Living the simple life

I was talking to one of my fellow volunteers the other day about how simply they live here. The host families we are living with right now are actually pretty well off compared to how we will be living in a few months. Even so, they are very conscious about the amount of electricity they use, because it is very expensive. They also have to conserve their water, so I have to take bucket baths, and even when they wash their dishes, they use barely any water.

I know when I was in Costa Rica, I didn´t really experience anything like this, because the people I lived with were even better off than I am in the States. But when I was in Guatemala, the town me and my older sister stayed in was very small, and the water was only turned on for an hour three times each week, because it was so scarce. For some reason, it hasn´t really hit me until I got here how much energy we use on a daily basis and don´t even stop to think about it. I know that we hear constantly how much more energy people from the States us than the rest of the world. But it doesn´t really become reality until you actually experience how other people live, and how it is such a different mind-set than you´ve ever experienced.

Before I came here, I read a few times that one of the hardest things for volunteers is coming back to the States. I am beginning to understand more why that is.