I live here

You know how sometimes you realize very obvious things but they seem very profound at the time? Well, it happened to me this week: I was lying in my bed after work one day, and I began thinking about my life these past few months, when I realized that I lived in Colombia. This country has been my home for the past 7 months and will continue to be my home for the next year and a half. Deep right? Well, please continue, I actually begin to think later on in this post.

My epiphany led me to begin thinking about homes, what does the word 'home' mean and does the fact that I live here necessarily mean that this is my home? Is a home a place, or a state of mind...or does it have to be both. I began to feel like I was thinking myself in circles, when came to the realization that my preoccupation with this idea of home really didn't matter because, regardless of the meaning of the word or what it means to me, the country that I live in does not change the fact that I am me.

In our first three months of education in Bogota, we spent a lot of time talking about how we should spend the first year of our time here in Colombia simply observing. Nothing more. The theory is that we try not to impose ourselves or our ideas on our communities so that the community itself can come up with its own projects and programs. Thus, I think in many ways I came to the community here in Cazuca very weary of showing my true self for fear of scaring or hurting the community. Until now, I don't think I have been able to recognize that this apprehension to be myself has taken a toll on my integrity as a human being and my integrated (mind, body, and soul) well being. Thankfully, since I've been back from my vacation I've been able to set aside time to critically think about the difficulties I've been experiencing and have been able to start making attempts to care for myself better so that I don't feel so restricted to be myself, but the process is slow.

This weekend, Diana, Marina (David's wife and fellow teacher), and I went to a workshop to learn about conflict resolution and community building, and the moderator of the weekend told a story about a tiger, who, in order to make more friends, decided to try to stop being a tiger. After a while, the tiger realized that he was miserable not being a tiger, and to make matters worse, in all of that time spent not being a tiger, he hadn't made any friends. It turns out that the other animals were afraid and confused by this tiger with an identity crisis. The tiger who tried to change himself, both lost himself and his community. Although a little juvenile, this little story has been with me the whole weekend, and as I am now back at my house in Cazuca and the realities of living here come flooding back, so I keep telling myself: no dejar de ser tigre.