June 3, 2008
Saying goodbye sucked. The whole time I tired to think about the quote in my ring, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” I thought and thought and thought about it while tears streamed down my face.
There were a bunch of different buses that came one after another to take kids to the airport. I was on the very last bus because my Olami flight (with a layover in Spain) wasn’t until the morning. The first few buses had my close friends Aliza and Haya as well as my first and best roommate Stacy. A little later I had to say goodbye to my closest friends Hayley and Ilana; this was the hardest. When we go back to the US we will not be able to just hang out. I want to be able to see them whenever I want, but I wont be able to. Saying goodbye was truly challenging because we would really never see each other in the context of this year ever again. Saying goodbye to high school friends last August was hard, but we all still live in Berkeley and have summers together. I would have to pay hundreds of dollars for flights to visit all my new friends who live spread out across the US.
After all the regular buses left I had a few hours to get myself together before my bus would come. My Olami friends and I ate a dinner salted by our own tears. How different it will be to return home again. How devastating it will be when we have a memory from this year and can’t turn around to find a Year Courser with whom to reminisce.
It’s over. What will life be like back home? I don’t even remember what it’s like living in America. I dream of luxuries such as my house cleaner and a free washer/dryer. I cant wait for the moment I feel clean in my own home and don’t have to worry about cleaning someone else’s dishes.
But I am also dreading the day that I cant run downstairs to the Macolit (a corner store, literally on every corner) to buy an ingredient I am missing or to please a chocolate craving. I am afraid I will miss the calmness of a Saturday in Israel and the short bus ride away I lived from the amazing city of Tel Aviv.
I have found independence this year that I am afraid will be suffocated once I live under my parent’s roof again; not necessarily by my parents, but by my returning home and falling back into routines of the past. Some kids on the program are moving back to their home city, but into their own apartments in order to stay as independent as they were this year. We had the freedom to cook whatever we wanted with the groceries we bought for ourselves. We could come home whenever we pleased with no ones words hanging over our heads. We had to come up with solutions to our problems on our own.
Will going home be a relief, to finally live a life that I am comfortable living and that I know how to live? Or will life back at home be boring, not challenging me to live in a new city with new places to explore? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
June 10, 2008
Fitting back into American culture was far too easy. It was like how you never forget how to ride a bike. There were definitely a few things that I forgot about at first, but once exposed to them, it was all normal again. However, there were a few things, that seemed normal here that I had a bad feeling inside about. Like having more than what is necessary. I brought two very large suitcases with me this past year and I had way too many clothes; I could have gone with out some of the stuff I brought. When I came home to my room I looked in my closet and was completely disgusted by how much I own and don’t use. The kids in Africa that I visited have three outfits to last them a year. I immediately cleaned out my whole closet and donated the clothes.
My biggest piece of culture shock when I got home was my first trip to target. I needed to buy a big thing of lotion so my mom and I went to the toiletries section. I was standing in a row that was full of only lotions. I couldn’t believe how many lotion options I had to choose from! There was “with aloe,” “for dry skin,” and all sorts of scents. It was completely overwhelming and I didn’t like it. In Israel, and in other countries I visited, there were no choices, or there were very few choices; it was easy. That being said, options create more freedom and individuality, which is something that makes America so special.
America is great, and the lotion is a perfect example – there is something for everyone here. And in fact, you can buy more than one lotion for different occasions. But this ‘great America’ also invites the question, ‘ is it necessary to have so much?’ After seeing how people live in other places, I would answer no. Americans consume way too much – we are 5% of the world’s population, yet consume 25% of the world’s resources. In America, people are way less conscious of how their actions affect the greater world. I think that in other countries, people are more worldly because they want to be somewhere else in the world to have a better life, so they care about the rest of the world – its their destination. We are narcissistic here because we don’t dream about being in another country, we want to be here.
I am happy to say that I am keeping India in mind, even while I live life in Berkeley. I have made a point not to consume as much (in the materialistic sense) because it just isn’t necessary. I really have made a distinction between want and need, except every once in a while when I treat myself to something I want. For instance, I’m not buying any new things for my college dorm room – I am just using all of my brothers old stuff.
Coming home and finding out that Berkeley now collects compost made my homecoming amazing. I think that is very exciting news! It shows that there is hope about Americans caring about the world.
