So today we were commenting at work how hot it was last night. I mean it was sweltering! And the weather never gets so hot at night at this altitude... but of course, global warming has taken care of predictable weather patterns.
Out of the blue, one of the teachers said that of course she and her husband had slept with the fan on all night and I looked at her in surprise.
"You have a fan?" I hadn't seen that one coming.
"Don't you?" I guess she had assumed that everyone had one.
There was a moment of silence as each of us digested the unexpected realization that people actually use/don't use (respectively) a fan here in Puebla!
So now I'm wondering if we will in fact have to invest in some fans in this house after eight years of never needing one. Because, as a matter of fact, tonight I can already feel the sweat running down the back of my neck...
OH blessed breeze that just blew through my window!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Intercultural mix-ups
The thing is, I am intensely intrigued by this whole idea of intercultural experience. When you look at it, we're basically talking about having an impact in the evolution of culture and that means generalized global evolution of humanity!!! Which is a pretty cosmic idea, when you think about it! So I look at myself, I look at my kids, but then I think, WAIT! Let's go back... because I realize that if I look at my grandparents, and their parents, well, talk about interculturalizing and going global!! And I think of my grandmother telling us to "cut off the lights"! How that cracked us up (she was from Russia; is that how she envisioned the act of turning off the light??)
Then I remember at the beginning of my life in Mexico (D.F. at the time), when I was living with my MIL, learning Spanish through a dictionary and telenovelas (Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse and Pacto de Amor)... how, one day, when she saw that I was bummed out, she asked me what had happened and I said, "... es que Car está encabronado conmigo." She didn't even bat an eyelash! Wonderful woman. (though she must have mentioned something to her son about explaining to his lady about unacceptable language, because he later told me that there were certain ways of expressing things that I really shouldn't use around most people...)
And you know, I never got it about "usted". I took advantage of the fact that people would indulge me and let me address them as "tu". It was YEARS before I really consciously tried to maintain a conversation in the polite mode with anyone. Even today, I immediately try to get onto a "tu" level...
Sometimes I wonder if sooner or later that whole usted thing will go the way of thee and thou... but then will it happen with the French and their Vous, or with the Germans and their Sie....? I don't know, but I think it's interesting to note that because of so much inter-country gadding about, all of our languages, customs, traditions, and even our basic ideas about life are rubbing off on those who are just trying to stay in one place and have an uncomplicated existence. We're all affected by it. So we go back and forth, up and down on the yes/no, love/hate, global/save-our-culture seesaw of conclusions and of course we're always right no matter which side we're on.
So sometimes I can't wait for the peso to merge with the dollar and for Spanish to merge into English, and, as step one: for Spanish to be more relaxed, with people meeting each other for the first time and saying - Hola, como estás? (asking a direct question to me so I don't end up looking around to see who they are referring to... and with no upside-down question mark at the beginning in the written version).
I see all this happening in my daily life, where, at work, people are really laid back and the e-mails flow without a lot of usted-ishness and double punctuation. And English is so all-around, that I can go whole days without speaking more than a few lines of Spanish!!
But then, something'll happen and I'll be back on the other side of the coin, treasuring how people defer to each other and how nice it is to be able to keep your distance while being polite at the same time (¡!) and how, when you're reading, you know it's a question from the beginning because that upside down question mark points it out. So then I staunchly defend the Cemita against the burger... or at least the Bufalo against the McDonald's burger... And I write a poem or song to myself in Spanish just for the delicious melody of the language...
When I was growing up, there was alway the "assimilation" question... (I'm not going to explain it, but anyone who's been through it knows what I'm talking about...) Should we? How much would be okay? Why were we so cautious? Was it because we were trying to protect our customs and traditions? Was it fear of the unknown? Was it unwillingness to change, wanting the comfort of having predictable lives and a comfortable routine? Was it the desire to be in control?
Today, in a completely different set of circumstances, I still find myself needing and wanting to assimilate, and yet, secretly rejoicing in being different... Wherever we go, people inevitably ask us where we're from - we're such a strange-looking and even stranger-acting family. Car always answers: "Soy un ciudadano del mundo."
I simply tell people - with a very straight face: "La luna."
Then I remember at the beginning of my life in Mexico (D.F. at the time), when I was living with my MIL, learning Spanish through a dictionary and telenovelas (Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse and Pacto de Amor)... how, one day, when she saw that I was bummed out, she asked me what had happened and I said, "... es que Car está encabronado conmigo." She didn't even bat an eyelash! Wonderful woman. (though she must have mentioned something to her son about explaining to his lady about unacceptable language, because he later told me that there were certain ways of expressing things that I really shouldn't use around most people...)
And you know, I never got it about "usted". I took advantage of the fact that people would indulge me and let me address them as "tu". It was YEARS before I really consciously tried to maintain a conversation in the polite mode with anyone. Even today, I immediately try to get onto a "tu" level...
Sometimes I wonder if sooner or later that whole usted thing will go the way of thee and thou... but then will it happen with the French and their Vous, or with the Germans and their Sie....? I don't know, but I think it's interesting to note that because of so much inter-country gadding about, all of our languages, customs, traditions, and even our basic ideas about life are rubbing off on those who are just trying to stay in one place and have an uncomplicated existence. We're all affected by it. So we go back and forth, up and down on the yes/no, love/hate, global/save-our-culture seesaw of conclusions and of course we're always right no matter which side we're on.
So sometimes I can't wait for the peso to merge with the dollar and for Spanish to merge into English, and, as step one: for Spanish to be more relaxed, with people meeting each other for the first time and saying - Hola, como estás? (asking a direct question to me so I don't end up looking around to see who they are referring to... and with no upside-down question mark at the beginning in the written version).
I see all this happening in my daily life, where, at work, people are really laid back and the e-mails flow without a lot of usted-ishness and double punctuation. And English is so all-around, that I can go whole days without speaking more than a few lines of Spanish!!
But then, something'll happen and I'll be back on the other side of the coin, treasuring how people defer to each other and how nice it is to be able to keep your distance while being polite at the same time (¡!) and how, when you're reading, you know it's a question from the beginning because that upside down question mark points it out. So then I staunchly defend the Cemita against the burger... or at least the Bufalo against the McDonald's burger... And I write a poem or song to myself in Spanish just for the delicious melody of the language...
When I was growing up, there was alway the "assimilation" question... (I'm not going to explain it, but anyone who's been through it knows what I'm talking about...) Should we? How much would be okay? Why were we so cautious? Was it because we were trying to protect our customs and traditions? Was it fear of the unknown? Was it unwillingness to change, wanting the comfort of having predictable lives and a comfortable routine? Was it the desire to be in control?
Today, in a completely different set of circumstances, I still find myself needing and wanting to assimilate, and yet, secretly rejoicing in being different... Wherever we go, people inevitably ask us where we're from - we're such a strange-looking and even stranger-acting family. Car always answers: "Soy un ciudadano del mundo."
I simply tell people - with a very straight face: "La luna."
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Wrong Information
OOPS! Just realized I gave give out some wrong information! Our school is going to be starting with some intercultural events, and I mentioned the big Blogger Meetup as a possibility, but I said it was scheduled for October, when in fact it's just around the corner! I wish I had read it right the first time (and unfortunately, haven't gotten back to reading about it in quite awhile), but either way, I won't be able to be there, much as I'd like to since it sounds so interestingly neat! All these people --Mexican and non-Mexican-but-living-in-Mexico-for-one-reason-or-another -- getting together for a meet-up on Isla Mujeres... the perfect place - though can it accommodate all the influx, I wonder?? Guess it's a lot more modern today than last time I was there in '78 - CAN THAT BE RIGHT??? Has it really been 30 years? We must have gone there at least once when our kids were young... didn't we?
Going to Isla Mujeres was something we did in the natural course of events when we lived in Cancun in '78, working and getting to know each other (and getting pregnant with fned)... before there were hotels in the hotel zone (well there were 3) and when the Convention Center was this mostly empty construction with a few places opening up (I wonder if Tucan Tar is still there, where we once played music...) or Agusto's Pizzas, where the young guy who managed it for Agusto (and was later replaced by Car) had a pet Tiger!! Cancun, where we lived on the outskirts near the highway to Puerto Morelos in a sort of "shanty town", which reminded me of the times in 19th-century US when lots of people in search of work just set up house haphazardly in order to be part of the railway construction underway, that's how it was... all these families coming in and setting up house so they could work doing all the building around Cancun... and we were the "lucky" ones with non-hard labor jobs... but we still came home bushed because working in the recently inaugurated though sparsely populated Hotel Zone meant working from 7:00 a.m. to midnight and beyond... that was how you made money on the tourism that was just getting started.
Is Visusa (travel agency) still there? That was the first place I worked, but only for about a month. I also taught English, and worked as a babysitter At that time, I remember how I taunted Car for acting like a jealous macho when he predicted that the Ice Cream Parlor Owner who asked me to babysit his kids would try to seduce me... that was, until the day said ICPO suddenly came home from work early (his wife was a doctor in the clinic and usually got home before he did), went into his room, and then called me for something. So I left his two little girls coloring in their coloring books, and went in, and there he was in his underwear, looking at me with sad, pleading eyes! I couldn't believe it! I stood there in the doorway, frozen to the spot, having no idea what to do or say, but wondering if he had any idea how BAD his timing was? His darling daughters right down the hall, his wife coming home for lunch! How could he??? I mumbled something about how now that he was home, I was going to leave and walked out, never to return.
Luckily, the next day Car finally convinced Agusto to let a female work in the Pizzaría so I was soon working again in a whole other scenario. But one morning, after working all night at Agusto's, then cleaning up, making the journey back home and walking into our rented room as the sky began to lighten, I found a note stuffed between the windowframe and screen near our bed. It was from the ICPO, saying he was sorry, he hadn't meant to frighten me off. Wouldn't I consider coming back to work for them?
And of course Car STILL HOLDS THAT "I TOLD YOU SO" OVER MY HEAD whenever we disagree in our opinions of someone's character...
Now that I think about it, maybe that was my first intercultural blooper! I mean, how is it that I absolutely did not see that coming??
Okay, hope the blogger meetup includes some intercultural bonding...
Going to Isla Mujeres was something we did in the natural course of events when we lived in Cancun in '78, working and getting to know each other (and getting pregnant with fned)... before there were hotels in the hotel zone (well there were 3) and when the Convention Center was this mostly empty construction with a few places opening up (I wonder if Tucan Tar is still there, where we once played music...) or Agusto's Pizzas, where the young guy who managed it for Agusto (and was later replaced by Car) had a pet Tiger!! Cancun, where we lived on the outskirts near the highway to Puerto Morelos in a sort of "shanty town", which reminded me of the times in 19th-century US when lots of people in search of work just set up house haphazardly in order to be part of the railway construction underway, that's how it was... all these families coming in and setting up house so they could work doing all the building around Cancun... and we were the "lucky" ones with non-hard labor jobs... but we still came home bushed because working in the recently inaugurated though sparsely populated Hotel Zone meant working from 7:00 a.m. to midnight and beyond... that was how you made money on the tourism that was just getting started.
Is Visusa (travel agency) still there? That was the first place I worked, but only for about a month. I also taught English, and worked as a babysitter At that time, I remember how I taunted Car for acting like a jealous macho when he predicted that the Ice Cream Parlor Owner who asked me to babysit his kids would try to seduce me... that was, until the day said ICPO suddenly came home from work early (his wife was a doctor in the clinic and usually got home before he did), went into his room, and then called me for something. So I left his two little girls coloring in their coloring books, and went in, and there he was in his underwear, looking at me with sad, pleading eyes! I couldn't believe it! I stood there in the doorway, frozen to the spot, having no idea what to do or say, but wondering if he had any idea how BAD his timing was? His darling daughters right down the hall, his wife coming home for lunch! How could he??? I mumbled something about how now that he was home, I was going to leave and walked out, never to return.
Luckily, the next day Car finally convinced Agusto to let a female work in the Pizzaría so I was soon working again in a whole other scenario. But one morning, after working all night at Agusto's, then cleaning up, making the journey back home and walking into our rented room as the sky began to lighten, I found a note stuffed between the windowframe and screen near our bed. It was from the ICPO, saying he was sorry, he hadn't meant to frighten me off. Wouldn't I consider coming back to work for them?
And of course Car STILL HOLDS THAT "I TOLD YOU SO" OVER MY HEAD whenever we disagree in our opinions of someone's character...
Now that I think about it, maybe that was my first intercultural blooper! I mean, how is it that I absolutely did not see that coming??
Okay, hope the blogger meetup includes some intercultural bonding...
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Getting back to it
Just when I had come to the conclusion that blogging is not for me, I get a push from fned. Did she do it on purpose, knowing how I tick? I'll have to think on that one. I have been reading other blogs lately, but haven't found anything I want to blog about myself. The tomato garden is completely enclosed and turned over... I'm just waiting for the rainy season to begin before I actually plant, as it is so dry at the moment, and watering is not really a good option, what with having to buy pipas of water which somehow seems to disappear faster and faster from the cistern; a tank-truck (pipa) of water used to last us 3 weeks, but now it's more like 10 days to two weeks. We've been wondering if we're getting less than we're paying for (as in the case of gas and gasoline in some places) or if our cistern has seepage.
I do have lots of thoughts going around in my mind, but I just looked at the clock and it's 2:44 and my alarm is set to wake up in 2 hours... maybe I'll blog about sleep habits... but not now. I gotta get to bed!
I do have lots of thoughts going around in my mind, but I just looked at the clock and it's 2:44 and my alarm is set to wake up in 2 hours... maybe I'll blog about sleep habits... but not now. I gotta get to bed!
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