“The market here in Zihuatanejo had become for me, very common. The smells and the arrangement went unnoticed.”
Two years is a long time to spend away from home. Home being your home country, your native language, your native customs, and your own bed. But I have been in paradise for roughly two years, and the time went by very quickly. And now it is time to go home for a few months, regroup, work for a little while and catch up with some old friends. Not to mention, give my family one gigantic hug. But this is only for a few months and I will return here to resume a life that has left me with a new perspective. It is this new perspective that I hope I will keep guarded close to my mind and heart and not lose.
I have returned to the States three times since living here. Once to visit, and twice for graduations and weddings. The first time I returned, the culture shock was not too extreme. I noticed however, that the US is a very clean nation. The market here in Zihuatanejo had become for me, very common. The smells and the arrangement went unnoticed. I bargained in my bad Spanish hoping not to get too much of a Gringo price. The vegetables looked bigger than anything we have in the local HEB. The meat was right there, butchered in front of you. And, of course, the fish was from that morning. For some reason, I felt a connection with my food purchases that I had never felt before. In Texas, at the local grocery store, I felt removed from my food.
The second time I returned to the USA, I went to Memphis, Tennessee for my sister’s college graduation, a quick visit to the good ole South. Everybody was complaining about the heat. To me, it was a brisk day….quite nice in the shade. It was this day, under the shading trees of her college campus, that I started to notice the whiteness of everybody. In Mexico, I was the one everyone stared at, a tall blonde gringo. Here, I blended into the crowd quite nicely. Like I always had. But in Mexico I had started to accept my own anomaly. I was on the receiving end of prejudice and was accepting it as a rule of thumb. Every body should know what it feels like to be different. Blending into the crowd is just so boring.
So this time I return home, I will take with me and guard closely several things: knowing exactly where my food comes from, the knowledge of being treated differently because of my skin color, and, of course, the main aspect of my new perspective, patience. The Mexico mantra of mañana has taught me to wait for those things I want and not to expect those things that I need. There are so many other things to miss: my boyfriend, my friends, my students and the sound of roosters in the morning. But, these are the things I will guard in my heart and not lose.
-April 2000
