Embarrassment is best cured by laughter. Today I fell asleep on the bus with my right eye open and tongue hanging out like the dog from Coco. When I woke up Blake said “Did you know what you looked like?!?”. My heart fell and the terror set in. Who saw me? God I looked like an idiot?! Everyone is going to hate me. 

 

My fears were soon placated when Lowan showed me a picture of what I actually looked like and I realized no one actually cared. This made me think of Berenise, my host mom. Our spanish was subpar, and the communication even worse than that. When she would say something that we didn’t understand she would start laughing. The simple gesture made our shared experience of fumbling through words bearable and easier to endure. Through our struggle we became closer in companionship. Connection is not always founded in verbal language but the ability to partake in something together.  

 

As teenagers on immersion with people we don’t always spend time with it can be easy to slip into versions of ourselves that we don’t often entertain. Being vulnerable and taking time to learn from our mistakes can be the biggest display of strength we can posses. We want to be people who are respected by people we respect and liked by people we don’t. We soon realize those things are not always hand in hand. This experience has taught us to begin to question who we want to be and what our values are through acknowledging our mistakes and accepting our strengths as they are. This immersion has been a wonderful opportunity to learn who we really are and what we have to offer.