This past week my friends and I got to play tour guide to a few guys from the good ol’ USA. They were wide eyed and fresh off the plane when they arrived, and we kept them running their whole week in India. We took them to the Ganga River (Ganges), through busy bazaars, to Hindu and Buddhist temples, to the Himalayas, treated them to great Indian food, and let them experience about a million different things in just a few short days. They got their money’s worth out of this trip.
At the end of the week we were hanging out and talking about what they had learned over the course of their time here. One of the comments the guys said something that really struck me. I don’t know that it was really “new to me,” but when he said it I thought yep, that’s exactly right. We were talking about the differences in people here and in the US when he said something to the extent of, “things here are really busy, but the people aren’t. The traffic is crazy and everything is overwhelming, but when you stop and talk to someone they make time for you. They want to get to know you and build a relationship. They ask you to sit down for tea and want to learn about you. Starting conversations is easy. It’s pretty much the opposite in America. Things don’t seem as busy outwardly, but people are always in a hurry. Starting a conversation with a strange is nearly impossible.” So true.
It’s things like this that get me thinking about what I’ll be like when I get back to the States. In almost exactly 5 months I’ll be home. I know that in a lot of ways I’m a different person than when I came here a year and a half ago. There are some things from this culture I hope to take home with me, too. The emphasis on family and relationships is one of those. I don’t want to catch myself being “too busy” to invest in the lives of those around me. Whether at school, at my job (whatever that ends up being), in my house, or on the street I need to live intentionally to build relationships with the people He puts near me. I need to remember to always slow down my seemingly fast life and reprioritize things. Relationships come first.
-एरिक
