Again, I have waited quite a while to post, so sorry dear readers! I have quite a few ideas I've been mulling over lately and will for sure get some (hopefully) thought-provoking posts up soon, but until then, here are some thoughts from my weekend.
This weekend I spent by sharing interfaith prayer on Friday, starting scuba diving lessons on Saturday, dancing at night, and having some great conversations with new and not so new friends.
Mostly, I'm having this quite new feeling of being happy to be American. As most of you know I have many, many issues with the U.S. system, politics, and, especially now, our current state of (in)tolerance and (lack of)progressiveness. But there are so many parts of me that are so American I didn't even realize until I spent considerable time here. I don't know if I can even name them. But it is so apparent when I meet other Americans and there is automatically this level of understanding and commonality between us that is lacking in other relationships here. It is truly a privilege to learn from other cultures and have the challenge of relating, but there is nothing like knowing that someone just gets you and where you are from in a place where you are so different. This weekend I met some military men from the U.S. (I'll talk more about them later...) as well as took my scuba diving lesson with U.S. Veterans. I have rarely conversed with Americans since I have arrived here, there aren't a lot of foreigners in general and we try to be cool and not congregate together. It was just really nice to connect with home for a bit. I've felt even a little proud to be American and a little hopeful for our future after speaking with these peace-loving Army men. Things aren't perfect in the U.S., but they aren't anywhere. I have always wanted to make things better in my country, which I just now realize means I love my country. If I hated it I would just move to Canada and not care less...
That being said, however, there are multiple ways you can connect with people. I chatted up my scuba diving instructor more than my American partners because he was way closer to my age and we were talking about the "Davao party scene." Women from any culture I connect with on another level, for example.
I guess that is part of the beauty of humanity, down at our core, we really share something quite unique with one another. When you travel you really get this experience of finding the myriad of ways you can make connections with complete strangers in a new place. And that is something we spoke a lot about at our interfaith prayer -- finding commonalities through difference. Its not like we can only connect among our commonalities, but its a starting point -- and the work of peacebuilders is surely to help those who feel so different and antagonistic towards one another find some way to connect, to share.
I truly love meeting new people and hearing their stories, we often forget to do this in our daily lives, but are forced to when we travel. This post started out with me talking about being American, but I guess I have rambled on to this point -- I have some serious overflowing love for humanity today. I don't know how it happened, but a weekend of prayer, scuba, and dancing somehow reminded me of how beautiful this life, world, and the people in it are.
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