Are Mexican´s Rude?

Rudeness?  Things I´ve experienced in my time in Mexico:

• At an internet cafe, a woman sits down next to me and lights up a cigaratte.
• At a movie theatre, someone´s cell phone rings. They answer it.  And start a conversation during the movie.  During the same movie, a couple talks and laughs throughout (and no, it wasn´t a comedy!)
• Twice at internet cafes, people have blared really loud music through the computer.  The one time was really odd, because all the computers had headphones attached to them.
• When walking down the sidewalk, I often have to step off into the street because people don´t make room for me to pass.

What makes these sort of behaviors puzzling is that everyone that I´ve asked for help from has gone out of their way to be helpful.  So I don´t think the behavior I´ve experienced is necessarily rudeness. But I also think it´s too easy to pass it off as a cultural difference.  I´m not sure what to think about it.  Of course, there are plenty of Americans who engage in rude behavior so who knows.

Movie: My last night in Guadalajara I decided to go to a movie.  I wasn´t sure what to expect.  The movie would either be dubbed in Spanish (in which case I wouldn´t understand much) or it would be in English with Spanish subtitles.  After looking at my options, I decided to go with the Kite Runner.  The movie did have Spanish subtitles.  But the joke was on me.  Although there´s some dialogue in English, most of it takes place in Arabic.  So there I am, watching a movie in Arabic, with Spanish subtitles.  Fortunately, I read the book when I was in North Carolina.  Otherwise I would have been totally lost.

Cops: You read and hear a lot of bad things about cops in Mexico.  So far, not a single cop has given me a second glance. And yet, I still find myself crossing the street whenever I can to avoid passing a cop.

Art:  My last day in Guadalajara, I stumbled upon an art exhibit of contemporary Mexican artists housed in an ex-convent.  All I can say is that what I saw was just as bizarre as what you see in modern American art musuems.  I´d try to describe some of the things I saw, but I´m not sure I could.

Final destination

Final Destination Tomorrow I´ll be leaving Guadalajara for Morelia, which hopefully will be my final destination.  I considered several different cities but finally chose Morelia for the following reasons 1) I found an orphanage that I can hopefully volunteer at 2) there are a couple of langauage schools in town and while they´re not as cheap as the one in Guanajuato, they´re not as expensive as the schools in some other cities 3) My cousin Bobbi recommended Morelia a while back 4) The downtown is a UNESCO World Heritage site 5) It´s close to a National Park that´s famous for being on the migratory path of monarch butterflies 6) It´s located in the state of Michochan which is considered the most beautiful in Mexico 7) it´s a relatively short bus ride from where I am right now.  If for some reason Morelia doesn´t work out, then I´m going to head to Oaxaca.

Change I´ve been surprised at how little change some businesses keep on hand.  Three different times staff have had to scramble to give me change.  In all three cases, I owed the equivalent of $2 and paid with either the equivalent of a $10 bill or a $20 bill.  the most difficult was yesterday at an internet cafe.  I had nothing smaller to give.  After thinking about it for a moment, the clerk left to find change elsewhere.  He came back a few moments later unsuccessful.  We had a bit of a ¨standoff¨before he left again, this time in a different direction.  He came back with the equivalent of two $10 bills, handed one to me and left again, coming back a few minutes later with the rest of my change.

Reading I knew that Mexico was not a country of readers but the extent to which they don´t read has been a bit stunning.  Today, for the first time, I saw someone reading a book.  I´ve seen a few people reading magazines or newspapers but that´s it.  Otherwise, when they´re in a park or plaza, they just sort of ¨hang out¨or chat with friends.  I´ve also noticed that bookstores mostly sell information books (books on gardening or computers or whatever) but few novels.

Bimbo Bimbo is the name of the major bread company in Mexico.  In Spanish, the ï makes a long ë sound.  Still, it´s kind of funny to see Bimbo everywhere.  And what´s particularly funny is to see people wearing shirts that say Bimbo.  I wonder if they know what it means in English.  I suspect not.

The three oddest things  All happened today.  First, someone stopped me on the street and asked for directions.  If it had been a Caucasian person, I wouldn´t have been surprised.  But this was a Mexican asking me for directions.  Fortunately, I had a map in my pocket so I was able to help her.  Even still, I´m not sure why she would ask a ¨gringo¨for directions.  Second, was walking into a plaza where music was being piped in from loudspeakers and hearing Rod Stewart´s ¨Passion¨.  I kid you not.  Third was seeing a Mexican man walking down the street holding a little boys hand.  Okay, that´s not so strange.  Except the boy was Caucasian with blonde hair.  Must be a story there somewhere.

Living with a family While I enjoyed living with a family when I was in Guanajuato, I´ve decided not to do so in Morelia.  It´s just too hard.  Given my limited Spanish, we can´t communicate.  It´s odd enough to live with people you don´t know but 10 times odder when you can´t even talk to them.

A (somewhat) unexpected change of venue

Drifting: On Sunday, I decided to leave Guanajuato and board a bus for Guadalajara. I had originally planned on staying in Guanajuato for another week but I felt like I was straying from my orignial mission for coming here, which was to find a city and stay there for several months and volunteer. As you know, I originally chose Queretaro but felt the lack of English would be a hinderance. And it felt like there was less of a need in Queretaro than there might be in other cities. From there, I continued to Guanajuato (with a brief stay in San Miguel) mostly to see my friend Hazel. I stayed longer than I intended mainly because I found a really cheap Spanish language school. As much as I liked Guanajuato, it felt like there was even less of a need there than in Queretaro. And I wanted to get back to my original mission. So I came to Guadalajara because some of the Spanish language schools here arrange volunteer opportunities for their students. When I boarded the bus on Sunday morning I fully intended to make Guadalajara my home for the next several months. But now, I don´t know. Guadalajara is simply the ugliest city I’ve ever seen. It´s ugly everywhere I look. There are some parks and plazas but even those are surrounded by ugliness – grafitti, litter, and run down buildings. In the other cities, I had a hard time deciding what to take pictures of…here I´m finding it hard to find any worthy of a photo. I suppose this is what I expected Mexico to be like before I came but after seeing Queretaro and Guanajuato, I was taken completely by surprise. I´m sure there´s a need here, but I´m also afraid I´d be really depressed here. So as much as I wanted to avoid drfting from place to place, I have a feeling I’ll be leaving here in a few days.

A hearbreaking moment: As I´ve mentiond, I´ve seen very few people begging for money. Normally, it´s been an elderly person. Every once and a while, there´s been a child sitting with one of the elderly people. On Saturday, though, I saw something that broke my heart. A beautiful girl, about 8 or 10 years old, with a cup, asking for money. I know in some countries, parents will send their children out to beg, assuming they will garner more sympathy. It’s possible this was one of those situations. Either way, it as sad to see. I walked past her and then stopped, trying to figure out what to do. In the end, I decided not to give any money, knowing that whatever I´d give wouldn´t make a difference and that she´d likely be back again tomorrow, asking for more money. I walked away, feeling heartless.

A hearwarming moment: On Sunday, after arriving at the Guadalajara bus station, I decided to take a local bus to get to my hotel, rather than pay the going rate for a taxi (about $10). I´m glad that I did. Shortly after leaving the bus station, the bus stopped by the side of the road where a woman and a child of about 7 or 8 were sitting. The child boarded the bus by herself which I thought was odd. I soon saw why, as she handed the bus driver a coke and a sandwhich. She then climbed onto his lap and hugged him and kissed him twice and then got off his lap and stood there for a few seconds as they looked at one another, huge smiles on each of their faces.

Saturday morning post

Money:  It´s taken me a while to get used to the Mexican money system.  It´s not that it´s that complicated but when you don´t understand the language, it´s not always possible to know what you´re being charged.  This has led to several somewhat funny, somewhat uncomfortable situations where I hand someone some money and they look really confused and then I have to figure out if I`m giving them way too much money or way too little.

Running into people:  It´s amazing how often I run into people I know here in Guanajuato, particularly given how few people I know here.  But every time I wander into the downtown, I see someone I know and often I see more than one person.  So while I often don´t have formal plans in the evening, I often end up finding someone to hang out with.

Meal times:  Breakfast is at 8:00 and the main meal of the day is at 3:00.  Those are the only two times I eat all day.  The main meal is generally so large that it carries me through until breakfast the next day.

Learning Spanish:  It´s a bit odd that I´m putting so much energy into learning Spanish.  I don´t have any particular interest in learning another language, I´m doing it more because I think it will be useful for me in my travels.  Still, I am slowly learning it.  The other night, I went into a cafe and ordered a hot chocolate in Spanish.  I was really proud of myself though in retrospect I`m pretty sure I said something like “Can I a chocolate hot?”  Oops!!  Anyway, the waitress continued to speak to me in Spanish and I eventually had to fess up that I really didn`t know much Spanish.

Some day I´ll run out of things to say….

…not today though…

Street Numbers:  One of the things that I´ve noticed in all the cities I´ve been in is that the street numbers don´t match up.  So you might have #80 on one side of the street and on the other side will be #51.

Frustations:  Outside of not speaking the language, my two biggest frustrations are these:  not being able to drink the tap water and not being able to recycle.  They go hand-in-hand of course.  Since you can´t drink the tap water, you´re forced to buy bottled water which you are then unable to recycle.  I really don´t understand what the deal is with the tap water.  They can obviously purify the water in order to bottle in….so why can´t they do that with the tap water.

House: A little bit more on the house I´m staying in.  There are three other students there…all of them are advanced Spanish language students which is helpful for me since they can tell me how to say certain things.  They´re all leaving this weekend and presumably more students will be moving in.

My classes:  Are mostly going well, though it´s overwhelming to think how much I have to learn.  My biggest frustration is that in Spanish, all nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.  And everything else (such as the adjectives) has to agree with gender of the noun.  (I remember the same thing from French).   I´m not sure who came up with the idea of giving nouns genders but as I said to someone in class today….”It´s not a masculine pluma (pen), it´s not a feminine pluma, it´s just a pluma!!!”  I feel pretty strongly about this.  If I accomplish nothing else during my time in Latin America, I hope to make them realize how unnecessary this is.  Anyway, there´s also a student in all my classes who drives me crazy.  He’s a nice enough guy but he doesn´t seem serious about learning and is always goofing off and wasting class time.  And he rarely knows where we´re at when he´s called on: “Huh….what….huh….me….number 3…huh….ummm….yeah….okay….number 3, right?”  This goes on in all the classes.  Ugh!!!

My free time: Has mostly been taken up with studying.  I do like to go into downtown in the evenings and hang out and people watch while I´m doing my studying.  Last night, there was a concert in the gazebo in the main garden and a bunch of couples (mostly older) dancing.  Very cool.

Photos: Hopefully I´ll be able to post some by this weekend.