Hello all!
(Me on the left, my friend on the right!)
I'm back from my visit to El Salvador to visit my friend in the Peace Corp. It was a fantastic vacation. We hiked all the time and spent the evenings philosophizing about saving the world (by the way - no solutions yet but I'll keep you posted). There was some odd soul searching while I was there because of the different situations I was thrown into and culture shocks.
El Salvador has a really interesting culture and the people are some of the sweetest human beings you will meet on the planet. Because of the history of civil war, I think they go out of their way not to offend people. Except in one area: fatness. They will openly make comments about a woman's weight, ask her how much she weighs, etc. Not usually shouted across the street but nevertheless, it was shocking.
For example, my friend is a marathon runner. When she joined the peace corp, she could have stopped running since it's not an activity that most people of El Salvador participate in and the streets (mostly cobblestone) aren't really set up for running. However, every morning she gets up and runs. People look at her strangely and the children run around pretending to be her but she still does it everyday. When I arrived, her male neighbor yelled across the street while we were walking - he was laughing and saying that I should run with her so I wouldn't be fat. And he continued to make these comments every morning. He wasn't trying to be cruel, he thought he was bonding with us! It's just part of their culture.
Luckily, I am a thick-skinned woman but it was WEARING to hear these comments all the time. I think it was worse for my friend who got upset to the point of tears one day (after a comment on a bus) because she wanted to shake them and say, "You don't know anything about her. She hikes volcanoes! She runs triathlons!"
But isn't that the point? No one knows anything about YOU. No one knows your story, no one knows your motivation. Judgments have always been made without that knowledge. Whether it be about your financial situation, the people you love or the size you are - no one knows your story. Which make those judgments... well... it makes them ridiculous.
So here's my challenge: stop listening to those judgments.
There are times when we care about what other people think when we just shouldn't. It could be walking into a fitness class for the first time (or the gym) or it could be painting when you've never learned how to paint - whatever you decide to do - make it YOUR decision.
During the 2600 homemade stairs I had climbed on a volcano in El Salvador, I made friends with our young guide, Steven. He was trying to learn English so he was asking me a ton of questions. At one point I stopped because I needed a break and he made the comment, "Eres fuerte!" I made my best bodybuilder pose and said, "Yes! I am strong!" And he said, "No, really! I have never seen someone fat hike this volcano before. I am impressed." I laughed and thought, Kid, I am much more impressive than this. I'm just getting started.