Besides of course being a 24 hour stint of fun and craziness, it was also a great learning experience for me. At the end of our first activity, the director stood in front of us and began to explain what we were to learn from what we had just done.
No, we had not just wasted 30 minutes of our lives drawing simple objects (flower, elephant, queen, etc).
No, it was not intended to just be frustrating.
Yes, it would have been easier to explain our drawing if we were all to just speak in English.
Yes, there was a reason we were not.
What could that reason be?
The chatter stopped. And it was only then that I actually looked around me, and for the first time noted all the diversity in that very room. Who would have thought that, standing in a room in Spiceland, Indiana, I would experience culture shock? I used to think that Indiana was my state, with my caucasians, and my protestantism. But "Praise the Lord" it's not! In that very room I saw 4 Thais, 3 Germans, 2 Italians, and countless other high school students representative of countries around the world.
They were all so... beautiful. So... confident. So... adventuresome.
I am not going to proclaim a hatred for caucasians. I do not completely resent being born as one. But I will say this - the greatest feeling is that moment that you realize, as you look around a room, that you are in the minority. And yet, you are not afraid. Gone are the days of hiding behind your own skin color, your own race, your own ethnicity. I cannot claim my home country, state, or even town for the placement of just my people.
I hope - I pray - that experiences such as mine become commonplace. I hope that, as cultures collide, their is no oddity noted in the presence of myriad ethnicities. We shall all view ourselves as foreigners - foreigners in our own land - and be perfectly alright with that.
