(no subject)
suppose you have just asked me how i’m liking mérida. it’s a common enough question these days, and i have a small arsenal of answers prepared. i could give you the one about the paletas, the one with iguanas, the one about the writing group and the city’s sparse but feisty population of intellectual eccentrics, the one with frustrations about the fotocopiadora system, or the one about how much i love latin american literature, or about the five hours i spent chatting with my host family last weekend... but let’s say, this time, you really ask. i see something in your eye, a steadiness and a true curiosity. i know there is an hour until your next class, or your next appointment-- we’ve just sat down to lunch, say, or i have a newly-charged phone card and no feelings of remorse about using it. and so, i tell you.
mérida is a... challenging city to enter. it is conservative, for one thing, a city of staunch PAN supporters. i knew that when i applied, but fell back on my optimistically open-minded assumption that political conservatism doesn’t necessarily mean anything about one’s personality... but on a city-wide scale, it starts to mean all sorts of things. there is the hushed discrimination against the mayan population, the “how did that happen?” correspondence between the spectrum of skin color and social position. there is the closeness of the community, which is based not the warmth of satisfaction and self-sufficiency, but rather the chilliness of keeping others out, scrabbling to maintain things as they are because, even if they aren’t superb, they’d surely be worse any other way. this state doesn’t exclude only the extranjeros. my host aunt moved here from D.F. five years ago, to be with her mother after her father’s death. she has worked in the same school as an english teacher for all of those five years, and still, she hasn’t found a single person she’d consider a friend. plenty of acquaintances, people to fill the loneliness, to take along on a friday night trip to a taco joint... but no one she’d trust with her story or her actual philosophies on life, religion, anything that smacks of unconventionality. i can’t blame her. even at UADY, despite the international reputation that students are exceptions to the rule...well, they are more liberal, politically speaking. there are hippie types and quirkily stylish types. the closed community sense lingers, though. any interest in us is limited to our novelty value as foreigners. it makes sense, i suppose, as a stepping-stone. after all, it’s a bit difficult to ignore. but no one here seems to have any interest in talking, in exploring ideas, noting differences and similarities, using each other as sounding boards to build up an understanding, or a friendship that would transcend understanding. there is no sense of security, that these people will like you even if you think different things-- not so much because they’d stop liking you if they found out, but just because they have no interest in finding out. i have spent the last two months blaming my lack of local friends on my own shy tendencies, and on the inconvenience of campusless college life, the lack of opportunities for casual hanging about without initial plans. All of these things doubtless play a role, but i’ve been talking with fellow extranjeros who have traveled and studied in other parts of latin america, and even in other parts of mexico, and i get the same report across the board: they’re surprised at the coldness, the difficulty of integration. nicole, my new zealandian chum, had friends in the local music scene within weeks of arriving in peru. whitney, a san diegan program-mate, bonded thoroughly with the people on the reserve where she worked in ecuador. and neither of them have anyone here they’d consider friends. so. i’m not willing to give up just yet. there are people who i’d like to befriend... people who listen to my ramblings and chuckle at me, which makes me feel a bit like a pet, but better a pet than nothing. my real battle at this moment is damage control. i’m resisting making any sweeping conclusions about living in cities or traveling in latin america. i’ll have some work to do, to rescue my hopes for those areas of my life. but i’ll do it, dammit.
so. finish up your coffee, give me a hug. tell me you'll see me soon and that you'll do all you can to make up for lost time. i'll believe you, and buoy myself with your words, remembering the communities i have to fortifiy myself in the quest for something comparable here.
mérida is a... challenging city to enter. it is conservative, for one thing, a city of staunch PAN supporters. i knew that when i applied, but fell back on my optimistically open-minded assumption that political conservatism doesn’t necessarily mean anything about one’s personality... but on a city-wide scale, it starts to mean all sorts of things. there is the hushed discrimination against the mayan population, the “how did that happen?” correspondence between the spectrum of skin color and social position. there is the closeness of the community, which is based not the warmth of satisfaction and self-sufficiency, but rather the chilliness of keeping others out, scrabbling to maintain things as they are because, even if they aren’t superb, they’d surely be worse any other way. this state doesn’t exclude only the extranjeros. my host aunt moved here from D.F. five years ago, to be with her mother after her father’s death. she has worked in the same school as an english teacher for all of those five years, and still, she hasn’t found a single person she’d consider a friend. plenty of acquaintances, people to fill the loneliness, to take along on a friday night trip to a taco joint... but no one she’d trust with her story or her actual philosophies on life, religion, anything that smacks of unconventionality. i can’t blame her. even at UADY, despite the international reputation that students are exceptions to the rule...well, they are more liberal, politically speaking. there are hippie types and quirkily stylish types. the closed community sense lingers, though. any interest in us is limited to our novelty value as foreigners. it makes sense, i suppose, as a stepping-stone. after all, it’s a bit difficult to ignore. but no one here seems to have any interest in talking, in exploring ideas, noting differences and similarities, using each other as sounding boards to build up an understanding, or a friendship that would transcend understanding. there is no sense of security, that these people will like you even if you think different things-- not so much because they’d stop liking you if they found out, but just because they have no interest in finding out. i have spent the last two months blaming my lack of local friends on my own shy tendencies, and on the inconvenience of campusless college life, the lack of opportunities for casual hanging about without initial plans. All of these things doubtless play a role, but i’ve been talking with fellow extranjeros who have traveled and studied in other parts of latin america, and even in other parts of mexico, and i get the same report across the board: they’re surprised at the coldness, the difficulty of integration. nicole, my new zealandian chum, had friends in the local music scene within weeks of arriving in peru. whitney, a san diegan program-mate, bonded thoroughly with the people on the reserve where she worked in ecuador. and neither of them have anyone here they’d consider friends. so. i’m not willing to give up just yet. there are people who i’d like to befriend... people who listen to my ramblings and chuckle at me, which makes me feel a bit like a pet, but better a pet than nothing. my real battle at this moment is damage control. i’m resisting making any sweeping conclusions about living in cities or traveling in latin america. i’ll have some work to do, to rescue my hopes for those areas of my life. but i’ll do it, dammit.
so. finish up your coffee, give me a hug. tell me you'll see me soon and that you'll do all you can to make up for lost time. i'll believe you, and buoy myself with your words, remembering the communities i have to fortifiy myself in the quest for something comparable here.