Perspective from Paraguay
- By: Alexandra Ralph
- Created on: 09/25/2007
- Rated By 1 Users
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The summer before 11th grade, I traveled to Paraguay for a month to become fluent in Spanish and meet the extended family I'd only heard about in conversation with my mother and grandparents. I traveled alone because I wanted to be independent of my parents. By the time I had returned, my perspective on the Latin American world had undergone a dramatic change.
Stepping onto the plane in Dulles airport, I felt nervous and invigorated. My parents had officially relinquished control over my safety and in 14 hours I would arrive in the entrusted hands of cherished, though distant, family. Once I got off the plane in Buenos Aires, besides being on the other side of the world, I entered a continent where the people operated in a different language.
Luckily, I had learned Spanish as a first language, and though I'd forgotten most of it in kindergarten, I took classes in school and spoke Spanish with my grandparents. But to see hundreds of people and know that the millions of thoughts running through their heads were in Spanish, and not English, was an impressive realization. When I arrived in Paraguay, even though I understood my family members perfectly, I struggled to express all my thoughts and feelings to them as I would in English.
Throughout the four weeks of my stay, the culture of Paraguay grew on me. Though half of my family is Paraguayan and I know the culture as my own, I quickly realized that in Paraguay someone does not have to be a friend or a relative to be genuinely friendly, warm and easy-going. The Paraguayan people are fun loving and generous with everything they have to give.
It surprised me that Paraguayan teenagers were sincere and open, whereas in the United States one is accustomed to teenagers of the reclusive or rebellious variety. I grew attached to Paraguay and all the people I met, and as the end of the month drew near, I dreaded going home. I had fallen in love with the culture and the warmth of the people.But Paraguayans do not smile all the time.
During my visit I got to know the darker side of Paraguay, spending time in the capital city of Asuncion and taking several trips to the impoverished countryside. For all their belly laughing, Paraguayans also know the sadness and confusion of a Third World Country. I remember walking through Asuncion and seeing a weathered, genetically-deformed indigenous man sitting slumped on a corner, with his twisted arm and his knotted hand palm up on the ground, asking for money.
I passed him by; I have seen homeless people like him in the United States countless times. While my mother has always gently explained how others are less fortunate and incapable of supporting themselves, something in this man struck a chord in me the way that the poor in my own country never have. This man had absolutely nothing.
I had a family who cared about me, a home, three square meals a day, a free education and healthcare, and he had nothing. At that moment I felt my place in the world differently than I had ever felt it before. I turned around and put a five-dollar note in his hand.
As I bent down, I heard his shallow inhalations through his malformed nostrils. Walking away for the second time, I knew the money I gave him would only go so far.Now, back in the United States living comfortably in my suburban home, I sometimes get lost in all my things, my room full of possessions and my life full of accessories. Then sometimes, in an instant, I see something that triggers my memories of Paraguay: a grocery-laden, sagging-bodied woman swaying her burden down the sidewalk, a crowd of Hispanic men standing, waiting for a day job from an employer that might not even pay them -- ”and the Venetian blinds protecting my middle class blissful ignorance suddenly snap open. How can I forget what I saw in Paraguay when what I saw holds true for so many others in South America? I know I will never forget. I thank my grandparents for immigrating here fifty years ago so that I can live the way I do. And now I know that the only way I will fulfill my purpose in life is if I use the educational opportunities America offers to devote my life to helping people, in whatever way I was designed to do so.
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