Six Months in Latin America

If I could afford to spend six months in any country, it would be somewhere in Latin America.  I have lived in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, in Europe and in the Middle East - I would love to live anywhere in Asia but since I’m in my first semester of learning Spanish, I would love to live in a Spanish-speaking culture.  I have recently started to familiarize myself with the music, the poetry and current events of this part of the world.  I love watching foreign films and had the opportunity on occasions to watch several Spanish language films and documentaries. These internationally produced powerful films depict past and current political conflicts and human right issues in many countries in Latin America.  If I could spend six months in any of these countries, I would choose to live among the people who struggle in life to make a decent living; people whom otherwise I would have unlikely met, talked to, have a meal with, laughed or cried with under ordinary circumstances.  I would make every effort to learn their language, their culture, their history, their everyday struggles and achievements, their hopes and dreams for the future.  I would share with them my experiences growing up in Morocco, coming to America, and becoming a mother of two beautiful, intelligent, strong willed kind daughters as well as my experiences learning English, continuing my education, becoming a US citizen and a teacher.  We would have so much to talk about even with my limited Spanish.  They’ll tell me about their daily lives which would probably have a lot in common with the lives of people I have known and lived with in West Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine and Yemen; and even right here in St. Louis.  Their stories will be in Spanish but no different from the stories I heard before in Arabic, French or English.  They would proudly introduce me to their musical heritage, their revered poets and artists, their homeland heroes who struggled, fought and lost their lives so their countrymen and women could live in liberty, dignity and justice.  We’ll share meals and exchange recipes and we would realize that we use some of the same spices here as we do in Africa or in the Middle East.  Their children’s beautiful eyes and  innocent smiles will remind me of the Palestinian children from Nablus with whom I used to sing French children songs on weekday afternoons in the Balata and Askar refugees camp in the Occupied West Bank.  Or they would remind me of the Senegalese neighbors’ children, my daughters’ first playmates, from my Point E quiet neighborhood in Dakar where we used to live more than twenty years ago.  My new friends from Latin America will help me learn Spanish and if they’re interested, I’ll teach them some French or English or maybe some Arabic.  A few weeks of having been acquainted, we would feel as if we had known each other all our lives - and maybe we have.  I mean, I’ve lost count of the number of times when after meeting new friends for the first time, I’d have this gnawing feeling that we have met before.  And after six months, I would say goodbye, my heart heavy with sadness to leave my new friends - sad but grateful for having met them, known them and shared their lives for a few brief months.  I would forever be indebted to them for making my life richer and more meaningful and for the memories I would always carry with me for the rest of my life.

March 2012