“I'm a third world girl living in a
first world nation...” is blasting in the car. Never has a song
seemed more fitting for me than that one, and I have never even been
to Jamaica yet and I definitely didn't grow up with Reggae music.
How can one person have an instant
connection with someone they have never met?
I have asked myself that question more
times than I can remember.
How come we had that instant connection
with a Kenyan married to a Canadian? How did they become instant
family to us? Why do we feel most comfortable when we're around them?
We've never even been to Kenya.
Why do we connect instantly with South
Africans, and how come they can understand part of our Plautdietsch
and we often know what they're saying in Afrikaans? You guessed it –
no, we've never been to South Africa either.
How come some of my very best friends
are Dutch? Okay, I do have ancestors who originally came from
Holland, but I certainly have never been there.
A lot of us believe in spiritual DNA,
our divinely embedded design for spiritual identity and function. But
have you ever given any thought to cultural DNA, or maybe even Third
World or First World DNA? (It's a thought.)
I'm a third world girl from a half
desert region with long droughts, heavy rains piled up in a short
time period, two seasons a year and too much dust (sand), living in a
first world nation with a lot of rain, cold winters with snow, and
FOUR seasons.
When others look forward to a couple of
months of summer, hot sun, and less rain, I dread the feeling of the
hot sun on my skin, on my windows...although I do love the ocean in
the summer. I am thankful for air conditioning, which I didn't have
growing up. When temperatures went close to 50 degrees Celsius, we
had fans and prayed for a little bit of cooling wind.
When others dread fall coming too soon,
I get overly excited for colorful trees, crunchy leaves and cold
brisk air. I prepare more for fall than any other season. I only met
fall in 1990, I fell in love and never looked back. I take most of my
pictures of fall and we've been on many long wonderful walks
together.
I am not partial to fall, though. I
love winter, too. (Fall doesn't mind.) Snow and I only met in 1990 as
well. And boy, did we hit it off. I will never forget my first snow
angel, my first very crooked snowman, the first snowfall when I
couldn't help but stay outside and let it all fall on me. I love the
cold, but not when I can't sleep because of it. I am thankful for
heating, for hot chocolate and lots of coffee, for walks in the crisp cold air, for hot soups and a
family who loves soup just as much as I do.
I like spring, because all the flowers
remind me of my Mother who used to work so very hard to keep plants
and flowers growing at home. She was a desert Mrs. Greenthumbs. Every
spring when the flowers bloom I show them to her (in my mind), I take
pictures of them, I hear her admire them and in my head we talk
flowers. I remember the time she came to visit and we took her to
Butchart Gardens, how she could've stayed there “forever”, in awe
of the vast amount of colors and sizes and kinds, because she as
well was a third world girl in a first world nation, and we needn't
say a word in order to understand each other in that grand sea of
colors.
My heart rejoices every time it rains
in wet BC, because my heart remembers the feeling of the sand hitting
my legs and my face on the way back from school. I don't have to
close my eyes to feel the sand in them, in my ears, between my teeth,
and everywhere else.
My heart also jumps joyfully with every
thunder I hear. I remember that thunder usually means rain, and rain
at the right time means a good harvest. When you pray for rain for
months on end, you run out at the first drops and you dance in the
rain (provided the lightning and thunder isn't too close). I do like
thunder and lightning. It's an exciting display of nature.
And this is all mostly just the
weather. There is so much more...
“Don't forget where you're from.
Never forget where you're from....”
Avion Blackman - Third World Girl
