That Gringo Is Crazy!

That Gringo is Crazy!

Brief conversation with Fredi, a local buddy of mine:

Fredi: Everyone thinks you’re crazy, Mike.

Me: Uh, why?

Fredi: NOBODY DOES THAT!!! You must be crazy!

Me: Haha!

I had just gone for a nice jog through town, fist bumped or hand slapped approximately 300 kids, and capped it off by doing a running dive off the main pier into the bay. It was an exceptional start to a good day and one that raised the eyebrows of more than a few locals.



Launch Pad!!!

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Living as a Peace Corps Volunteer is to inhabit a strange sphere of activity and thought, swimming in the confluence of multiple cultural waters of different depths and temperatures.

On one hand, you are living in a completely different culture, adapting to the customs and behaviors of the locals and trying to blend in or – at the very least – trying not to rock any boats. Mondongo (tripe) for dinner? Yes please! Being encouraged to try the very provocative local dance style in front of all your friends, host family and neighbors? Get out of your plastic chair and give it a shot!

 

Marvelous Mondongo (according to some)



On the other hand, you are a living, breathing specimen of American culture, a walking cultural ambassador and a potential source for illuminating the great secrets of the North. (Is it true that Americans only eat fast food and canned food? No, a lot of people eat fresh vegetables. Since all Americans know each other how come you can’t get Chris Brown down here to perform for us? Oh, Colombian student, the US is a larger place than you think.)

And outside of all of this, you are an individual. You have your own particular preferences, values, quirks, and characteristics that define you as an individual and provide myriad tensions and occasions of clashing with not only the new culture you live in, but the very own culture that you come from.

But I digress. The point is, when living abroad sometimes our individual actions will reflect our adopted host culture, sometimes the regional or national culture of our home, and sometimes just the particular traits developed (consciously or unconsciously) over our lifetimes. So it is understandable that some of the things we do might seem odd or nearly crazy by others we are living with.

Here are a few more things I do which either really confuse people in my community or make them think I’m at the very least quite strange:

Stand. When going to a person’s house for more than a minute or two or when in the teachers’ lounge at school, people offer me a chair to sit down. Sometimes I’m much more comfortable standing or simply feel like standing after having just been seated for a while. I more or less have to cave in and sit down at the risk of making my host or fellow teachers uncomfortable, even if I have already explained that I am quite content standing.

A recent conversation at school went like this:

Counterpart teacher: Mike, why don’t you sit down?

Me: I’m going to stand for a bit.

Counterpart: Are you uncomfortable standing?

Me: No, I’m perfectly fine.

Counterpart: Well, I’m uncomfortable with you standing. Please, sit down.

Me. Okay…

Walk around town. In no way do I consider my town large (in fact, it’s not even large enough to be called a proper “town”). Other than the main road – la calle principal – which can take 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other, there are a few short roads that run parallel and a path which extends off to other parts of the island. I live on one end of town and have no issue with walking to the other end of town to discuss a project or say Hi to a friend. After living here for over a year, people still express surprise when I walk to the other end of town. “It’s so far!” they exclaim. “No, not really. It only took me about 10 minutes from there to here” I respond. “But that’s so far! Why don’t you take a motorcycle?” “I like to walk. I find it enjoyable” I reply. “Wow. I would never walk all the way to the other end!” Which helps explain why nobody comes and visits me at home…

 

Perfect for an afternoon trot

Run. If walking around town is bad enough, running through town – especially during hot times of the day – initially had plenty of people thinking I was certifiably nuts. When I go for a nice jog I can do two or three laps around town; I can only assume this is much greater than the distance any of my neighbors walk over the course of a month.

Read books. In my value system, books are on the positive end of the spectrum. In some of its forms and styles I find the written word quite enjoyable. Locally, however, books fall into one of two categories: “The Bible” or “Something I am required to read for some class which I will skim with the hope that I can absorb enough information to get a passing grade because right now I really need to be playing soccer or drinking beer instead of this.” The notion of reading a book for fun is odd, if not unfathomable. On more than several occasions I have been reading a novel on the front porch and seen someone I know walk by, resulting in the following conversation:

Friend: Hey Mike! What are you studying?

Me: Oh, hi. I’m not studying, I’m just reading.

Friend: Ah, reading the bible. Good!

Me: No, not the bible. I’m reading a book.

Friend (Slows pace, and stops, a perplexed look coming across his face): Not the bible?

Me: No. It’s a novel by one of my favorite authors. I like to read.

Friend (Quite confused and unsure what to say): Oh… Okay… (Continues on his way)

 

Unidentified Artifacts from a Foreign Land



Drink coffee. Colombia, the land of great coffee, right? Not quite. Most locals here on the coast don’t drink coffee. If they do drink coffee, it will be in a plastic cup smaller than a Dixie cup and have a lot of sugar. I, on the other hand, need about 2 mugs of stovetop-brewed coffee in the morning to be able to function. That quantity of coffee will make any local absolutely insane, I have been told many times. Some of my neighbors and friends are amazed that I have not yet had a heart attack or lost my mind owing to my coffee consumption.



Where all good coffee drinkers eventually wind up...