Adjusting...

Living in a culture that is not my own necessitates making all sorts of adjustments. Some are fairly easy: remembering to not flush the toilet paper, keeping track of zeros as I learn to think in pesos rather than dollars…Others fall in the middle of the spectrum: eating chicken hearts and gizzards, knowing whether I’m getting ripped off by taxi drivers…And some are just plain tough. The biggest choque (clash) occurs when a time-oriented, disciplined, schedule-loving American like myself decides to live in Carribbean Latin America. Here, “laid-back” takes on a whole new meaning. Arriving at 9:30 (at the earliest) for a 9:00 appointment is the norm. Cooking and serving a meal can easily be a two-hour process. And in response to my question, “So, did classes start this week?” the answer was “more or less.” [Case in point: the classes I’m teaching are beginning over a week after the start of the semester]. In addition to the slower pace of life, plans can be thrown out the window without a moment’s notice if, say, the rain turns the streets into arroyos (rivers) or workers decide to go on strike. But the costeño pace, although frustrating to me at times, makes for a friendly, lively, helpful group of people. A meal with a friend isn’t crammed into a 45-minute space in one’s schedule; relationships take priority over punctuality. It’s going to take me awhile to adapt to this facet of the culture, to be tranquila rather than stress out. I’ll begin with the fact that I just today received my class schedule, and tomorrow I have to teach my first class. Off to start planning…