The last time I was in a similar circumstance to this was in 1995. I was a recent high school graduate on the bad end of a terrible life experience. I was not ready to in any way to venture off to college and begin the next leg of my very unsuccessful academic career. Earlier in my senior year of high school my sister’s friend and then admirer Tomo Yamanaka stayed with us over the Thanksgiving break. He slept on the floor in my room. One night I arrived home relatively late and stepped over Tomo to climb into my bed….he was awake so we exchanged pleasantries after which he indicated to me that he thought “that God wanted him to ask me if I wanted to go to Japan”…..I of course had no idea how to respond but only chuckled in an appreciative way and let him know that I would most likely not be spending any times over seas in a country I knew nothing about….I did not even ask any follow up questions…I dismissed it and went off to slumber. Fast forward 6 months and one tragic life incident later and I am in need of an escape the likes I will never need again. During this time I received a card of grievance from Tomo-I received many cards during that time but his was dramatic in appearance and of course in Japanese. I cannot honestly recall what came next—if he made mention of Japan in that card or I got his phone number from my sister but a few weeks later I was in my car traveling to Lancaster, PA to visit Tomo and see what this idea was all about. That night he brought me over to some sort of Japanese student exchange-it was one of the better nights I experienced in quite some time……when your different from everyone in the room you either feel like it and that becomes a crushing feeling…or you feel like the room revolves around you-that night I felt the second way. All my life I have felt one way or another-sometimes you escape the crush others you run towards it put it in a glass and drink it down.
In August /September of 1995-I landed in Japan knowing not a word of Japanese-it was Three in the morning when we stepped off the JR (train) and walked wearily through the streets of a small traditional Japanese town……on a dirt path past a rice patty field….a well light street and what later became known as a small pink light district. The next number of months I spent communicating with people I could not speak to….riding motorcycles through the Japanese mountains to visit suspected haunted houses on top, staying up late exchanging music, and getting tossed around a judo mat after church on Sundays. I was three…ok two times bigger…three times stronger than the much older pastor of that tiny church…I would wield him like Thor wielded his hammer over my head and he would always land on his feet….within two minutes I was getting the air kicked out of me by the mat I had just landed on. I could throw most of the people around but this guy was like a ninja come to life. I had an altogether terrible and grand experience in Japan…it was the toughest time in my life and yet I always have compared most significant times after to it. This experience in Peru will be the same-although if all works out a lot longer-It is hard to explain poverty with words-currently I am living in a pretty nice area with running water, cable, and an excess of in my opinion delicious food my host mom prepares on a daily basis. However we have seen the other side-and it is such a stark contrast to the life I am used to—people with no electricity, no running water….in fact not much of anything. I do not know how they live because I have yet to do it but I can feel the extreme nature of it already. I have seen my fair share of inner cities but never lived in one…..in five weeks I will be in it…they call very rural areas here Campo-here people have nothing but what they have in front of them, little money, little more than a view of life within one , one village, one home.
In August /September of 1995-I landed in Japan knowing not a word of Japanese-it was Three in the morning when we stepped off the JR (train) and walked wearily through the streets of a small traditional Japanese town……on a dirt path past a rice patty field….a well light street and what later became known as a small pink light district. The next number of months I spent communicating with people I could not speak to….riding motorcycles through the Japanese mountains to visit suspected haunted houses on top, staying up late exchanging music, and getting tossed around a judo mat after church on Sundays. I was three…ok two times bigger…three times stronger than the much older pastor of that tiny church…I would wield him like Thor wielded his hammer over my head and he would always land on his feet….within two minutes I was getting the air kicked out of me by the mat I had just landed on. I could throw most of the people around but this guy was like a ninja come to life. I had an altogether terrible and grand experience in Japan…it was the toughest time in my life and yet I always have compared most significant times after to it. This experience in Peru will be the same-although if all works out a lot longer-It is hard to explain poverty with words-currently I am living in a pretty nice area with running water, cable, and an excess of in my opinion delicious food my host mom prepares on a daily basis. However we have seen the other side-and it is such a stark contrast to the life I am used to—people with no electricity, no running water….in fact not much of anything. I do not know how they live because I have yet to do it but I can feel the extreme nature of it already. I have seen my fair share of inner cities but never lived in one…..in five weeks I will be in it…they call very rural areas here Campo-here people have nothing but what they have in front of them, little money, little more than a view of life within one , one village, one home.
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