Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Clandestine Photos
I finally got around to taking a few snapshots of my site, although I will admit that I've been afraid to take pictures for fear that my camera will be stolen which is most likely a ridiculous notion in El Sauce. I'll try to take some better pictures soon.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Stream of Consciousness
“Va a llover” literally translates to, "It's going to rain." It is also, without a doubt, the most commonly spoken phrase in my community. Since it rains all the time, I erroneously took the expression literally and was, for the first two weeks in El Sauce, perplexed by the frequency with which people commented about the impending rain, especially when it was already raining. I was also confused every time the expression was repeated multiple times within the same conversation or when someone randomly said it was going to rain while talking about a completely unrelated topic.
I still don't know what “va a llover” really means, but I finally figured out that it is not referring to rain. My host-mom couldn't really explain what it meant either, but she got a big kick out of the fact that I had interpreted it literally. She attempted to clarify the meaning by saying "va a llover" multiple times in a row. My best guess is that it means something like "whatever" or "yeah right."
-------
Time is certainly fluid in El Sauce. While conducting household surveys one elderly woman of 76 told me she was 50. Her daughter-in-law corrected her, informing me that her id card placed her at 76, to which the woman stubbornly replied that she thought it must be incorrect because she was most certainly in her fifties. Another woman, age 79, told me that she’d been living in El Sauce for a mere 3 years. Her son just laughed and said, amused, “Three years?! At least forty!”
Another man who was attempting to guess my age said, "You guys are just so big that it's hard to guess your ages." He guessed my age to be around 17.
Sadly, I also misjudged two teenage boys, age 14 and 15, to be around 7 and 9. They come from the poorest family in town and the only explanation for their small size is malnutrition. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it but it’s just not right.
-------
I encountered a 10 year-old girl with her own bottle of Boone's Farm which she proudly showed me. She offered a taste as well. Her mom was right there and didn't seem to think anything of it.
-------
My host-family unabashedly asked me to tell them English slang words for vagina. Under pressure, I only managed to come up with three: cherry, fish taco and axe wound. Unfortunately, I translated them into Spanish.
-------
By the end of one year here I am predicting that I will have been converted into a devout Catholic or Evangelical either because of the sheer number of prayer services I will have attended or because the crime rate will have convinced me that prayer is our only salvation. It's a pretty close toss-up between the two. My current activities include the Wednesday prayer group, Friday night rosary, and Sunday mass. I’ve also been invited by the evangelicals to attend “the cult” which, while it sounds a little frightening to me, is literally what they call it. So far I’ve managed to avoid “the cult” but I’ve promised to go next Wednesday.
As for the crime rate, it's rather alarming. The murder rate is at about 67 people per 100,000 which is really high. Consider that in Peru it's at 2 per 100,000. Obviously, some of the crime is localized to the bigger cities, especially around San Pedro Sula where there is a lot of gang activity due to the cocaine trade. However, crime extends pretty much throughout the entire country. Guns abound and Hondurans take the law into their own hands because of a non-functional and corrupt legal system. The school director comfortingly put it to me that he could kill me on the spot with my host-sister watching and nothing would happen to him as long as he paid off the lawyers.
The subject arose because two weeks ago at 2:30 on Saturday morning, 4 local men, 2 from my site, were forcefully taken from their homes, shot numerous times in the head and left in a cornfield in a neighboring community. The story goes that men in police uniform came to their homes and claimed they were taking them in for investigation, which was plausible because that actually happened to 9 other people the week before. All of the men who were shot, as well as the men taken into custody the previous week, were members of a local gang who for the last couple of years has been robbing people and delivery trucks and possibly killing.
The bodies were never taken to the morgue and were buried the very next day so you can imagine that any kind of investigation will be rather limited in scope. No one knows who is responsible for the deaths but people refer to them as either the “Death Squad” or the “Gang of the Grey Truck.” Personally, the first name instills a little bit more fear in me than the latter. It is also possible that the police were actually responsible. The lack of legal recourse is, to me, possibly the saddest part of the entire situation. Local people have expressed opinions ranging from sadness and fear to relief. Several people commented to me that they got their just desserts. Clearly, no one wants the threat of a local gang hanging over their heads but I still can't help but thinking that the situation could have been resolved more peacefully. One of the people killed was only 19 and all of them had children.
Two weeks later, some people are still fairly shaken up by what happened. One man told me that he and his four brothers are so concerned that they’ve been sleeping outside for part of every night. I’m not really sure what their logic is but obviously they don’t feel safe. I’m not sure I blame them either given the incompetent, by all appearances, local police force. I recently witnessed them on patrol blaring, “Who Let the Dogs Out” by Nelly – not exactly a confidence booster. At 11:00 PM the other night they went on patrol and blasted off several gunshots at random intervals just to let people know they were patrolling. Not surprisingly, this had the opposite of a calming effect and only served to frighten the people more.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Reject Rides
Transportation to and from my site is provided by a fleet of 3 rickety, reject school buses from the States. The bus-of-choice to get from my site to Santa Barbara is light blue, from Portland and currently out of service. None of the buses actually depart from my site, but usually a truck is sent up to take people down in order to catch the bus. However, on Thursday, I awoke at 5:15 in the morning to wait in a dark, cold rain for a truck that never came. Thankfully, it came the following morning or I might have walked down the mountain.
After leaving my site at 5:45, we made it to Santa Barbara at 8:30 am. In terms of distance, it's really not that far from my site to Santa Barbara, nor is the road that bad. However, it is precisely the kind of road that sane people would never venture to take a school bus down, especially not one filled beyond capacity.
That said, I am under the impression that most bus drivers are simply not sane. I'm still not sure what my parents were thinking putting me on the school bus each morning as a child. As I recall, those one hour bus rides through the Illinois countryside were cause for concern - veritable roller-coaster rides sans seatbelts. The best seats were at the back, where a hill would send you flying into the air. I wouldn't be surprised if the bus even got air. Of course, if the school district had screened its drivers, the rides would have been less eventful. I remember one of our drivers was frequently late and once he just didn't show. He was promptly fired, as the bus company finally realized that he was a drug addict. There was also Carl, the man who drove us to school for several years. I suspect that Carl took up school bus driving as a hobby in his retirement years because he must have been in his seventies and his glasses were thicker than the windshield. Carl alternated between reading the bible and the dictionary. His favorite refrain, always shrieked, was, "Get your seat of the pants on the seat of the bus." Despite his obvious lack of vision, he drove that bus like a race car driver. I recall that once, during the same ride, he took out one of the middle side windows with a tree branch and later backed into a huge oak tree that a blind person could have avoided. Nonetheless, for kids on a country school bus, these rides were just normal.
Much as the school bus ride was for me, for most of the passengers, particularly the elderly gentlemen, the ride to Santa Barbara was like a jovial social hour. I enjoyed the ride, despite being a little squished, by taking in the beautiful view - a mix of forest, coffee farms and cornfields. A mere 3 hours after arriving in Santa Barbara, I resumed the bus ride again to return to my site, arriving at 2 pm.
After leaving my site at 5:45, we made it to Santa Barbara at 8:30 am. In terms of distance, it's really not that far from my site to Santa Barbara, nor is the road that bad. However, it is precisely the kind of road that sane people would never venture to take a school bus down, especially not one filled beyond capacity.
That said, I am under the impression that most bus drivers are simply not sane. I'm still not sure what my parents were thinking putting me on the school bus each morning as a child. As I recall, those one hour bus rides through the Illinois countryside were cause for concern - veritable roller-coaster rides sans seatbelts. The best seats were at the back, where a hill would send you flying into the air. I wouldn't be surprised if the bus even got air. Of course, if the school district had screened its drivers, the rides would have been less eventful. I remember one of our drivers was frequently late and once he just didn't show. He was promptly fired, as the bus company finally realized that he was a drug addict. There was also Carl, the man who drove us to school for several years. I suspect that Carl took up school bus driving as a hobby in his retirement years because he must have been in his seventies and his glasses were thicker than the windshield. Carl alternated between reading the bible and the dictionary. His favorite refrain, always shrieked, was, "Get your seat of the pants on the seat of the bus." Despite his obvious lack of vision, he drove that bus like a race car driver. I recall that once, during the same ride, he took out one of the middle side windows with a tree branch and later backed into a huge oak tree that a blind person could have avoided. Nonetheless, for kids on a country school bus, these rides were just normal.
Much as the school bus ride was for me, for most of the passengers, particularly the elderly gentlemen, the ride to Santa Barbara was like a jovial social hour. I enjoyed the ride, despite being a little squished, by taking in the beautiful view - a mix of forest, coffee farms and cornfields. A mere 3 hours after arriving in Santa Barbara, I resumed the bus ride again to return to my site, arriving at 2 pm.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Back to Square One
I arrived at my new site, El Sauce, on Friday afternoon to find that, indeed, there are no willows in El Sauce. However, from my backyard there is a clear view up into the cloud forest of Santa Barbara National Park. The scattered houses of El Sauce dot the hillside along the edge of the nuclear zone of the park, with farm plots creeping upwards, creating a clearly discernable line between the remaining cloud forest and development as El Sauce knows it.
My new house is nice by my standards, with an indoor bathroom, tile floors, windows with screens, couches and no holes in the walls. There are also no rats running across the rafters like there were in my first house in Huaca Rivera. It is certainly one of the nicer homes in town. My bedroom is, however, roughly the size of my laundry room in the States, with less storage space and entirely occupied by an enormous queen-sized bed.
Of course, my new home also includes a new host-family – two parents, two girls (10 and 5 years old) and a baby boy. Everyone in the family is very nice and the girls are particularly calm. The 5 year old does, however, have the particular habit of racing to finish her food before me every time we eat which is a little alarming because, while she does a fairly impressive job, it always ends in a few disconcerting gasps for air.
Honestly, this family is pretty hands-off and understanding in terms of allowing me to maintain a certain level of independence. After having lived with about 8 different host-families, I’ve learned how to make myself at home pretty much instantly. Nonetheless, it is never really that comfortable. Once again I’ve reverted to feeling a bit like a child. For example, I now have shiny pink toenails complete with floral decorations courtesy of my host-mom. I’ve never had decorations on my toenails, but she insisted.
Also, the other day I wanted to go for a run so I asked my host-mother where exactly I could run. She informed me that I could either run up or down the hill, with the condition that if I ran down the hill I could only run as far as a certain concrete fence. I opted to run down the hill, assuming that the fence would be a reasonable distance away. Well, as soon as I left my house I could already see the fence and I arrived at said fence approximately 30 seconds later, probably less. So, I turned around to run up the hill which was around a curve and, thus, not readily visible. The top of the hill was roughly 15 seconds from my house. It was quite the run.
Amazingly, my host-mom gave me the option of preparing my own breakfast. Nonetheless, when I asked to borrow a pan to fry an egg she took it upon herself to add about ½ cup of oil. I actually tried to get her to take some out and she simply replied that the extra oil would remain in the pan once the egg was cooked. Then she cooked the egg while spooning copious amounts of the extra oil on top of the egg. Indeed, some oil remained in the pan but at least half was absorbed and, therefore, ingested.
Also, along with living with a host-family comes the usual slew of awkward questions: Do you believe in God?, Why don’t you eat meat?, You know that our meat is healthier?, Why won’t you at least try this endangered armadillo?, How much did that box of tea cost? Of course, even if that box of tea cost $6.00, once converted to Lempiras, it might as well have cost you $100 because that’s what it seems like to them.
In terms of work, I’m back to square one, with nothing to do. Hopefully I don’t go crazy because I’m not sure I can handle the lack of productivity again. I saw my counterpart at the Sunday church service and asked when the next water board meeting would be. Since he is on the board and my counterpart for precisely that reason, I assumed it were logical that I would attend. He was like, “Oh, I doubt you’d want to go.” As I suspected I would be, I’m concerned that this site has not been developed at all in terms of PC site development.
My new house is nice by my standards, with an indoor bathroom, tile floors, windows with screens, couches and no holes in the walls. There are also no rats running across the rafters like there were in my first house in Huaca Rivera. It is certainly one of the nicer homes in town. My bedroom is, however, roughly the size of my laundry room in the States, with less storage space and entirely occupied by an enormous queen-sized bed.
Of course, my new home also includes a new host-family – two parents, two girls (10 and 5 years old) and a baby boy. Everyone in the family is very nice and the girls are particularly calm. The 5 year old does, however, have the particular habit of racing to finish her food before me every time we eat which is a little alarming because, while she does a fairly impressive job, it always ends in a few disconcerting gasps for air.
Honestly, this family is pretty hands-off and understanding in terms of allowing me to maintain a certain level of independence. After having lived with about 8 different host-families, I’ve learned how to make myself at home pretty much instantly. Nonetheless, it is never really that comfortable. Once again I’ve reverted to feeling a bit like a child. For example, I now have shiny pink toenails complete with floral decorations courtesy of my host-mom. I’ve never had decorations on my toenails, but she insisted.
Also, the other day I wanted to go for a run so I asked my host-mother where exactly I could run. She informed me that I could either run up or down the hill, with the condition that if I ran down the hill I could only run as far as a certain concrete fence. I opted to run down the hill, assuming that the fence would be a reasonable distance away. Well, as soon as I left my house I could already see the fence and I arrived at said fence approximately 30 seconds later, probably less. So, I turned around to run up the hill which was around a curve and, thus, not readily visible. The top of the hill was roughly 15 seconds from my house. It was quite the run.
Amazingly, my host-mom gave me the option of preparing my own breakfast. Nonetheless, when I asked to borrow a pan to fry an egg she took it upon herself to add about ½ cup of oil. I actually tried to get her to take some out and she simply replied that the extra oil would remain in the pan once the egg was cooked. Then she cooked the egg while spooning copious amounts of the extra oil on top of the egg. Indeed, some oil remained in the pan but at least half was absorbed and, therefore, ingested.
Also, along with living with a host-family comes the usual slew of awkward questions: Do you believe in God?, Why don’t you eat meat?, You know that our meat is healthier?, Why won’t you at least try this endangered armadillo?, How much did that box of tea cost? Of course, even if that box of tea cost $6.00, once converted to Lempiras, it might as well have cost you $100 because that’s what it seems like to them.
In terms of work, I’m back to square one, with nothing to do. Hopefully I don’t go crazy because I’m not sure I can handle the lack of productivity again. I saw my counterpart at the Sunday church service and asked when the next water board meeting would be. Since he is on the board and my counterpart for precisely that reason, I assumed it were logical that I would attend. He was like, “Oh, I doubt you’d want to go.” As I suspected I would be, I’m concerned that this site has not been developed at all in terms of PC site development.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Transitions
My one month break at home came and went in a blur. After over two years away, one month at home was kind of a tease. Once again I boarded a plane and left the States for the Peace Corps, although this time for a one-year extension in Honduras. I was less than thrilled that the Peace Corps insisted on booking my flight at 5:30 AM. I was in Honduras by noon.
The Protected Areas Management program specialist picked me up at the airport and bought me a baleada, a flour tortilla filled with refried beans, cheese, egg and drizzled with mantequilla, a sauce similar to sour cream. She told me there wasn't anything more typical of Honduran food than the baleada. I liked it. Less than a week later I realized that baleadas or some version there of are pretty much all that Hondurans eat. Sometimes they mix it up with corn tortillas.
Pretty much upon landing the PC staff whisked me away to the office to commence my own personal training. Admittedly, the one-on-one training was kind of intense compared to my experience in Peru. Doing participatory activities when you are the sole participant is not exactly a ball of fun. Also, going it alone was far more difficult than I imagined it would be. On day two, I cried in the office bathroom.
After a week in the office, I was sent off to shadow a fellow environment volunteer for 10 days. Her site is located in the buffer zone near the Parque Nacional Azul Meámbar and has beautiful views of Lago Yojoa, the largest natural lake in Honduras. We passed the time visiting various places and organizations in the area. On my second day there we actually made the trip to La Esperanza, a larger town about 1.5 hours away, for the annual potato festival. It struck me as being a bit ironic since I just came from Peru, the home of the potato.
We also visited the lake which is really beautiful and surrounded by hills and two national parks - Parque Nacional Azul Meámbar and Parque Nacional Santa Barbara. Through a connection of the volunteer's we also went to visit a nearby lead and zinc mine. We ended up meeting the owner (a Canadian) and the second-in-command (a Chilean), who met each other in Peru at a mine in Ancash. We were invited up into the lounge of the mine's admin staff and I felt like I had stepped back into the 1950s -- picture foreign engineers with their fancy wives drinking wine and cocktails. Of course, the people who actually work the mine live below in shacks while the admin staff lives in a gated community with a pool and hot water and the owner makes $55,000 a month. The mine does do a lot of social work and the workers are well compensated compared to most Hondurans; however, there is something very telling about the blatant disparity in wealth.
On the weekend we went to visit a Honduran friend of the volunteer's who lives in San Pedro Sula, the largest city in Honduras. Hot and crowded, there isn't much to recommend about San Pedro. We paid a requisite visit to City Mall, a super fancy mall which looks silly in juxtaposition to the urban squalor of San Pedro. San Pedro and the highway leading to San Pedro from the south are among the most dangerous areas of Honduras due to intense gang activity related to the cocaine trade. Nonetheless, the search for opportunity and jobs brings people from all over the country.
-------
Unexpectedly, the transition from Peru to Honduras has been really hard for me. I know no one. The culture is very different while still maintaining certain similarities, which perhaps makes it more disorienting. The official language is still Spanish but very different nonetheless. The language here is more formal which makes me uncomfortable--they even use the formal Usted form here with children. In Peru I obtained a certain comfort level which is now gone. When it comes down to it, I'm homesick. But I'm homesick for Peru. I'm sad that I'm not there. I'm sad that I won't live there again. I miss it. I miss the people, the food, the weather, the market, the bus rides, the moto-taxis. I miss it all. I even miss Lima which is saying something.
During the first two weeks, I found myself constantly comparing Honduras to Peru. It was even difficult to find beauty in the verdant, rolling hills of Honduras because I kept comparing them to the stark peaks of the Andes. Finally, however, I realized that I could cherish and miss Peru without directly comparing it to Honduras. Personally I think the transition hit me hard because I felt guilty about moving on so quickly, about leaving Peru behind and going someplace new, about leaving. When I think about my little host-brother it still brings tears to my eyes, but there is no way to tell him that.
I'm finally starting to feel a little more settled. Taking the bus back to my host-family's house no longer makes me extremely nervous. Also, they finally gave me information about my new site so I can at least picture where I'll be for the next year. My new site is a small, mountainside community of 350 people called El Sauce (Willow). It's located in the buffer zone of the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara, a national park which harbors cloud forests, subtropical wet forests and highland pine forests. It is also home to Santa Barbara Mountain, which at 9,000 ft. is the second highest mountain in Honduras and, also, the only high-altitude limestone mountain in Central America. The community has expressed interest in the following areas: latrines, environmental education, chicken coops, eco-tourism and household gardens.
-------
If you are interested in finding my site on a map, here's how: Look first for Lago Yojoa, the big lake between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The National Park Santa Barbara is located on the NW side of the lake, and my site is on the northern side of the park. On a good map you should be able to find a town called San Luis Planes which is my district capital and fairly close to my site. If you can locate Peña Blanca and the town of Santa Barbara, San Luis Planes is pretty much directly in the middle of those two towns.
The Protected Areas Management program specialist picked me up at the airport and bought me a baleada, a flour tortilla filled with refried beans, cheese, egg and drizzled with mantequilla, a sauce similar to sour cream. She told me there wasn't anything more typical of Honduran food than the baleada. I liked it. Less than a week later I realized that baleadas or some version there of are pretty much all that Hondurans eat. Sometimes they mix it up with corn tortillas.
Pretty much upon landing the PC staff whisked me away to the office to commence my own personal training. Admittedly, the one-on-one training was kind of intense compared to my experience in Peru. Doing participatory activities when you are the sole participant is not exactly a ball of fun. Also, going it alone was far more difficult than I imagined it would be. On day two, I cried in the office bathroom.
After a week in the office, I was sent off to shadow a fellow environment volunteer for 10 days. Her site is located in the buffer zone near the Parque Nacional Azul Meámbar and has beautiful views of Lago Yojoa, the largest natural lake in Honduras. We passed the time visiting various places and organizations in the area. On my second day there we actually made the trip to La Esperanza, a larger town about 1.5 hours away, for the annual potato festival. It struck me as being a bit ironic since I just came from Peru, the home of the potato.
We also visited the lake which is really beautiful and surrounded by hills and two national parks - Parque Nacional Azul Meámbar and Parque Nacional Santa Barbara. Through a connection of the volunteer's we also went to visit a nearby lead and zinc mine. We ended up meeting the owner (a Canadian) and the second-in-command (a Chilean), who met each other in Peru at a mine in Ancash. We were invited up into the lounge of the mine's admin staff and I felt like I had stepped back into the 1950s -- picture foreign engineers with their fancy wives drinking wine and cocktails. Of course, the people who actually work the mine live below in shacks while the admin staff lives in a gated community with a pool and hot water and the owner makes $55,000 a month. The mine does do a lot of social work and the workers are well compensated compared to most Hondurans; however, there is something very telling about the blatant disparity in wealth.
On the weekend we went to visit a Honduran friend of the volunteer's who lives in San Pedro Sula, the largest city in Honduras. Hot and crowded, there isn't much to recommend about San Pedro. We paid a requisite visit to City Mall, a super fancy mall which looks silly in juxtaposition to the urban squalor of San Pedro. San Pedro and the highway leading to San Pedro from the south are among the most dangerous areas of Honduras due to intense gang activity related to the cocaine trade. Nonetheless, the search for opportunity and jobs brings people from all over the country.
-------
Unexpectedly, the transition from Peru to Honduras has been really hard for me. I know no one. The culture is very different while still maintaining certain similarities, which perhaps makes it more disorienting. The official language is still Spanish but very different nonetheless. The language here is more formal which makes me uncomfortable--they even use the formal Usted form here with children. In Peru I obtained a certain comfort level which is now gone. When it comes down to it, I'm homesick. But I'm homesick for Peru. I'm sad that I'm not there. I'm sad that I won't live there again. I miss it. I miss the people, the food, the weather, the market, the bus rides, the moto-taxis. I miss it all. I even miss Lima which is saying something.
During the first two weeks, I found myself constantly comparing Honduras to Peru. It was even difficult to find beauty in the verdant, rolling hills of Honduras because I kept comparing them to the stark peaks of the Andes. Finally, however, I realized that I could cherish and miss Peru without directly comparing it to Honduras. Personally I think the transition hit me hard because I felt guilty about moving on so quickly, about leaving Peru behind and going someplace new, about leaving. When I think about my little host-brother it still brings tears to my eyes, but there is no way to tell him that.
I'm finally starting to feel a little more settled. Taking the bus back to my host-family's house no longer makes me extremely nervous. Also, they finally gave me information about my new site so I can at least picture where I'll be for the next year. My new site is a small, mountainside community of 350 people called El Sauce (Willow). It's located in the buffer zone of the Parque Nacional Santa Bárbara, a national park which harbors cloud forests, subtropical wet forests and highland pine forests. It is also home to Santa Barbara Mountain, which at 9,000 ft. is the second highest mountain in Honduras and, also, the only high-altitude limestone mountain in Central America. The community has expressed interest in the following areas: latrines, environmental education, chicken coops, eco-tourism and household gardens.
-------
If you are interested in finding my site on a map, here's how: Look first for Lago Yojoa, the big lake between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The National Park Santa Barbara is located on the NW side of the lake, and my site is on the northern side of the park. On a good map you should be able to find a town called San Luis Planes which is my district capital and fairly close to my site. If you can locate Peña Blanca and the town of Santa Barbara, San Luis Planes is pretty much directly in the middle of those two towns.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Ignorance is Bliss
After living in Peru for over two years, I arrived home during the first week of December. Leaving my site was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I'm not complaining; I'm just stating the facts. People cried. I cried. My host-brothers actually sobbed. A dozen women and girls accompanied me out of my site on moto-taxis, blowing whistles and horns the entire way. The whistles were a bit much but I appreciated the gesture. Leaving was obviously something I had to do but that didn't make it any easier.
Then I got home and lived for two weeks as an anti-social being, holed up in my parents' house with random forays into society to run errands with my family. Nothing about the U.S. overwhelmed me as much as one might suppose. I expected the shopping malls. I expected the SUVs. I honestly was feeling a bit guilty about not experiencing the typical effects of reverse culture shock. I was starting to feel like maybe I was just forgetting Peru too quickly.
Then, I actually left my house and started interacting with other people. Little did I know that I had just been living in ignorant bliss. Apparently, the vast majority of the privileged U.S. population is living in ignorant bliss of another kind because they don't truly seem to care about anything going on outside of their own lives and certainly nothing going on outside of their own country. Hence, what follows is a bitter parody of the SNL segment "Really?" which, unlike the SNL version, has no intended humour.
Really, you think I want to listen to you talk about how a meal is just so much nicer with a fine, pressed damask napkin?
Really, you're really going to check Facebook on your portable phone machine in the middle of our conversation? Really?
Really, you bought your young children Motorola Droids for Christmas? I don't even know what those are. Really.
You seriously think you need to replace your HUGE television with an even more GINORMOUS television? Really?
You're actually going to talk about yourself for, oh, 3 hours and not even bother to ask how I've been? Well, that REALLY happened.
You really think that the way you live doesn't have implications? Really?! You don't think that just maybe you really aren't entitled to everything you have?
REALLY?!
Then I got home and lived for two weeks as an anti-social being, holed up in my parents' house with random forays into society to run errands with my family. Nothing about the U.S. overwhelmed me as much as one might suppose. I expected the shopping malls. I expected the SUVs. I honestly was feeling a bit guilty about not experiencing the typical effects of reverse culture shock. I was starting to feel like maybe I was just forgetting Peru too quickly.
Then, I actually left my house and started interacting with other people. Little did I know that I had just been living in ignorant bliss. Apparently, the vast majority of the privileged U.S. population is living in ignorant bliss of another kind because they don't truly seem to care about anything going on outside of their own lives and certainly nothing going on outside of their own country. Hence, what follows is a bitter parody of the SNL segment "Really?" which, unlike the SNL version, has no intended humour.
Really, you think I want to listen to you talk about how a meal is just so much nicer with a fine, pressed damask napkin?
Really, you're really going to check Facebook on your portable phone machine in the middle of our conversation? Really?
Really, you bought your young children Motorola Droids for Christmas? I don't even know what those are. Really.
You seriously think you need to replace your HUGE television with an even more GINORMOUS television? Really?
You're actually going to talk about yourself for, oh, 3 hours and not even bother to ask how I've been? Well, that REALLY happened.
You really think that the way you live doesn't have implications? Really?! You don't think that just maybe you really aren't entitled to everything you have?
REALLY?!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
After two years in Peru, I...
...Finally understood a joke about rice preparation and actually thought it was funny.
...Am still constantly baffled by Peruvian medical remedies. Suffering from a wound or perhaps the common cold? Try kerosene. I hear it works wonders.
...Continue to laugh in people's faces at inappropriate moments because I'm positive that they are joking and, go figure, they're not. Case in point: I was recently told by my host-brother, who is 15, that his feet grew so much because he wore sandals and watered his feet. "Just like plants," he said.
...Point out Gringos as if I were not one myself.
...Am completely unfazed by any invasion of my personal space.
...Have kind of, maybe, gotten used to seeing my primary school students at parties.
...See no problem with referring to someone as Chino.
...Still don't understand why many Peruvians are called Chino when they have no characteristics meriting the nickname whatsoever.
...Love chicha.
...Would rather drink about anything other than lukewarm Peruvian beer.
...Feel like my Spanish language level may have advanced from that of a 6 year-old to that of a 6.5 year old.
...Am certain that my English language level digressed.
...Feel like an 8 year-old because I've reverted to wearing clothes that were picked out by my mother and eating whatever my Peruvian host-mother puts in front of me.
...Feel a little sad that I won't see my younger host-brother grow up.
...Am looking forward to being able to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
...Do not regret not being able to eat what I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it for the past two years.
...Am still constantly baffled by Peruvian medical remedies. Suffering from a wound or perhaps the common cold? Try kerosene. I hear it works wonders.
...Continue to laugh in people's faces at inappropriate moments because I'm positive that they are joking and, go figure, they're not. Case in point: I was recently told by my host-brother, who is 15, that his feet grew so much because he wore sandals and watered his feet. "Just like plants," he said.
...Point out Gringos as if I were not one myself.
...Am completely unfazed by any invasion of my personal space.
...Have kind of, maybe, gotten used to seeing my primary school students at parties.
...See no problem with referring to someone as Chino.
...Still don't understand why many Peruvians are called Chino when they have no characteristics meriting the nickname whatsoever.
...Love chicha.
...Would rather drink about anything other than lukewarm Peruvian beer.
...Feel like my Spanish language level may have advanced from that of a 6 year-old to that of a 6.5 year old.
...Am certain that my English language level digressed.
...Feel like an 8 year-old because I've reverted to wearing clothes that were picked out by my mother and eating whatever my Peruvian host-mother puts in front of me.
...Feel a little sad that I won't see my younger host-brother grow up.
...Am looking forward to being able to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
...Do not regret not being able to eat what I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it for the past two years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
