Different
My impulse language is Spanish. After 10 months in Peru, my first reaction to someone handing me change is "¡Gracias!" and when I'm leaving a store I call "Buenas tardes," over my shoulder. I have to bite my tongue to keep from responding to my parents' questions in Spanish, and I'll sit at the dinner table and translate the conversation back into Español in my head.
The people here are very tall, and very pale. The check out person at the grocery store was not very friendly yesterday.
There is no trash along the highways. There are also no taxis, no chickens in the streets, no motocars.
I love the running water in my house. I love turning the lights on, and then off.
Most of all, and this is the best part about being home, I love seeing my friends and my family. I love going jogging with my mom in the morning, eating fruit smoothies with Grandma Carolyn, staying up until the middle of the night with my friend Rika. I love reading "Jorge el Curioso" to baby Jonah and making cookies with Petra, my cousin to be.
Petra is marrying my cousin Paul, hence a wedding and a family reunion. And this is why I am here, in the States.
But I am going back. I fly to Lima again on Wednesday.
And in the confusion of going back and forth, I realize that home is wherever I am, wherever I choose to find rest. Home is in the ant-ridden jungle, and home is in the chilly western woods of Maryland.
I'm really happy to eat lettuce, to take hot showers and sleep burrowed under a down comforter. But I'm glad to return to cook rice and platano, to hike through the mud to church, and to find our little dog, Lola, waiting for me on our doorstep.
The people here are very tall, and very pale. The check out person at the grocery store was not very friendly yesterday.
There is no trash along the highways. There are also no taxis, no chickens in the streets, no motocars.
I love the running water in my house. I love turning the lights on, and then off.
Most of all, and this is the best part about being home, I love seeing my friends and my family. I love going jogging with my mom in the morning, eating fruit smoothies with Grandma Carolyn, staying up until the middle of the night with my friend Rika. I love reading "Jorge el Curioso" to baby Jonah and making cookies with Petra, my cousin to be.
Petra is marrying my cousin Paul, hence a wedding and a family reunion. And this is why I am here, in the States.
But I am going back. I fly to Lima again on Wednesday.
And in the confusion of going back and forth, I realize that home is wherever I am, wherever I choose to find rest. Home is in the ant-ridden jungle, and home is in the chilly western woods of Maryland.
I'm really happy to eat lettuce, to take hot showers and sleep burrowed under a down comforter. But I'm glad to return to cook rice and platano, to hike through the mud to church, and to find our little dog, Lola, waiting for me on our doorstep.
posted by Ansley at 3:33 PM
2 Comments:
It's been so wonderful to have you home, Ansley, and I'm glad you can be "at home" wherever you are.
I relate to finding home where ever I happen to be :) Since we truely are pilgrams here on earth... it makes it easier to be at home many places while looking to our heavenly home :)
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