Now that I’m back home
I’ve just finished putting all my stuff back into my closet from coming back from the Philippines and now I have to stuff it all back into my suit case because I’m leaving for college in a week.
I’ve been back from the Philippines for a week now and the transition back is… weird… to say the least.
When I landed in LAX I was greeted with a huge LED mural of the Statue of Liberty. I nearly started crying at the sight of the American icon.
During the layover I paid for a $18 simple Caesar salad. I hadn’t had lettuce in 8 weeks and it was amazing.
When I finally got home I plopped down on my familiar bed and breathed a sigh of relief. I had made it 8 weeks in a foreign country all by my own and as a plus, I’m still malaria free.
Going from a developing world to a highly developed one makes you really appreciate all the amenities we take for granted. One of the biggest things that was a change for me was how easy it was to get clean drinking water at home. In the Philippines I’d have to travel about 30 minutes (which is a much shorter time than many other people have to commute) to get to the nearest grocery store. Then I’d buy a huge 10 liter jug of water to last me the week. The worst is the times I’d miss the bus so I had to walk back to my dorm with a 22 pound jug of water.
You don’t realize how easy it is to flush the toilet or take a shower or get high water pressure it is in the US. You don’t appreciate the great circulation that buildings have and the AC that functions all the time. We take for granted the high speed wifi that doesn’t cut out every time it rains. Gosh we (at least in Texas) take for granted the fact that it doesn’t rain every single day and become a breeding ground for insects and diseases.
After coming back it was a little hard to me to sympathize with other people. My best friend was worrying about the outfit she would wear to her first day at college and it seemed like such an insignificant issue. Last week one of my friends was sick and I had to tell myself not to “one-up” them by telling them about the time I got sick but I was stranded in the middle of a literal jungle.
I wish everyone could have the same experience as me. It really opens your eyes to what is important at a global scale. But at the same time we have to be understanding of other people. Someone once told me we see the world from where we stand. For some people they stand at a place where how they present themselves on the first day of college is the most important thing to them. And that doesn’t make that person uneducated, close minded or selfish. We all have had different experiences in life and those experiences color the way we see things. Someone who has travelled the world might think that solving global poverty is a noble pursuit. And at the same time someone else might just be focusing how to make the most out of their college experience. As long as we use those different perspectives to better our own view of the world than we can all have a positive impact.
