Posted on Sunday, June 9, 2013
This experience in Peru has been loaded with novel
experiences and has been eye-opening for me.
In particular my experience in Ate was something I will remember for the
rest of my life. Ate, while enjoyable,
was also a bit of a confusing experience for me. I saw and heard a lot that I did not
necessarily understand and was surrounded by many stimuli. Our class discussion concerning ethnocentrism
helped me during the Ate experience to question my assumptions and think twice
about the things I was seeing and hearing.
I must admit it was hard for me to step back from my own culture and try
to see their culture with unbiased eyes.
It is a habit to see something and think you know what is going on and
why, but many times that is not the case.
For example, there were a lot of kittens and dogs running freely around
Ate, and I tended to assume they were strays.
If they were in the United States they would likely be abandoned
animals, so that was my natural assumption.
However, they may not be and it isn’t fair for me to assume they are
strays when I do not truly know what is going on. Another assumption I made was that the people
living in Ate would not be very happy people because of the poverty they live
in. In America I think it’s common to
see that poorer individuals are often stressed and unhappy with their
circumstances. However, my observations
contradicted this assumption. Many of
the locals in Ate that I interacted with were very enthusiastic when
communicating with me and had big smiles on their face. The children especially seemed extremely
excited to play with us and interact with us.
It was hard for me to imagine myself that happy if I were living in
those circumstances. Money and poverty
is a stressful struggle and I am not sure I would cope with it as well as they
seemed to. However, I also am trying to
keep in mind that that is my view of it and probably not how they view it. My suspicion is that they view their lives
much differently than I do, and probably have different values and measures on
quality of life. I wish I could have
asked them more about this but with my lack of Spanish, I could not think of an
effective way to express this train of thought.
My experience in Ate was irreplaceable and I am thankful that I got to
have that opportunity. The people were
so friendly and genuine, and were fun to talk to and interact with. I also enjoyed the food they prepared for us and
was very impressed with the way they cooked it.
I spent a good part of the time watching them prepare it and asking
questions about how they did it, and what was in it. The locals answered my questions
enthusiastically and seemed to really enjoy my curiosity about this special dish
they prepared for us. This experience in
Ate has improved my ability to step back and try to analyze circumstances from
a different perspective, which I think will help me throughout this trip and
life in general.
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