Another Essay...

My life since AMIGOS has felt like a dream. I keep expecting to wake up back in Costa Rica. As I've been applying to colleges, I've had many chances to reflect on my experiences thanks to college application essays. The following essay I wrote as part of my application to the Westminster Honors College. The prompt was: Discuss the most interesting conversation you have had in the last year. What made it so interesting? Let me know what you think.

On July 16th at around 7pm I wandered out of my small room in search of food and companionship. I had just finished writing a letter home to my mother in Salt Lake City about my experiences that week in Costa Rica. The sky was beginning to darken through the window, and the house was strangely quiet for that time of day. Usually my host father would have arrived home. My host mother, Mirna, would be cooking dinner and the smell would permeate the house and flood through the cracks in my bedroom door. My host brother would be watching the World Cup or playing video games. My footsteps seemed to echo off the stairs and rebound through the small house that was strangely silent.

The lights were off in the main living area, the only light fading quickly out the window. The TV was on, but instead of the usual soccer, a telenovela was playing quietly. Mirna sat on the couch looking strangely exhausted. I don’t think I have ever seen her lacking energy before or after this moment. She continues to be the most sprightly 63 year old I know, but at that moment I realized she was human. Despite her neverending cooking and cleaning and exercicios and church activities that never seemed to tire her before, she too occasionally becomes overwhelmed by the world and living. I felt a closer connection to her in that moment than any other time. In that moment my tired spirit connected with hers, and I understood her completely.

Of course the second she saw me she perked up, the light returned to her eyes, and she immediately offered to cook me food. I think she had forgotten I was there. I could have been offended by that, offended that she had forgotten about me- her temporary daughter, but I chose not to be offended. Instead I realized how transient I was in the lives of my host family. I had only been living there a few weeks, and I would only be living there a few more. There is a chance I will never see them again. Although in my vanity I like to think I affected at least some part of my host family’s lives forever, it is highly likely that many days and months pass where they don’t remember me at all.

After I assured Mirna I wasn’t starving to death and I could wait until her husband arrived home to eat, I sat on the couch next to her and we continued to watch the telenovela. The acting was decent, the plot was questionable, and the religious symbolism was overwhelming- but I don’t believe Mirna watched it for any of those things. I think it was just a way to fill the silence and emptiness of her home. She told me once that before I got there she was very lonely most days, that without me her life was too quiet as she waited every day for her son and husband to come home. I hate to think of her alone in that house in the silence.

The conversation that took place between us as we waited, alone but together, changed my life. The words spoken do not matter, in fact I only remember a few main topics we covered. We discussed the transition from adolescence to adulthood, the importance of experiencing the world in your youth, and our mutual fear of getting older. It was the events leading up to this conversation that helped me become more aware of other people and their experiences. I believe that small moment, when I realized Mirna’s humanity, now allows me to see the humanity in everyone around me. It awakened within me an empathy for others, and even though Mirna probably rarely thinks of me, that conversation causes me to think of her constantly.