Close your eyes. Imagine you’ve just landed in a strange country for the first time. The runway was surrounded by thick jungle and palm trees and the humidity hits you as soon as you walk off the plane and you are instantly covered in a thin layer of sweat. You have had two hours of sleep the night before and took three different buses to get to the Miami airport that morning and it seems like you are watching someone else’s life. It really hits you that you’ve entered a whole new world when you head towards the line that reads Immigration, immigrants. No one speaks English and you are completely beyond explaining yourself should anything go wrong.
After a bit of confusion you are at the front of the line and a lady gives you instructions in Spanish. You stand there. She points and you blink and stand there. A man behind the counter waives his hand so hard you think it might fall off and then you walk over and hand him your passport. He looks at it, and then you and then back at the passport. He says something in Spanish and then leaves. You stand there. After about three minutes he comes back hands you your passport and all you can do is smile and hope you can leave now. After grabbing your bags you walk to the end of the airport to customs where there is more pointing and blank stares. Another man asks for your passport. Then points to a button and says, “push.” You push the button and hope that it doesn’t trigger a trap door in the floor or something. A green light flashes and he calls the next person. Again, you hope that this means you can leave. You walk through the revolving doors bent sideways so you and all your crap can fit through. A group of people you have never seen before are very happy to see you and they each grab your hand and give you a kiss on the cheek. You wonder if you kiss one cheek or two? Or a hug? Instead you just smile bigger because by now you know that is the universal sign for I don’t know what the heck is going on and I can’t understand a word you are saying.
When you sit down on the side walk it hits you that it is only January and you are about to die from the heat. You then prepare yourself mentally for whatever will come in the next month. You don’t know where you will sleep that night. It could be a palace or you could be sleeping on the ground. You don’t know what or when you will eat next. You are not even ever %100 sure what city you will be in. You must be ready to go through anything. A man named Gerber waves your team over to his little white truck. He throws your bags in and smiles. You climb up in the bed and hold on to your pack for dear life. The air smells like burning garbage, sewage, and exhaust. Somehow this makes you excited. You are here. You made it. You have begun The World Race.
Cars zoom buy you, trucks loaded with sugarcane. You pass stand after stand of coconuts. The houses are made from bricks, wood, and metal sheeting. Every window and door has metal bars on it, no exception. Trash lines the ditches, but when you come around the corner after passing through San Salvador you see a breathtaking view of mountains and volcanos covered in the tropical jungles of the equator. You are glad to be here. You get to live in El Salvador. Eat their national food, pupusas, every day. You get to cram your head with hundreds of Spanish words so that you will be able to talk to people and not just smile at them. You get to take cold showers and hope not to share it with the cockroaches. But most of all you get meet people every day who you can’t say more than a few words to, but who treat you like royalty and can’t wait to bless you with their generosity. They share everything they have with you, you who has come from so much. These people who have so little, there are so many with so little. You have not seen one house that would be a nice as an average American house. You have always wondered what it would be like to like that, with so little. Now you will get a chance to find out. Imagine.
