Saturday, April 9, 2011

Las 5 Cosas Que Aprendí en América Latina


5.     Cómo lavar bien la ropa por mano.

4.     Cómo abrir una chela con un encendedor.

3.     Cómo hacer un porro sin una máquina.

2.     español.

1.     Y que, no importa que pasa, todo estará bien.

Top 5 Things That I Learned in Latin America

5.     How to wash clothes by hand, well.

4.     How to open a beer with a lighter.

3.     How to roll a joint without a rolling machine.

2.     Spanish.

1.     And that, no matter what, everything works out.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Culture Shock: Coming Home

Many have asked me what, exactly, it is that I feel having returned home from over a year in Latin America.   I suppose most of us are at least vaguely familiar with the concept of culture shock.  But how can I suffer from that when I have spent so much of my life here in the States.  How can only one little trip confound me so?

Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary defines culture shock as “a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation.”  

Well, confusion and uncertainty definitely fit.  Now, perhaps in my case the shock would be lessened had I gone to New York, or New Orleans, or some other unfamiliar place.  The things is, I am intimately familiar with Northern California.  Or at least I was.  Over time, things change.  And either one changes with them, or not.  The thing about coming back to a place you once knew after an extended absence is that that place is no longer the same, at least, not completely.  For me, everything is at least familiar, sometimes exactly the same, yet half the time completely different.  And I never know which.  I live in a constant state of discovery, but for there to be discovery, there must first be uncertainty.  For me, this uncertainty is coupled with confusion, as I never know whether something is how I remember it, or one of the many things that have changed.  These feelings have, on occasion, also manifested into anxiety.

Furthermore, my mind has been reconditioned to living in less developed countries, thus making my original culture alien to me.  For example, although I had eagerly looked forward to being able to deposit toilet paper in the toilet, a week had passed before I stopped looking for the garbage can in the restroom.  Similarly, yesterday at work I was cleaning, and instinctively wrung out the towel over a floor drain.  My boss looked at me like, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ and so I said, “well, I didn’t want to wring out a dirty towel in the sanitiser bucket.”  He replied, “that’s kinda the point of the sanitiser bucket.”  Okay, that makes sense.  Here.  But it is something that I need to recondition myself to think.  Everyday, hundreds of little things like this occur, keeping me in a virtually constant state of uncertainty.  

Normally, people do (re)adjust and acclimate to their (new) culture.  The length of time necessary dependent upon a number of variables.  I have no doubt that things will once again become familiar to me.  But it won’t happen over night.  Not even in a week. It will likely take many, many months... But it will.



NOTE:  Some would define my experience as reverse culture shock, though attributing it with the same symptoms of culture shock.  In fact, many sources cite that reverse culture shock can often be more difficult to deal with on account of it being more surprising to experience than the original shock of leaving.  I personally don’t see a need to define them differently.  

Saturday, February 26, 2011

2010 Reading List: Backpacker's Literature


     Travelling through Latin America, I wasn't sure what sort of books I would get my hands on. As it turns out, there is a whole book-swapping culture out there in the world of travellers, from hostels to café book exchanges in tourist hot spots. In general, I was quite pleased with the plethora of great literature I managed to get my hands on. And of course, there were those books that every backpacker reads, like Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Then there are the regional books. For instance, nearly every traveller in Bolivia reads Marching Powder by Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden. On the other hand, I sometimes found myself reading absolute trash that made me contemplate killing myself, before, of course, I thought that it would be more productive to kill the author, and rid the world of an idiot who shouldn't be published.
     At any rate, here is a list of the books that I have read this year. I had wanted to write a mini review of all of them, but it's just not going to happen. Instead, I will rate them with brief, completely arbitrary and unhelpful comments.

1
Odyssey
Homer
Classic
2
Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert
Pretentious and annoying
3
Night
Elie Wiesel
Thought Provoking
4
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom
Depressing
5
Stardust
Neil Gaiman
Fanciful
6
Skinny Legs and All
Tom Robbins
Helleresque
7
Fifth Business
Robertson Davies
Shit
8
All He Ever Wanted
Anita Shreve
It wasn't as bad as I expected
9
Rage of the Demon King
Raymond Fiest
Thoughtless diversion
10
The Prefect
Alastair Reynolds
It's not Asimov, but it's Sci-Fi
11
Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Tom Robbins
Still can't wait to read everything he's ever written
12
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
David Wroblewski
Moving
13
The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer
Philip Carlo
I empathised with a serial killer...
14
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
No comment necessary
15
Belonging
Isabel Huggan
Disappointing
16
Holes
Louis Sachar
Quick and easy, yet surprisingly fulfilling
17
The Resurrectionist
James Bradley
Intriguing
18
A Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Márquez
INCREDIBLE! Easily the greatest anything I've ever read
19
The Dark Star Safari
Paul Theroux
I want to go to Africa
20
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
Infinitely better than the film
21
House of Sand and Fog
Andre Dubus III
Thought provoking and inspired
22
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinback
Wish I had read it sooner
23
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Márquez
Not 100 yrs, but still incredible
24
Purgatorio
Dante
Classic
25
Marching Powder
Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden
Enlightening
26
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Stieg Larsson
As good as they say
27
The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo
Stieg Larsson
Still waiting to read the third book
28
The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri
I don't regret reading it
29
When She Was Good
Philip Roth
I still don't remember that much, even after reading reviews
30
Not Really The Prisoner of Zenda
Joel Rosenberg
A decent distraction
31
Casino: Love & Honor in Las Vegas
Nicholas Pileggi
Fun
32
A Day Late and a Dollar Short
Terry McMillan
A must read- especially for anyone who has lived in the US
33
The Tailor of Panama
John Le Carre
Awesome
34
Angels and Demons
Dan Brown
Entertaining
35
Wicked
Gregory Maguire
Fun and thought provoking
36
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut- enough said
37
Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut- enough said
38
The Audacity of Hope
Barack Obama
The whole world ought to read this
39
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
Devilish, delightful, masterful, inspired
40
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
I still don't get what all the fuss was about- it's a novel, damnit...
41
The Forever War
Joe Haldeman
Like all good sci-fi, it makes you think
42
Rendezvous with Rama
Arthur C. Clarke
More good sci-fi
43
Dark Prince
David Gemmel
Fun fantasy
44
Shot Girl
Karen E. Olson
Could have been worse
45
The Inheritance of Loss
Kiran Desai
Good, if a bit slow at times
46
The Post-American World
Fareed Zakaria
Inspiring and thought provoking look at the challenges facing the USA and it's new role in the new world order
47
Running Alone: Presidential Leadership JFK to Bush II, Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It
James MacGregor Burns
All profs who make this assigned reading should have their degrees revoked
48
Fools Die
Mario Puzo
One of his more inspired novels
49
Spellwright
Blake Charlton
Dr. Charlton should stick to medicine...
50
City of Bones
Michael Connelly
Page turner
51
The Second Chair
John Lescroart
Would make a better movie than book
52
Semi-detached
Griff Rhys Jones
Less enjoyable than I presumed



Thursday, February 24, 2011

Fire Your Language Tutor: I Found a Better Way...


     I suck at remembering things. I am much more likely to hold something firm in my mind after reading it and copying it down. Over and over. Pure memorisation. And truth be told- that only sticks around for a while. And I'm lazy. Why do I want to put so much effort into memorising something if it's just going to fade away after awhile? I do concepts, ideas, trends- those I understand. Facts, figures, dates, not so important to me. Sorry, was yesterday your birthday? At least I know that you are a thoughtful, passionate person who always remains positive and surprisingly open minded for someone of your religious persuasion. Ah shit- was that too blunt?
     I'm not a good listener either. Now, I am actually a bit hard of hearing, so I have a difficult time differentiating sounds; I don't always hear everything people are saying to me, and well, it's not that I'm narcissistic so much as I usually have a thousand things darting about my mind, and well, I just don't always have room for more. Many of my friends have noticed this- it's funny how they don't seem to realise that maybe they need to speak a bit more clearly to me, but are the first to point out that I haven't been listening to them, so of course I don't remember when they told me that thing the first time- or the second for that matter. Which is my point, I have an especially hard time remembering things when I hear them.
     All of these things make learning a new language a bit more challenging than it might otherwise be. I don't hear clearly exactly what people say. So even if I've learned a word, I may not recognise it spoken. Conversely, if I learn a word through constant spoken repetition, I will have learned it's significance, but when I try to use it, I am likely to mispronounce it. However, through divine intervention I have discovered a much more effective tool for retaining vocabulary in other languages: sex.
     The other evening, while viscerally enjoying the company of a good friend, he asked me a question in Spanish. While I hadn't yet learned the last word of the question, there was no doubt in my mind as to what I was being asked. Later, it occurred to me to look up the word. And while the dictionary definition is quite different from his meaning- it's not that difficult to see how the slang derived from the original meaning of the word. And I guarantee, I will never forget either meaning. Furthermore, I now have a clearer understanding of Spanish's inherent thought process (the etymology of the slang usage from its original meaning), and thus am one step closer to fluency. It's like, killing three birds with one stone.
     So the next time you think about taking classes or travelling to a new country to inundate yourself in a new language, perhaps it would be more fun to first try taking a lover who doesn't speak your native tongue.



Warning: this method has not been tested in other disciplines, and has only been proven effective for the learning of other languages. Use of this method for learning other than what has been suggested is done so at your own risk. Possible side effects of attempting this method of learning in other subjects include, but are not limited to: loss of sex drive when someone calls out, “what is the square root of pi?” and loss of lover when someone asks, “how many of his wives did King Henry VIII murder or have killed?”

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Serial Killers, Expats and Hippies: Where Will You Be Safest?

THE DEAL:
So, some of you may know that there are four ways to get to Panama from Colombia. One of them, to go by land, is nearly impossible (no roads, thus no buses) and quite dangerous (through the treacherous Darién Gap, a guerilla controlled territory), and thus stupid.  Another, the cheapest, is relatively safe but involves finding irregular passages on privately run mini-boats, and thus not terribly popular except with a limited class of Colombians and broke hippies.  By far the two most common ways are by air, the most popular, especially with business and tourist travel, and by independently-expat-owned sail boats that ferry backpackers through the San Blas Islands to Panama City. 
This last option is most popular with backpackers, but also by far the most expensive option at around 400-500USD for a 4-5 day trip.  
Now, in Colombia, I hung out in the ports quite a bit. Befriended the sailors.  Made contacts.  I had almost opted to run with a captian carting backpackers to Panama, but as his cook, for free passage.  But a better opportunity came up, which I shall get to in a moment.  I also had, through a series of connections, met a sailor with whom I nearly sailed the Pacific- but when we had lunch in the Bocas del Toro Islands, he had mentioned how not only did he want to see Nancy Pelosi dead- but he wanted to be the one to push her down the stairs.  You can check out his boat, Dances with Dragons so you know against whom to warn your friends should they feel like sailing around the world with a stranger.


MY CHOICE:
All right, so- the better opportunity:  I hitch hiked for two days through Colombia, from Cartagena to Turbo, whence I caught a boat to some little town whose name I forget and which I can't find on Google Maps, to Capurgana to Olbadia to El Porvenir (San Blas) to Playa Something or Other on the main land just north of the Panama Canal.  Although technically I sailed through San Blas, stopped to refuel a few times, and had lunch with some Kunas, I didn't snorkel off deserted islands or anything.  On the other hand, I did swim across the Colombia/Panama border- and had a quite different, more local, less backpacker, experience.


THE POINT:
When people learned what I was doing, they all said- 'how dangerous!'  'You can't possibly be serious.' 'Why?' et cetera, et cetera.  Now I can explain for hours how much cooler my trip was- even if I missed out on a few things, like deserted Caribbean islands.  And how safe I really was- how generous and helpful were the Colombians, and on and on.  But truthfully, there were many- even a few Colombians, who thought that I shouldn't be going to Turbo, and to be careful, bla bla bla.


THE SERIAL KILLER:
Well, I read the strangest link on Face Book.  My Australian friend posted a link with the headline: Serial Killer Javier Martin Captured in Santa Fe, Darien , and her status reading: 'so... they caught the captain we sailed with from Colombia/Panama last year...'  What the ---? And I read on...


TO REITERATE THE POINT:
I hung out in the docks in Cartagena for a month, meeting and befriending expat sailors, exchanging information and creating a network from which I could make contacts to sail the world.  I continued networking in the famed expat favoured islands of Bocas del Toro, especially popular among sailors who wait for clearance to cross the Panama Canal in these ideal islands.  It was here, in these ports, in which I passed nearly two months, that I was living close to two known serial killers.
To reiterate: when I found myself hanging around expatriots in tourist regions, I was in fact, in much more danger than when I hung out with hippies and poverty-stricken locals in the poorer regions of South and Central America.  

Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Top 10 Differences Between Working In Mexico and The US

10)     If your neighbours have a WiFi connection that is not password-protected, it is acceptable to hang a sign reading 'WiFi zone'.

 9)     When the electricity goes out, which is often, it does not mean that the restaurant closes, just that you need to buy more ice.

 8)     Neither is lack of plumbing a reason for closing.  Water can easily be obtained next door.

 7)     When something breaks, it can be rigged back together with whatever is handy- how it looks is not a concern.  If said object cannot be fixed by oneself, it will not be repaired/ replaced until the staff threaten to revolt due to frustration of not having a properly functioning said object.

 6)     Change for large bills comes from neighbours, not banks.

 5)     Showing up within a half hour of your scheduled in-time is perfectly acceptable and not considered tardy.

4)     When you ask for your salary four days after you should have been paid, your bosses ask you how many days you worked and how much they're paying you.

3)     If there weren't a shrine to the Virgin Mary, complete with crucifix and candles burning at all times, we would all go to Hell.

2)     It's not sexual harassment when your bosses tell you that you need to dress more sexy at work.

1)     It's rude if you don't kiss your boss (or anyone else for that matter) every time you come and go.