Two more months until I take off on my last transatlantic adventure of my 20s. When I finally decided to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, I didn’t intend for this trip to cross the Atlantic. I actually listed El Salvador as my first choice on the application. I only wrote down Romania and New Zealand as my second and third choices as a formality. I had to complete the entire application and the dates for those programs worked for me. Just in case.
Why El Salvador? It’s the motherland. Literally. My maternal bloodline is Salvadorian. That side of the family raised me, therefore I am culturally Salvadorian. By volunteering there, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. I would visit the homeland and give back. But that wasn’t to be the case. As it worked out, I ended up getting the call from Team Romania. The strange thing is I still feel connected to my family. Well, to my mom specifically.
When I was a child I became obsessed with the Olympic games. I really became aware of what the Olympics were in ’88 & ’92. Observing my sudden interest, my mom shared her own memories of watching the Olympics when she was a child. It was then that I learned she adored Nadia Comaneci, the freakishly limber Romanian gymnast who was crowned the sweetheart of perfection during the ’76 Montreal games. I watched old footage and pictures with my mom and I actually knew what the Romanian flag looked like long before I knew the Salvadorian flag. I never imagined I would visit the country then...or even a year ago.
I still have no idea what to expect, but because of my mom and her childhood heroine, I already know I’ll feel more connected to that place than anywhere else...other than the motherland.
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