Lessons

February 9, 2009...
An old Arab proverb says, “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.¨ So once I´d lost my camera and my iPod, I was expecting the third thing. Crouched in the corner, back to the wall, defenses alert, waiting for it. I still managed to get my wallet stolen.
It was two Thursdays ago that I believe I left my camera at a salsa studio (it may have been stolen while I was still there) and when I went back for it, of course, it was gone. The following Wednesday, I managed to to leave my iPod on a bus (I have a semi-excuse for this, but I won´t bother to go into it). Then, as you already know, I was pick-pocketed in Puno last Saturday, right out of my zipped-closed purse. They got my driver´s license, college ID (sentimental value), 90 soles (roughly30 bucks) and all my credit cards.
I´m not telling you all this to highlight my idiocy (although that comes naturally with this means of reflection), but to confess, again, the frustrations of being here. And to do a little thinking out loud.
So, I´ve been analyzing this; trying to gain insight as to why this has all happened and what I´m supposed to learn from it, while also trying to just let it go. I won´t allow these small losses to ruin my time here, because the great thing about material loss is that it´s replaceable. At the moment, I just thank our gracious God for my health, my happiness, for the people who love me, for my home. Maybe God is teaching me about what is truly important...
In light of these little revelations about material loss, Mother Theresa has come to my mind. During her ministry and aid, she would choose a life-style which mirrored the living conditions of those to whom she was reaching out. She and her team slept on the cold, concrete floors of empty buildings and ate meals with the homeless. In hindsight, I wonder if it may have been silly to have come here to volunteer, with iPod and fancy camera in tow. Listening to my music while fiendishly zooming in on the poverty that surrounds me (a beautiful landscape nontheless, but still...) now, looking back, seems a bit of a blind irony.
I´m no Mother Theresa. Let´s face it, I´m a tourist. I´m not even some fantastic martyr to ESL...I love the work here and my students have become friends. I just can´t help but wonder if a cultural experience is more fulfilling, enriching, meaningful, if you let go of the world you come from and fully immerse yourself in theirs. Here, the rare have iPods, digital cameras, computers. Most people who aren´t taxi drivers don´t have cars. And the fortunate seem to have just what they need. So maybe having just what I need is...just what I need.
Or maybe I´m romanticizing poverty, and theft, and third-world living. Maybe a tourist should have her camera and her iPod and should clutch her purse to her chest when walking down a crowded street because, no matter how she immerses herself in the conditions here, she is a tourist. And she knows it. And she knows that in six months she is going home.
As I live each day and pray for my safety on buses, with or without electronic devices and credit cards, my subconscious can´t help but to perpetually realize this isn´t permanent. It is a momentary "adventure"...being without my things. And when I leave, the people of this country will still be here; families of seven sharing one-room apartments with a single bed and no running water and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Families that have to employ their six-year-old children to sell knick-knacks to tourists in the plaza when they should be in school. They have what they need to survive because it´s all they can afford, not because they choose it.
Well, this may sound lame and naive, but I just hope that whoever has those things I lost, that they´re surviving a bit better now. Even if just for a little while.