please, stare at me.

Most places I go, people stare at me. And I´m not going to lie, I don´t really like it.

I´ll preface this by saying that I don´t get stared at nearly as much as some of the other volunteers. My hair and eyes are as dark as Peruvians (though not many have my kind of curly hair... actually that´s true in general), it is just my skin that is lighter than most, and my height that gives me away. I´ve yet to meet a Peruvian woman as tall as I am, and I don´t even consider myself particularly tall. In fact, my host sister blamed my height as the reason why people stare, though I think there is more to it. My host mom told me I don´t really look Spanish, I only look a little bit Latina, and I kinda look gringa (what?! so what do I look like? Just, different). I notice that people stare much less when I am out with my host family than when I´m out with other volunteers. Ashlen got called "Hannah Montana" once while walking on the street... how awkward is that?! One of the only times that I was consciously aware that no one was really looking at me was when there was a Middle Eastern couple walking around the market. The wife was wearing a burqa and everyone was staring at her, shamelessly.

That got me thinking a little bit. Who do I stare at? Who do we stare at? It is really natural to look at something or someone who is different than what you are used to seeing. I mean, babies are the best example, how widely they open their eyes to the world around them. But, often when we stare, we are not opening our eyes to absorb another way of life, but rather judging it. We as individuals and as a society are deciding what is "other" than we are, what is different and outside of us. We exclude. We are saying that people who wear turbans and burqas, or people in wheelchairs, or people with deformities, or with different skin or hair or height are not a part of my world. They are not a part of my world.

I guess this brings up another fundamental question in my mind, one that we ask ourselves often. Where do I belong? When I am being stared at by every Peruvian around me, I don´t feel much like I belong here.

Open my eyes. We belong to each other.

I sometimes might feel like I´m in a different world here. I mean, even the stars are different. But I live in the same world. Rather than excluding each other, we must remember we belong to each other. One of the great messages of Christ´s life was inclusion for those people always stared at, told they were "other." Sisters and brothers. Next time someone stares, I must remember she is my sister, he is my brother. It is a great illusion that we are so separate. Yes, I cannot ignore our differences. But I can open my eyes.


i´ll go with you.