A friend of mine has been serving in the Peace Corps for almost two years in the Philippines. We joke that he is in the Posh Corps - the main amenity he lacks is running water. He has been one of the biggest helps and guides in my process, all from afar. In the beginning, while I was at school and he was adjusting, we would skype regularly, updating each other on fun Peace Corps stories (most involve pooping) and him keeping me from stressing, reminding me regularly that no news is good news.
I've been going through my room a lot recently. Little parts at first, but the act of organization and the act of giving away are no longer equal. I'm a sentimental person in some respects (in others I like organization on the border of sparsity - something I can barely keep in my room at home because of the childhood memories placed in the "shrine"), but there is one thing I will never officially get rid of. I have piles and files of letters from people. I have an entire hanging file dedicated to letters from one of my best high school friends while she was away at German camp, spanning two years. I have another with cards and letters from high school and college graduations. My dad has a tradition of writing long notes in the cards he gives for Christmas and birthdays to my family, and I have kept most of those. The most recent ones are sitting on my shelf for public viewing.
On my bulletin board, I found a decorated envelope with a hand drawn picture of two mountains - one a volcano, complete with lava dripping down and the other an alp, complete with snow shooting down a side. Over the lava-laden mountain was "My mountain". Over the snowy one: "Your mountain". I looked inside the envelope and found the accompanying letter.
It was a letter from the Philippines, written during my friend's first few months in his site after training. It started off with a poop joke, and then began waxing philosophical. He and I had worked together in Yellowstone in 2009 and I visited him again upon my return to the park during a vacation time from work in 2010. While a smart man, who can make intelligent conversation about all things, philosophy and live changes are not something we had often talked about - other than looking at the big picture.
When you go some place exotic and different, you expect it to be monumentally different. You don't realize that most things that happen at home still occur abroad. Dogs still bark, kids still fight. His host brothers fight like he and his brother, or me and my brother do. (I'm paraphrasing all of this, mind you.) The pathways and the movements of life do not change, no matter how far away from home you are.
I'm making all these preparations, expecting everything to be so different. I'm not expecting, but I'm reminded, that things may not be so different. We want different people to live differently than ourselves, for no other reason than that way, we can explain away foreign poverty. They are poor because they are not like us. They are sick because they are not like us. They are different because they are not like us.
I'm sure I'll notice differences. Like the lack of running water, the language, the climate. But those are big things. Big things that exaggerate the difference. But the little things will not change. Little things like family, like children, like homes. The little things that matter are the same, no matter where you go.
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