Reflections on a Milestone

November 25 is a milestone of sorts for me: I will have been in Honduras for six months. Some might consider a year the first true milestone of a major life change, but, if for anything else, I have been thinking a lot about what it has meant to me to live here and I do recall thinking, prior to my move, “What will it be like after I’ve been there for six months? Will I know the language? Will I know its people? Will I understand what makes Hondurans ‘tick?’ Will I miss my life back in the U.S.? Will I be different?”

I have a tendency to minimize my accomplishments and have recently been gently coaxed by a person near and dear to my heart (you know who you are) to acknowledge the forward motion I have experienced since moving here.

I also realize, however, that assimilation into a new culture doesn’t necessarily involve ‘victories.’ For me, perhaps it has indeed been a victory that over the past six months I have come to understand a little bit more about who I am and what makes me tick. I think I have learned some lessons that perhaps came about a little more quickly since arriving here back in May.

Because I am more comfortable in my own skin, it has allowed me to open my eyes a little wider to see things with better clarity. Only a few times have I felt like seemingly the only ‘gringo’ within a 10 mile radius. When I step out of that margin, I see new things.

I have caught a few people off-guard when I’ve been able to ask a question in Spanish. No one is more surprised than I am, but a better handle on the language has penetrated so many walls and even brought many of them down for me.

Six months ago, the thought of wandering the streets of Tegucigalpa without a Spanish-speaking friend terrified me. I can now catch a cab and get where I need to go, I can go to a grocery store and ask where to find something. That’s a milestone.

I am incredibly fortunate to be able to work for an organization that allows me to learn about the Honduran government, its economy, its culture and its people. Working at HTW has been an invaluable ‘crash-course’ in which I have quickly learned about the movers and the shakers, the quietly powerful, and those things that Honduras holds dear.

It has taken me six months to realize that a true paradox exists here: the people are strong, resilient and resourceful but their very livelihoods can hang delicately in the balance. With one tropical storm, an entire bean crop can be wiped out, affecting a majority of the population.

What has struck me the most profoundly these past six months is something so simple, I have to wonder if I would have learned it had I not moved here.

I refer to a true realization that people are people, regardless of what language they speak, regardless of the color of their skin or eyes, regardless of how or where they were born, regardless of who they love.

The true milestone for me has been less about the new experiences and more about a lesson being reinforced every day: we all want the same things.

We want to live our lives freely, we want a safe place to go home at night, we want our loved ones to be healthy and we want to love and be loved.

Okay, I started learning that lesson more than six months ago. But it has never been more vividly demonstrated and proven than in my past six months here in Honduras.