Exhausted Thoughts

My first day of work with ProPetén was this Monday. It was also my first day of practically uninterrupted access to the internet. Luckily, my work was interesting, and my conscious didn’t have too much trouble bullying me away from constant interactions with friends (except during lunch), but it was a temptation. Opportunities to share my thoughts and feelings on the fantastic and interesting things surrounding me have been thin on the ground this past week for two reasons.

First, most of the things that catch me attention, and ordinarily would prompt an exclamation (of surprise, delight, disgust…) are things that the people that surround me have lived with their entire lives. I can’t bring myself to comment excessively on how rustically pleasant I find it that people and clothing are washed in the lake, or how I can’t stand the god damned dogs that bark all the time. I have to limit my comments on these cultural differences, or I risk sounding condescending, or whiny. Second, saying anything in Spanish requires significantly more work than saying it in English, and I sometimes get lazy. Yes, I think it’s wonderful that there are iguanas on the roof, but I can’t remember the word for roof right now, so I’ll just think it to myself “que bueno” I’ll think “hay iguanos en la roof! Y ellos estan haciendan noises like a bird!” After spending four hours translating information pamphlets, this allows me to pretend that I’m still practicing my Spanish without doing any actual work.

So what I realized, as I sat at my desk, puzzling out how to best translate yet another word I’ve never seen used like this before, is that it’s a good thing I don’t have access to twitter down here. I think the temptation to communicate every little novelty I discover living here - in english, to people who might be interested - would be irresistible. Then I started imagining the things I might say. In the spirit of Roland Hedley, the status of my underwear came to mind: “Should have brought lighter boxers – these cotton bastards are having their way with me”. Maybe I’d throw some linguistics in there: “Kids around here express their appreciation for things by saying “¡Calidad!” (Quality!). I think it’s the equivalent of cool. Pretty calidad, no?”Then things started to go downhill: “I have accepted that I will doubtless pee on a rat before I return to the United States.” In all likelihood I already have, given the number of times I’ve shone my flashlight down into the outhouse behind my family’s house and seen a few fat grey rats scampering off into the shadows, and the number of times I’ve been unable to find my light at 4am, and gone without flashing a warning to those below. I haven’t confirmed any hits, but those probabilities aren’t good. Apologies, rats, it was nothing personal.

I’d love to have some deep cultural lesson to bring away from this little thought exercise I went through, but I really don’t. Instead of cultural understanding, how about some pictures instead. I'll throw them up on Flickr, because they really don’t have much to do with this blog post. I can’t imagine any of you wanting to see the pictures that would be associated with this blog post.

Keep an eye out for an exciting post about working for ProPetén (coming once I actually have some experience working for PrePetén – later this week!)

[Edit - the new pictures are all the way at the bottom, in my Flickr feed [Edit, I lied, I put them on Picasa, because it works better! It's right below Flickr]]