Weisgerber was recruited as a Peace Corps volunteer. She is now in the Amazon in the eastern region of Ecuador. She lives with the Quechua, one of the pre-Columbus communities that have managed to maintain a portion of their ancestral culture, but are mainly peasants as a consequence of their cross-cultural adaptation.
Rachel Weisgerber serves as Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador
Amazon offers life lessons for Collingswood woman
Opinion
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Rachel Weisgerber's story, which was published a few weeks ago by Nuestra Comunidad, is fascinating. This young woman from Collingswood recently completed her studies at the University of Delaware. She had a wide path open to pursue her advanced degree, but decided instead to leave for the South American jungle.
Weisgerber's rationale for this move may surprise many people. She left in search of "more studying and learning."
What else remains to be learned by this woman who just completed college in a country that millions of youths in the world see as the ideal place to study? What important things could she possibly learn in the South American jungle?
Weisgerber was recruited as a Peace Corps volunteer. She is now in the Amazon in the eastern region of Ecuador. She lives with the Quechua, one of the pre-Columbus communities that have managed to maintain a portion of their ancestral culture, but are mainly peasants as a consequence of their cross-cultural adaptation.
Blended cultures
The experiences lived by this Peace Corps volunteer and other youths who are sent to this region as part of this program are diverse and interesting. For example, these individuals long to meet other human beings who come from a completely different place in the world. In this manner, they are allowed to establish reciprocal relationships in order to understand each other. What do these new relationships mean for these individuals? There they are, in a place where people from separate cultures, life concepts and faiths will meet. Although these people may have been unknown to each other, they are now part of the same universe.
Weisgerber was born and raised in a society that has reached the maximum expressions of urbanism. A society with all the comforts made possible by industrial growth, cutting-edge technologies and money. In this society, a simple phone call or a mouse click gets everything and anything imaginable for those who can afford it.
This society makes great efforts to be safe, yet does not scare away the living ghosts of insecurity. It marches at the frantic pace of modern life and an ever unsatisfied consumerism. Those who form this society are left with the sole option of learning to cope with the conflicting feelings of strength and vulnerability, which stem from living in the most powerful nation on earth.
Weisgerber will arrive in a different place. A place with strength based on the fragility of human beings and which makes tolerance the most powerful weapon against hate. A place where frugality is a daily mantra and being humble the main rule in life. Life's desires do not push people into a dizzy existence in that place. Time, like the transportation, passes slowly and peacefully.
The jungle is not made of concrete, but of trees, fruits, reeds and flowers and the smell of virgin rain forest.
People there have time for others. It is possible to talk about simple things and there is no justification for friendship other than friendship itself.
The meeting of these two dissimilar worlds is possible because of human beings who are really not that different. The forgotten similarities have made friends of Weisgerber and Julio Huatetoco of Quechua. This relationship is an expression of something greater. As the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said, the human gender will have a second chance over this land.
For Weisgerber, this is her best lesson. It is also the best lesson for us.
