1st Day in England.
It’s been the craziest, yet the most exciting day. At the beginning you don’t really know what to think. You just boarded the plane in Mexico – after having taken a plane earlier in my country and that right after leaving my favorite disco downtown. Since the tiresome trip has got you completely exhausted, you will open your eyes after crossing the Atlantic just a few hours after you surrendered to the fatigue; still, you’ll be on the other side. Advancing your watch 7 hours is not even the most significant thing you’re doing. Next moment, you’re riding a train between terminals, next moment you’re thinking in pounds and being impressed by how expensive everything is. This is England, and the lady with the burka who gave you the entry clearance is about the least diverse thing you’re about to witness. Those are the things that would happen to everyone, and these are the things that only happen to me. I get off the plane and watching all the blondes around I start having the pleasant discomfort of being totally outside of my “I’m the rule not the exception” racial comfort zone. I’m the only Latin American in the crew not being sent to health check, but that’s only because I spoke English and the guys didn’t. I see this girl holding the ICYE sign and I come right away to her. I realize there’s just no way of getting free internet anywhere in London Heathrow Airport and get the ICYE staff looking for a solution for me. I end up even annoying one poor waitress that seems tired of people asking her for Wi-Fi access and of luggage blocking her way to the kitchen- it was everybody’s suitcases, just that she picked it up on me. I meet a girl from Germany and we start talking very amicably. I meet the rest of the volunteers and staff, and I shake the hand of the first African I’ve met in my life. I end up paying, not without some resignation, a public, coin-operated computer that would give me ten minutes of Facebook for a pound. I take a banana from the food ICYE brought for us and keep thinking that it is hilarious that my first food in England happens to be a banana. We get on the bus, and I right away monopolize this girl from Minnesota. I come to the campsite to find a place like the mountains of Heredia, just that we have brick buildings in here. This girl from Uganda asks for my name just to end up calling me as their Swahili – English phonetics would change the pronunciation of it. I start mingling and find the smoking crew, so we go for a cigarette. We have dinner. Everybody wants to sleep, just that for my biological clock it is only four and it would be insane to go to bed now. I take a walk with a guy from Uganda and we talk about how bored we are now, but how great expectations we have from the experience. We question the British sense of fun just for releasing tension, but we both wouldn’t trade spaces with anybody. I sit down and write while the American girl plays a movie and everybody gathers in the common room. I keep wondering what the second day is going to bring for me.
2nd Day in England.
Morning
Right, by the second day, you can’t feel or act or even pretend you’re an alien. The officer at the UK border gave you permission to be here for the six months, so you’d better wake up early and start living the British Day. We’re on the Bank’s Holiday, so this day promises to be very relaxed and laid back. I’m the first person up, but it is only because I slept tight. Kat is impressed because the Costa Ricans are the first to show up in the common room. Kat, the moment I asked her yesterday where could we smoke and she gave me all the directions, I should have known we would get along pretty well. She is very friendly, and hundred percent approachable – the fact that she fed me with cereal and yoghurt only strengthens all the goodness inside of her. My morning starts looking promising as I find that six small containers of yoghurt cost only 90 “p” (pences) at TESCO – that’s even cheaper than back home. I discover that Winny (I have to check for spelling soon,) the famous girl from Uganda who keeps changing the pronunciation of my name, will also work for SHAD. I’m excited about this because she’s been treating me very familiarly since the moment we met. I’m also seduced by that African color in her speech. I’m going to take a break now, but only because it does not get any warmer and I need to get some sunlight and some body heat.
Afternoon and evening.
We have plenty of time to write in here, so here I go again. The morning/early afternoon turned into a visit to the local grocery store. I bought cherries and my first copy of The Guardian. It felt truly great touching the paper after a year of just getting tweets and reading the website of this renowned medium. Being snoopy friendly got me to inspect, along with Kat, the building where we had to move later on. I could choose the room I wanted and automatically affected the distribution of the rest of the house. It feels like back home where ACI staff is used to treat me as part of the leading team. We moved, I finally showered, and then the crew went out for the first experience at the local pub – what did I do in between all that? Taking pictures and thanking my mom and my older sister for sending me here. After a twenty minute walk for a town made out of brick and flowers that looks exactly like what you would imagine when you hear “Victorian” country side, we get to the crossroad where a sign of a silver deer announces the The White Hart. Inka, a girl from Germany, is the first in crossing the threshold of this beautiful traditional pub embellished by black window sills and pink bunches of flowers. I cowardly shield behind her just to see the wooden interior with seductive lights and some very friendly locals welcoming us. I feel like in wonderland, just a very alcoholic version of it. I was tempted to neglect I had ever been in a dirty Costa Rican bar after sitting comfortably in a decorated stool and having a pint of foster in this room of dark wood panels decorated with gold and some crests that sell me the idea of royalty right away. All the volunteers seem enthusiastic. How could they not be? We are in an English pub, and the locals haven’t stop making us feel home. The smoking crew ends up sitting outside after an hour and I get to know them better. The guys only came outside to tell us that it is about time to go, so I had to swallow the pint I had on my hand—good thing the American girl helped me. Back to the camp, the routine of meeting the new arrivals start, and as the group gets larger I realize that I like even less people, and then everything stars being blurry because my brain is trying to stick to how nice and cozy it was with a smaller group. It seems like it is about time to destroy the comfort zone we built with the group of the volunteers who arrived first. Still, I remember the nice chats of the day, the constant and funny displays of testosterone of the Bolivian guy, the red clay tile roof of the houses nearby just seldom being visited by a couple of birds, the rumor of the threatening English rain that just never shows up, the warmth feeling when you talk to people from Uganda, and the face of this American girl who I would totally try to hit on if I were into girls.
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