Travels with Aly

Today--just for fun--I'm posting an excerpt from my memoir describing my time studying abroad in Coast Rica. I'm hoping it will one day reach the public eye in some publisher-endorsed kind of way, but for now, you get to be my test audience. Thanks for reading!

***

I was sure that I had forgotten something vitally important.  Like underwear or tampons.  I had heard from a few friends that it was difficult to buy tampons in Costa Rica.  At 4:00 a.m. as I scrambled to wash my face, brush my teeth, and pack up the car, I was sure that I had forgotten tampons and would be forced to spend my period sitting in a corner yelling “unclean, unclean” while I slowly bled to death.  It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t even know the word for unclean in Spanish, and I was going to Central America, not prehistoric Israel. 

The stubborn escalator leading up to the maze of airport security beckoned me; I grimaced as I gingerly stepped onto the moving stairs that jerked me upwards, pulling me away from my mom and dad until the black biting teeth fit snugly together again, flattening and disappearing into the floor. My mom had cried and my dad had told me to be safe.            

I shifted from my left foot to my right foot, then back to my left, just a teardrop in the stream of restless passengers in the overburdened security line.  I wiped my one renegade tear and readjusted my backpack, dense with the weight of my laptop, Spanish/English dictionary, and packets of reading material on Costa Rica.  I could do this. 

          Location: Central America.

          Capital: San Jose. 

          Language: Spanish.

          Climate: Tropical.

          It would be like a vacation of sorts. 

          I could do this. 

***

“Como es su familia?”  “Que piensa del gobierno estadounidense?”  “Que es su comida favorita?”   “Que piensa de la guerra en Irak?”

How is your family?  What do you think of the U.S. government?  What is your favorite food?  What do you think of the war in Iraq?  

 

In the United States people’s number one fear is public speaking, even dying rates second on the list.  People would rather die than look stupid.  My eyes scanned the barrage of oncoming cars, and I was hit with the sobering realization that there would probably not be a single moment the entire semester in which I did not feel stupid. 

Even Max, the family dog, understood more Spanish than I did.  My host dad, Don Pedro, surprisingly white for a Costa Rican with light eyes and a hint of possible freckles, would yell some seemingly unintelligible command in Spanish and the dog would obediently run, stand, or lie down according to my dad’s latest whim, whereas I couldn’t even figure out how to wash my underwear. 

That night after shy introductions, a strangely silent family meal, and an uncomfortable discussion about politics, I was finally too overcome with exhaustion to feel stupid anymore.  I pulled my fuzzy blanket up to my chin and was filled with ecstatic thankfulness that I could say a goodnight prayer to God in English and He would understand.  

I am not an island, You are not a "Them"

I thought this blog would be about hope, not anger. But anger is a very real part of my journey toward hope.

I used to be really angry about injustice in the world. Don’t get me wrong, it still breaks my heart, still brings tears to my eyes, but it no longer hardens my heart.

I used to be enraged on behalf of others. Particularly the plight of the rural poor.

I used to use this anger as an ideology. As my new religion.

I used this anger as an excuse not to move. To stay stuck. To lash out.

I used it as an excuse to dehumanize the poor. To reduce them to a “them” I could be enraged on behalf of. Not people that I knew and loved. Not people that deserved my hope and my efforts as much as my anger and indignation.

A while back I wrote a poem about this act of dehumanization I masked as romanticized, righteous indignation. And here it is:

I am not an island

You are not a “them”

I remember the romance of the pain

Weathered, leather face

Acidic fumes

I forget you

I talk anger

I feel smug

You are a story I heard

A feeling I felt

Not a person I know

I use you to feel pain

In pain I am Justified

I use you to reject Him

But you praise Him with your chapped lips

Chapped, I said it,

Romanticizing again

I put it on you

It’s never me

I’m the enlightened one

Finally free

Of the guilt on my hands

Of the burden of me

But am I angry for you?

Or angry for me?

In the fury of my rage

You become a “them”

I become a lie

I am not a martyr

Remind me yet again

I am not an island

You are not a them

Pictured to the left: Me with a woman, Grey, that I stayed with in Nicaragua. She shared not only her house and food--mostly pineapples--with me, but also her thoughts, her hopes, and her dreams. She was one of the women I wrote this poem for a year after I came back to the States.

Have any of you experienced a time when you used anger on behalf of someone or a group of someones as an excuse to stay stuck?