more thoughts born of culture shock

More thoughts borne of culture shock.

“High battlements of thought; habits that had seemed durable as stone went down like shadows at the touch of another mind and left a naked sky and fresh stars thinking on it.” – Virginia Woolf




Those sentimental moments, like, “don’t you remember the time..(fill in any dumb, hilarious, intuitively terrible situation such as ordering 9 subway sandwiches while tripping; any drunk mishap like breaking the roof when Obama won; any devastating, intensely exciting moment involving more than yourself) have to be taken with pure happiness and without any nostalgic longing, for you have had them. You will have more, perhaps you just aren’t passed that part of the trip,
And then you realize, you must have passed it without even knowing. Because you tore that roof down in another country for your new President and you even heard him talk in English. And you were so lucky being at the pulse of your country in a time so alive and ready for change with just … no idea where to start.
“The first days are the hardest days.”
When you remember that you could have been in a great hotel in Arlington on January 20, 2009, but by similar circumstances of the world and of time you are in that other country again, celebrating in Spanish with those who applaud a change you helped create with an absentee vote… When you remember that from the moment you made your way through DC by some uncontrollable circumstance and learned the F streets and K streets and M streets that you discovered,
Oh, God, I could live here. I could go to graduate school here.
And you wanted to, so badly.
And you even met a man that happened to seem almost everything you could have asked for but the timing wasn’t there and since he’s now upgraded to a 2009 version, he will certainly find some other complementary person before your two years out is over. But that’s OK, too, because through him you saw that one day your road can end where all the other roads follow—Montevideo. Y aunque probablemente lo habres hecho este viaje sin un muchacho, ya habras aprendido que tendra que ser buenos hombres con buenas intenciones y tal vez un espacio para ti cuando ya habres estado lista a regresar a tu pais.
But you’re not there yet, and while the lack of academia is trying your mental desire for stimulation, you can learn to learn … through other means…
How to talk to parents of a different country in a different language in a way that builds trust. How to trust giving your money to those you don’t know well but you know their brother and son and so you know that they’ll do the best they can for you. How to talk with honesty but not crudely (unless your vivid perception of time and space calls for vulgarity).

That even though you are working in Youth Development, you, too, are a youth, and are developing with those you’ve come to stimulate intellectually, to integrate interpersonal skills, to be leaders so that when you leave, you’ll know they won’t forget... to grow.
Some days will be harder than others. Some days you’ll feel lonely. And some days you’ll even feel fat. And some days the food will leave you a bit lacking. And some days you’ll want to sleep a bit later because in your dreams you still see the best of your friends and family or dreams of cities with clean streets and different-colored people speaking in many different languages. And some days you’ll forget that your body is your friend, and you won’t take care of it correctly. Other days you will be too hard on it. And through those days you’ll find a balance.
Some days you won’t know how on earth to teach in a second language the intricacies of your own, and you’ll be especially flabbergasted by the correlations of meaning in completely different translations. You’ll see yourself changing every day. Some days you’ll want to spend only with the children, watching their cognitive development just as you did in your own country, y en vez de esta preocupacion que no haya tenido muchos recursos y tampoco los libros que encontraba aja en otro pais, ellos estan aprendiendo, por ejemplo, como saludar, como jugar, como hablar en este mundo. Y en algunas caras de los ninos vas a ver que hay un deseo interminable de entender el mundo, y tu, y tus costumbres, y pensamientos.
Other days questions will fill your mind and you’ll want to drink coffee with the adults and ask them how it is that they have come to raise their children, and you'll find out about the duendes and how here, leprchauns wear red and rape little girls... and how it is for a woman in Honduras, and without judgment.
You’ll find that talking of the latest Cormac McCarthy book is not so important, but rather how the town will adopt and change in the next ten years, how they want to change in the next 5 years, and why. And how they make those delicious tamales.
And one day they’ll ask you who was Albert Einstein and why do you have a picture of him on your wall and wasn’t he an inventor? and what did he invent and you’ll find it invigorating and challenging to explain that he invented the nuclear bomb but inadvertently because E=Mc2 is a bit hard still even in English to explain perfectly.
And when the kids don’t believe that we can see Venus, even though in your mind, there it is, and how beautiful, you will find the ignorance not saddening, but actually quite beautiful itself. And you’ll wish that Peace Corps would donate a telescope. Because you’d love to put them a bit closer to such a fascinating part of our universe, God or no god.
Some nights will be hard (el cante de los gallos), some days will be long (baseball practice, kindergarten lesson, English classes, project with municipality, visit to the health center, JUNTA meeting with the library), and some unexpected things can be stressful (like realizing 2 minutes ago that you left your USB memory in an internet café in Comayagua… surely it’s gone and they are not cheap and you’ll need one).
But when you get to your house and look around, you’ll be inexplicably happy. This is your small house where the water only runs cold, there’s no television, no oven, no washer or drier, and many times no water or electricity at all. But it’s yours, and this town that sometimes drives you nuts for the trash on the ground and the starving homeless dogs reproducing to make god-knows-what combination comes next, is your town for 2 years. And you start to love your mismatched curtains and time to read, and though it’s taxing to read with so much noise, you can do it, and perhaps even get more from the book than you thought. And when they play the reggaeton you hate you can listen to it and strain to understand the words, and that is learning a language. And you will notice the parallels of humanity that run through the lives of those around you. And you will let them do you favors, not because you’re white or more privileged but because they are your friends and family of a different horse. And you’ll find comfort in a box of peanut M&Ms your aunt sent you and a small note from your grandmother via e-mail and a scent from your Christmas box that reminds you of home and pictures of you with big buildings in big cities that you’ll go back to some day. And music.
And instead of considering your time here a challenge to be met, you’ll see more clearly that it an opportunity to … aprovechar.

And, then, things will proceed more vividly, and for one night the dogs won’t wake you up even once, and you’ll have a slow morning because your meeting facilitators called you to say that they are tired, too, and that we can start later. So you’ll make your coffee and smell the burning trash and it will remind you instead of its terrible effects of the scent of bad marijuana, and that will make you smile and remember a few certain people who are probably taking advantage of what ever situation they’ve come across this dark, warm night in January. And you’ll think of how cold they are and feel quite comfortable that you, too, will see snow again.
You’re on a road, you decide. And you’ll like it more and more as it goes on. And you’ll apply to a graduate school in Washington DC because you fell so in love with it, and whether you get in or not won’t matter, because you know that after this is experience the winds won’t carry you where you can’t handle it.
And you’ll miss sex and ex-boyfriends but nighttime solitude will be comforted in books and music and writing blog material for the next day where you’ll be looking for a new USB memory.
You’ll take a quiet life, a life of linguistics, observation, being there as a resource, and most importantly, talking, of common goals that know no real language nor culture. And for this, you will go to sleep, and dream of wonderful things, without country, borders, time, or judgment.






“They are vulgar facts and you will not be the first man with such a page to his credit or discredit; but after all you will have enjoyed yourself, and you will not forget this, though you will be remembering other things, other days, you will have to remember them: days near, far, pushed toward forgetfulness.” –Carlos Fuentes