HolaAdios
With a sore throat and other symptoms, I’m feeling under the weather today – literally, as it has been overcast with intermittent rain all day and some of yesterday. Especially shocking is that it is actually a little bit cold, Humboldt County-style. I haven’t had to put on a jacket yet, but it is possible I still might be forced to tonight. Before now, whenever it rained in Parras, it made me wish I was in good old temperate Humboldt County, but now I want it to switch back to Parras weather, where I sweat whenever I walk somewhere more than just a few blocks, as soon as possible. The fact that I’m sick of rain and clouds, which should make me homesick, after less than two days has made me realize something – I am really starting to like Parras, and Mexico a whole lot.
I know my last emails and blog posts have whined and exclaimed about Mexico’s craziness and “backwardness,” but now I must have adjusted to the differences between here and the U.S. enough to not be bothered by the fact that toilet paper is not supplied in the bathrooms and more fully appreciate the beautiful kindness and generosity of people here. Being someone who, at times, counts every minute, and becomes frustrated if someone wastes just a portion of one of those minutes or distracts me from what I am trying to do, I am amazed when Ciero, the follow who is teaching us to make adobe bricks, sees me on the street, and chats, slowly peddling most of the way home with me at my slow walking pace, even when he could easily peddle his triciclo home at about 5 times the speed.
Now, this is not really all that irregular in the U.S. I know that I have walked my bike plenty of times to have a conversation, but there is a more widespread and consistent difference in pace of life here, which, admittedly, is both wonderful and extremely, incredibly, turn-your-hair-grey f***ing frustrating when you’re trying to get something done. But when it comes down to it, since we’re just here for the summer, it’s just a matter of adjusting and taking it in as a cultural experience along with everything else.
We’re in week 5 right now, which is a profound timemark to be at. Finally, we’re truly oriented, we’re amazed at how fast time has gone, and we’re thinking about the next half of the program, about the experiences and fun to be had, and, especially, about all the work that remains to be done. Kiva kindly brought my iPod shuffle back from Humboldt when she returned home for a week for a friends wedding. I’m listing to a track by Prefuse 73 (thanks for the albums, Eric!), which, I think, ends with a theme that is just the words Hola (hello) and Adios (goodbye, or, literally, “to god”) repeated again and again in a very beautiful theme, blended into one single word HolaAdios. At the half-way point, this about sums up the way I feel right now, like I have barely had time to say hello, and before I know it will soon be saying goodbye, and most likely (and strangely, I feel) leaving the people who I have met here forever. Unless, of course, I come back sometime. Hola - Adios…
There haven’t been blog entries or emails for the past few weeks because I’ve been busy and tired, but I promise to sit down to recall and write about all that has happened in the time I haven’t written. One of the dual purposes of this journal, too, is to give me something to work with next summer when I try to recall my experiences and synthesize them into a paper. This year my friend Ajay Tallam, who was a student in the Parras summer program last year, presented a paper on his Parras experience at the Alexander von Humboldt Conference in Xi’an, China. Next year, the conference will be held in Germany. I’m not sure if it will be at the Humboldt University in Berlin or not (no affiliation other than being named after the same explorer), but I would very much like to go and present a paper.
aaron :: Jun.29.2006 :: México ::