the world can be kind of overwhelming- Honors Thesis Discussion 1

I recently had a meeting with my Honors Thesis Mentor, Professor Caswell, about the project I am undertaking this year. To give some brief context I am writing a creative non fiction piece about my time in Costa Rica.
So one of the things I am dealing with is poverty, which is a very very broad topic. I am going to do more research in an attempt to narrow it down. I recently came across the term "neocolonialism", which very basically is the idea that colonialism is still happening in countries that were formally colonized. I am coming to understand that the United States has (and is?) greatly influenced many countries in Latin America, and, in some ways, has devastated them.
I want to know what we are still doing. I want to know what our interactions are with Costa Rica.

I chose to focus on poverty in my story, because I came to understand that poverty was a reason why I was robbed.

So I was explaining all of this to Professor Caswell. He was reading through my proposal and asked if it was true that I mainly went to Costa Rica to see poverty. Which I did. I wanted to work on my spanish, get out of Lubbock, but I could have easily done all of that in Spain.
He told me that I would need to provide background into why I wanted to go to Costa Rica to see poverty, because a reader is probably not going to buy that.
So I was sitting down to draft why I wanted to go to Costa Rica to see poverty, and felt it would be better to blog about it.
A lot of things contributed to that:
1. A sense of wanting to help those less fortunate than me that has been something I've felt throughout high school. I never felt like I was actually doing anything to help (which in all honestly I probably wasn't). I don't think I had any real desire to travel and see the people I wanted to help though.
These feelings became a lot stronger when I heard about the Rwandan genocide in ninth grade, and then later saw Hotel Rwanda when I was a Junior.
2. Coming to college I heard about Darfur. I went to a talk by Ambassador Nagy on Darfur, and was really struck by the idea that this was happening now. I didn't want my children to ask me about the Darfur crisis and then ask why I hadn't done anything, as I did to my parents when I learned about the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia.
3. I have lived a very blessed life and was never really exposed to poverty. It was hard for me to relate to the pictures I would see of the refugees camps in Darfur. It was hard to relate to any of the pictures I later saw of starving children with their bloated bellies.
4. A speaker from the non-profit, Glimmer of Hope, came to speak to my Africa in the Contemporary World class. He talked about how you can't really understand poverty until you have tasted, smelt, seen, and heard it. You really have to use all of your senses.

But, why go to Costa Rica to experience poverty? Why not just stay here?
Maybe it is easier to see poverty in a place that isn't your home. Somewhere you can leave. Somewhere you don't have to drive by every day and feel that pang of guilt knowing the people living behind the closed doors of the houses. Knowing that 1 in 4 children in Lubbock live below the poverty line.
Here, I can sit in my living room on the more west side of lubbock, and not have memories of what is happening miles away from me. I can think, instead, about the children I met in Costa Rica, and think about their lives, knowing that I have done what I can, and now can only send them good thoughts.
But if I were to go into Lubbock, go the Parkway center and become truly involved with the students, how hard would it be to live my life knowing how they lived theirs?

I don't regret my time in Costa Rica. I am glad I went, because no matter where we are, there are always stories to learn. Going to Costa Rica pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to rely on myself to make a life there. I think it would be harder to do that in Lubbock.