Far From Home

-

My head hurts from unshed tears. I’m not sure I understand why my need to cry is so powerful. If I had never connected to internet, nothing would have changed about my day. I would have gone from class to class, teaching verb conjugations and vocabulary for family members. But the knowledge and the weight of this sudden absence packs a wallop I never expected. 

When was the last time I spoke to them? I try and think back. It’s been over a year and a half since I was in the same country as them. What was the last thing I said to them? Was it a simple greeting? Was I annoyed? Was I present to them? Had I even been thinking about them recently? 
I’m crying now, and I feel guilty for crying because I wasn’t even present with them when it was time to say goodbye. Silly, because I probably wouldn’t have been by their bedside anyways but the thought is there, weighing me down, nestled above my brow. 

Losing someone is never easy. That goes for losing someone when a relationship ends or friends grow apart. Death means that there is no chance for something better, no more time to grow close, no possibility of something new. These memories are all I have left. 


As I write this, I look up and out the bus window. There’s dirt and garbage and I spot the ever-present sand dunes in the distance. It’s hard to reconcile a change in a world so far away from my current reality. None of my family back in the states has ever set eyes on my new home. My neighbors on the bus are speaking another language. Many times it seems all but impossible to reconcile my foreignness: I will never be part of this place. Now, hearing about the loss of a loved one, I feel even more isolated from the world around me. There is only one person in this vast country who carries the weight of this news. It’s just me, suspended and numb.

As an adolescent, I dreamed of travel. I dreamed of going abroad and meeting new people and seeing exciting new things. I wanted to be out of the boring, predictable routine and embark into the intriguing unknown. But at what price? 

Months have passed since I first wrote these words, but something still remains of that sad time. I made this choice to be far from home and in choosing to be here, knew that I was giving up the chance to be physically present for family and loved ones in trying times. For me, it was a matter of choice. What about those forced to leave home for economic, religious, or safety reasons?

I think of the countless Venezuelan migrants who are currently finding their way in places so far from home. I think of previous generations of my own family who left their country. When we leave our home, we carry within our hearts the traditions of our culture, our memories, and our identities. When we arrive somewhere new, we do our best to adapt, but there is a world we carry within us, a world we may desperately wish to find ourselves in again. When disaster strikes, it can come in the form of a quick message, something so seemingly remote, but it carries with it a change in one's reality forever. 

To those of us comfortably living within our own borders, who have not been forced to migrate, let’s remember to honor the worlds that foreigners come from. Every day, a part of their heart is somewhere else, whether they would like it to be or not. Give them love, give them the space to honor where they come from, and remember that the balance of two worlds is not an easy task. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Family We Choose and the Family That is Thrust Upon Us

-
Image
“Blood runs thicker than water” “For better or for worse” “In sickness and in health” There’s the family you’re born into and the family you marry into, but there’s one other family that  you don’t always come across: the family you choose. Well, in JVC’s case, it’s more like the family they choose for you. And I’m not talking about host families — that could be an entire post in and of itself — I’m talking about community .   When you commit to JVC International you are not just committing to two years of service, you also commit your life to at least three other strangers who will spend the next year or two years together with you. In a foreign setting, especially in Tacna this means they are about the only three other Americans you’ll see in town (although a casual run in with Mormons has become a common occurrence).   Enjoying our homemade, hodge-podge Thanksgiving feast. Family: you love them, you fight with them, sometim
Read more

A Slow Goodbye

-
Image
The sun sets on me for the last time. I spot the panadería on the narrow street, the tienda on the highway with its typical two customers drinking beer at the table outside. I sit in the back of the bus, the window blessedly open. It's the best place to be so that I can watch both the passing scenery and the other passengers.   A phrase   my mother said to me comes like a lighting strike: “You don’t know if you’ll ever go back.” These words might seem sad or pessimistic, but it’s true — she has lived this reality as have so many other migrants of this world.   I find myself thinking of all the things I have done and worse, all the things I promised myself I would do: a sunrise hike on the dunes, a basketball game in the neighborhood next to ours, saying goodbye to my nine-year-old neighbors. My list goes on and on and as the bus jostles its way to my house, one last time, I am overwhelmed by the reality of endings. Who was the Camila of two years ago? What is the
Read more

Neighborhood Noises

-
Although Tacna, Peru may be an urban city, stretching far out into the desert, my neighborhood of Habitat remains a tranquil suburb on the outskirts. As long as no one has decided to throw a “tono” in their house and blast reggaeton music until our windows shake, most evenings are quiet affairs, with only the sound of the neighborhood cats and dogs breaking the silence. Weekends in our house are a pleasant escape from the hustle and bustle of work and one of us will inevitably take up residence on our worn, red-velvet couch that sits below the living room window. We often take weekend siestas to the sounds of children playing in the street, dogs barking, and the rumble of trucks driving down the PanAmerican highway a few blocks over. But there are some sounds that come floating in through the open window that send us running frantically to the door. These are the calls of our caseros and caseras who come by in trucks, bicycles, and even on foot, selling their wares. Each pe
Read more