flashes of familiarity

Our group spent the full week we were in Mexico in Tepotzlán, a town about 1 hour south of Mexico City. We were there to live with host families and partake in an intensive 5 day/30 hr language crash course. It was our first gentle push out of our comfort zones and away from our family of 12 (10 YAGM+ Lindsay and Omar). We lived in pairs in 5 different homestays scattered throughout the small town and met in 4 different classes based on previous experience with the language. It was an incredibly enriching and equally exhausting experience.

host family from Tepotzlán

            On Thursday of our week we met as a group after having “comida” (the hearty main meal of the day served around 3pm) with our host families to hike up to an ancient temple, El Tepozteco. It was rainy, thundering, and my brain was nearing dead after 4 days of class and constant Spanish at home. I was cranky and not particularly looking forward to the prospect of being electrocuted on the top of a slippery mountain in Mexico.

the view from Tepozteco

            It took roughly 30 seconds of hiking for me to remember the childlike joy that fills my heart whenever I get to experience nature in that way. Just like that, I was filled with the familiar despite being surrounded by the unfamiliar. After an hour of pura escalera (purely stairs) we arrived at the cumbre (peak). Looking out from the mountain, past the town of Tepotzlán below, past the nearest rocky, jungle-like peaks far in the horizon were rolling blue mountains. The late afternoon sun, and the post rain-haze created the perfect light and if I stared long enough, I was back on the blueridge parkway on a Saturday this summer. There, framed between beautiful and wild unfamiliarity, was a flash of the familiar.

            Those flashes were present in so much of our in-country orientation, bringing me peace and proving to me time and time again the power of our shared humanity. Even in the often mundane and quotidian, there were flashes of the familiar framed within the unfamiliar. The playful joking around at the dinner table between my two host sisters in Tepotzlán was a flash of the familiar. The games of tag at Hannah’s worksite and the way that children interpret and reinterpret the rules of a game were (precious) flashes of the familiar. The random ‘90s hits that would mix between Central and South American music while we traveled from worksite to worksite were flashes of the familiar.

            More remarkable than those tastes of my life at home were the times when things that two weeks ago would have felt unfamiliar, have anchored me in familiarity. The sounds and rhythm of Spanish, the smells of tortillas and agua fresca, the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the radical hospitality and welcome of the different volunteer work sites we’ve visited, are all starting to feel more and more familiar and bring more and more peace and calm to our chaotic time of transition. I can only imagine how these flashes of familiarity will continue to change and grow and rechange and regrow as this year continues.

familiarly and unfamiliarly yours,

Alyssa

The YAGM family (missing Lindsay very much!)