Grayson Zulauf - Earth Train Panama
Week 3

The Warmth of Familiarity in a New Country

The urge to flock to the Fourth of July festivities on the so-called “Dia de Los Gringos” in Panama overtook me as soon as I awoke on the aforementioned date in Panama City on this my third week of my internship here. There was something inticing in the thought of eating a hamburger with fries, a chocolate milkshake, fireworks and red, white and blue. The rice and beans were immediately an afterthought, the preterite conjugation of the verb “aprender” no longer important. There was something comforting about apple pie and baseball.

             I certainly could get acclimated to fifty-cent sodas and one dollar meals (no these are actual meals, not a Happy Meal). I could also become used to waking up to the sound of a river on my right and my left. The experience of stepping into a new environment will fade, but the endless flora and fauna available to observe will continue. The fresh fruit “picked” with a machete trumps the Dole sticker on the United States pineapple. And relaxing on a hammock as a tropical breeze blows through it sure beats shivering on my couch with three fleece blankets.

            Yet, for some unknown reason, I waited with excitement for the Fourth of July barbecue and fireworks.

            There is an innate desire to return to home in all of us. For some, it why we come back to our childhood house in Toledo, Ohio. For others, it is why we jump into our bed the second we get back. But for me, it is the yearning to return to what I know.

            I need the security that comes with knowledge, the ability to have a memory of that activity. The fireworks brought back childhood memories of the sounds banging off of the canyon walls, the hot dogs of the firemen’s barbeque. The familiarity is what brings me back to home.