What I Needed

When my sister came to visit me four months into my stay, at the Christmas-New Year time, she looked me in the eye as we sat by the river where I bathed every day, "You are so you. You are becoming more you since you've left." We looked at each other and I felt proud. December had been one of the many hard moments. I had not anticipated that the eight months would be so hard but it was, mixed into life in a small village and many layers of culture shock, as well as culture miracles. I needed to be pushed out my comfort zone, to wake up to rooster crowing as my host mother starts the hour-long breakfast making routine, to trek through the hot, humid Amazonian day delivering medicine to the patients in remote village, to come back home to before sundown to get ready for bed at 7:30PM. I needed to cut away from everything I have assumed of myself and just redefine myself with words from a foreign dictionary. And that is exactly what I did and I could not be more grateful for having this intentional, challenging, soul-searching year.