Here's a picture of them below!
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| Avi (the big one) is Sister #3's boyfriend and Ari (the little one) is Sister #1's new baby. Yes, Ari and Avi are actually the names of my 2 new family members. I can't make this shit up. |
It's strange to think that I have additional family members. I will go home and shake hands with two new Patels. This past year, they were successfully integrating themselves into my family while I was busy successfully integrating into my Indonesian community. What a thought.
Obviously I've learned a lot in my year in the Peace Corps. Here's four great lessons I've learned so far:
1) I will not perish if there is no toilet paper: My biggest fear before I came here was not having access to toilet paper. I thought I could buy some and sneak it into my house. I wanted to be this TP ninja that could get away without touching her poop for 2 years. Nope. I was forced to face my biggest fear. And I got used to it. I proudly wipe my butt with my left hand and then wash my hand with soap and water. And you know what? It's not that bad. Think about it this way: if you get poop on your hands, are you going to wipe it off with TP or with soap and water?
2) Bald is beautiful: The night before I left America, I gathered some Peace Corps Volunteers in a hotel room in San Fransisco and went V-For-Vendetta-Natalie-Portman on their asses, A fellow volunteer, Anna Lee, helped me shave my head. Before this, I always assumed my hair was my best feature. It was long, thick, silky Indian hair. Of coruse I loved it! Shaving it made me redefine what beauty and feminism means to me. I won't shave my head in the near future, but if I could go back in time I would do it all over again!
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| PCVs Kirby and Stephanie watch me cut the first chunk of hair. Anna Lee is on the far right waiting with the clippers |
3) The only constant is constant change: The photo I shared in this blog says it alone. I left for 12 months and gained 2 family members. People move. People graduate. People have babies. People break up. People marry. People join the Peace Corps and leave for 2 years. Learn to embrace changes and roll with the punches.
4) It's okay to not be ok: This is one idea I have struggled with in the past. I used to think, "Why should I be sad when I have so much to be grateful for?" Well, sometimes life SUCKS. You have a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, and sometimes a bad year. It happens to everyone. I used to judge people when they reacted negatively to a situation. But now I'm bigger than that. I try my best to treat people with kindess when they are going through a rough time. I'm not always patient and kind, but I try my best. I'm learning how to treat others well.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys travelling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Indonesia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Indonesia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez