sorry bunny

sorry bunny

Thursday, February 23, 2017

speach

i love being here. mostly because it is new. yesterday the only thing i did was go to lake Chapala and talk to different local people. Chapala is a smaller town. These are my observations abouit it from an outsider{s perspective. It had sort of a beachy touristy vibe, but moreso in a small space and possibly geared towards people who live in the big city, Guadalajara. The houses and building were the style where they are short and connected, made of concrete and beautifully colored. I only walked down one street, and straight to the water. I walked directly from the bust station to the lake. All I did was approach the beach, walk away from the man who was staring at me, and sat in the sand and thought, Why am I here? And of course I didn{t know so I decided to dig my hands into the sand and that lead to making a spiral, as is the theme these days. It's been really cool to construct whole sentences and complex ideas in Spanish. I could meet someone here at the hostel who knows Spanish and would hang out with me, but they just see me as a gringa. In fact last night I kind of told some people off. They didn't know that I mostly understand all the spanish they were speaking, I just have a hard time speaking it myself. so they were making fun of the people at the hostel, and me, in front of me. Which now I've calmed down I understand maybe that's okay, all in good fun, culturally appropiate, but I still didn't like it. I learned a new word, Gringisima. Like the biggest gringa, which yeah is funny. BUt I mean, I think mostly I was hurt because the staff person Peri that I hung out with the previous night sort of acted like we didn't have the deep conversations we had, and was kind of ignoring me, I think by itself would have been okay, but hearing them make fun of me, I just got up and said, "DO you think we make fun of Mexicans in America?" And it was all like.. woaahhh. stop. "we're just having fun" Butr seriously if you were to openly make fun of Mexicans in America you'd be around a bunch of dude bros, and if it was light hearted and all in good fun you'd be in Texas and that would be because you're probably arund people who are part Mexican or have Mexican friends. I don't know I just can't get that good hearted insult thing that people do. I need to get more tough. Anyhow, this morning I spoke to Axel who was there last night, and it was okay. I don't think they're going to hold it against me.
Back to Chapala... Raul and Ramirez showed me their dibujos in their little notebook and their graffiti art, and told me they made raps, and we listedn to music on the beach and we exchanged stories about our life. Then I walked with them down the street because they had to go to work. It was really nice. Because it was completely not what you do when you're alone. You don't just start talking to men or boys, but I do have a sense of you is okay and not. It was the most complicated spanish I've spoken all week. It is so amazing to get this opportunity to practice my Spanish. Such a short trip but already my spanisgh has come back to me so hardcore. I studied Spanish from 7th Grade all throughout highschool, and I studied it for 2 years in college. I've read chunks of 15th century Don Quixote, and none of that has made me better at speaking it. BUT now that I'me here, it's clear I have a leg up on understanding the language. I can read all the signs. I know all the numbers, which helps when you're buying things. And I can say everything I need to at least make it known in terribly spoken Spanish what I want. I took the bus, the city bus for the first time back, I knew 'parada' was stop but had difficulty asking how to make a stop, fortunately I could just say where I was going. I got their local bus app and that really helped last night. Yes, I am completely alone here, and I don't even like walking alon at night in Seattle, so it was awesome to take the bus and not have to walk down this major street that only had industrial supplies (paint, lots of tejas, etc)
Okay back to Chapala, the one street I walked down was like a market street. There were vendors and the sides of the sidewalks, selling corn, and meat, tacos of course. There were stores on the other side. I bought some things because I felt like that was part of the town's economy. There are homeless children here, while I was buying tacos, they came up to me and touched my side and asked for tacos, I bought them tacos, then two gilrs seeing this, asked me for tacos, and I seriously have to be careful with my money here, so I just gavce them one of the tacos I bought. But i felt really bad. LIke these are 5 or 7 year old maybe 12 at max year old children walking around touching people and begging for money. Who knowsd if someone owns them even. I don't know but How can I help people like that? There are too many things to do in the world. BUt i have figured out one thing, it is super hard to connect to people if you don't know their langauge. So I returned... to GDL-

This morning I spoke with Axel who works at the hostel while he finished his tarrea, in Classical Guitar Composition. He has been the only person I spoke to that is highly aware of the political situation in this country and willing to talk to me about it. I didn't find out much, I asked about worker's wages and rights. The biggest situation of oppression here seems to be the life of the indigenous people. It seems they have been severely abused and in some parts are the poorest people in comparison to others. I don't know much yet. Axel told me in chiapas around 1994 there was a Zapatos Army that came up and holds their own government system outside of the Mexcian government. That's very interesting and I'll have to look into that more.

Many people from all over the world come to Mexico to see the marvelous things there is to see here. I am honestly mostly interested in the people. I just want to connect and feel love. I just feel Seattle culture can be so cold and distant, and it is exhausting to fit in. Even though I am entirely separate here, it feels better to be here.

But Edgar said, no matter where you are, you will stop seeing the good positive magical things from the people and life, and you will start to miss them. He said, wherever you live, eventually you start to hate it. And although hate is not what is happening to me, I see his point. Edgar was disgusted by the recent changed in Guadalajara, he said, people just started driving cars all the time, and the traffic just started being terrible. He said people are fat and it's because they now live a sedentary life. I argued with him, that it's okay to be fat. But he said no. He looked over the roof top at one point and pointed to this estate looking building, he said, see how that rich person lives, they have that whole estate. This is a hipster part of town. And he was disgusted by that. But this morning i found out that in fact that building is a sort of museum and they have talks and lectures, it is a building that was built by a famouys archictect. And even though I get his point that the city is changing, it's interesting to note. We all have different perspectives, and sometimes are preconceioved notions block out our eyes from seeing the truth that lies beneath, which is people might just be trying their best. And it's just not real to be entirely negative.

(sorry bout the typos, they're the history of my fingers on this sticky computer)

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