There is beauty all around the world, you just need to look for it

    

      I think that there is a time in almost everyone's life, where we might find it hard to find the beauty in all things. This makes me a bit sad, because when someone really needs to see and find beauty, they don't have the ability to. There is beauty everywhere, in your house, in your town, even when you wake up in the morning, that is beauty. But there is also a time in which media gets in the way of seeing other types of beauty. Media has the tendency of taking places, people, even things that are beautiful, and only give these things a one-sided, demolishing view. This really impacts the people.
       I traveled to El Salvador for eleven days, and the country was so gosh darn beautiful. The volcanoes (I saw one that was active and I got nervous that it was spilling out lava but it was just a bright red-orange color because of the way the sun was hitting it, and also there was black smoke coming out of it), the water, the mountains, the sun, the sky, the vast lands, just everything about this piece of land was beautiful. But something struck me, I noticed that a lot of these people don't know how to see themselves as beautiful. This was something that broke my heart a little bit.The children that I worked with had a hard time answering the question: "Tell me some ways that you can love yourself?", that concept is to foreign to them. These kids are the definition of beauty, they are pure, giving, kind, accepting, and joyful. Yet with a question that might seem so simple, to them it is an intangible concept.
     I have noticed whenever I felt down in the dumps about who I am, and maybe others do this too, but my room just becomes all messy and I have no care about cleaning it. I allow myself to sleep in a cluttered place that happy Eileen would have so much anxiety and make it spotless right away. But these people don't necessarily have things, and they are lucky enough if they even have their own rooms, which they hardly even have. So, what is the more realistic thing that they can trash? Their earth. Covering up the beautiful terrains El Salvador has is a big, large, vast land covered with liter.

This beautiful land that God created has been invaded with just garbage everywhere. But that is poverty. In any poverty stricken area, even in the states, the streets are covered in garbage. Why would someone take care of the land that they are embarrassed and ashamed to live in? All we hear on the news is the massive gang influence, and violence on the streets in El Salvador, which I know is true. But when I was there I saw none of that. I saw people. Real, vulnerable, kind, loving, and accepting people. People like you and I. It is true that their land has its problems just like we do, but they need help. They need help to realize that they are real people. That they are people who have the ability to change and improve their world for the better. They need people to look at their country and look past the garbage, the gangs, the corruption, the violence, and they need someone to look at these people. These are people. We are people. We are one in the same. Just as much as we need to be hugged and told that we are worthy, and beautiful, and made in God's image, they do as well. They need help to understand that they are more than the cycle of gangs and poverty, they need to know that they absolutely can go to school and succeed. Love is contagious, happiness is contagious, the more we spread these feelings the more they can feel them too. El Salvador is their home. The Hispanic culture is theirs. We must help to allow them to feel that way too. Allow them to take back their homes, allow them to own who they are, and spread love and happiness throughout their communities. These people are people like you and I. They are beautiful in every way, they just need help in seeing that.