It has finally happened. Midterms are over, and I have come to realize I am halfway done with my time abroad. A sad fact, indeed. And most people who are abroad now, or at least to the ones I talk, never want it to end, either.
What is it about being in a foreign land - where we are forced to fend for ourselves and learn about a new language or culture, where our comfort levels are tested, where we sometimes encounter dangers that are all too real - that defines us? What makes these experiences so significant in our lives that many of us find every way possible to come back or stay permanently?
Talking to a friend in Kenya this week reminded me that our lives are ever so precious. A good Kenyan man whom she had befriended was murdered last week. Her group was held up at gunpoint. But she plans to take the semester off next spring and stay to help a country with which she has fallen in love.
Seeing some of my other friends in Rome a few weeks ago reminded me that we are also all experiencing this magical time abroad in such different ways. They pay $15 for a regular dinner; I pay as little as $2 in Budapest. While we have a different perspective on some things, it's precisely these varied perspectives that create a common equation. No matter what, the answer is always the same: "Being abroad is the best time of my life."
While we oftentimes search for the creature comforts of home (reliable hot water, black coffee, heat, a home-cooked meal), we are also reminded that few people see this world the way we see it. To be in a new country every weekend is something that no one but a college-age student could only dream of.
I traveled a lot before I came to Budapest, but it's a totally different experience when you live in a foreign place, dealing with daily routines, taking care of an apartment, shopping for groceries and so on.
All of this, for lack of a better term, has opened up my eyes quite a bit. The other day in my Central European literature class, we discussed perceptions of the East and West. We had just read something by a Polish writer who said people in the United States had the time for emotional luxuries because we have never known many of the hardships faced by others around the world.
He makes a good point. We are so insular at home, so concerned with insignificant stuff, that we don't see what really is making life more worthwhile. It is the chance to be abroad that helps us shed insignificant emotional luxuries in favor of a broader worldview.
There are always people who are suffering. There are places still ravaged by war. There are problems in this world far greater than our own. Sometimes seeing these things is what opens us up to an entirely new way of living.
I ask myself why the United States sometimes seems so backward in comparison to everywhere else. The answer is simple: because it is. We are so concerned with what we don't have or what we can't achieve or whom we don't know that the stuff we do have and achieve and know is entirely taken for granted.
Our insular way of life, our devotion to emotional luxury - these are the things that we learn to change when we are abroad. Perhaps Europe and the rest of the world are not the superpowers the United States is. But somehow, they seem to have gotten some stuff right.
