Culture Shock

If our homestay is to be authentic, we ought to receive all the privileges of the average Mexican singleton. Which means that Mom at first insisted on doing all my laundry, all my dishes, cleaning my room, and cooking all my meals. Which – since I’m my family’s first exchange student, I’ve had trouble explaining - are all things I’ve gotten rather fond of doing for myself over the past couple of years. Not that I mind the laundry or the dishes thing so much, but oh my lord had I forgotten since leaving Ecuador what happens if you leave anything out when the cleaning lady comes. One morning it took me a full ten minutes to realize that the deodorant I’d left on my dresser the day before had been “put in its place” in the drawer where I keep all my books.

I’d also forgotten, in general, just how important the otherwise seemingly inane things can become when one is sick.

Like comfort food.

The heavy greases and spices of Mexican food do not, I’ve found, really allow for this concept. At least not when, like myself, you’re accustomed to eating lean meats, and raw fruits and vegetables. And while it is, in general, no fun whatsoever to be so ill that for two days you physically cannot walk, it is even less so when every source of sustenance offered to you only makes you more ill.

I’m alright now, though – still a little dizzy and headachy, but I can sit and stand and move around a bit :). Not that the food thing has really resolved itself quite yet – I still have yet to see a single vegetable other than corn or potatoes in the house – but I think that’s going to take an awful lot of tact on my part and quite a lot of flexibility on my host-mother’s. We’ve been honest and easy-going with each other so far, though, so I have some hope. The dream? Cooking privileges, and to have the smallest drawer at the bottom of the fridge filled with yogurt, fruit, and my favourite omelet/quiche and salad makings; and also to have one of the now-empty shelves in the pantry playing host to walnuts, basmati rice, craisins, Tetley tea, granola, and the makings of stuffed grape leaves.

Outside the house, I’ve come up against a rather peculiar problem which, oddly enough, also has to do with questions of what is - and what is, in fact, not – edible. For however much I might insist to the contrary, people here seem to think that I am.

Example?

- The young man who halfway through the first (and what was clearly fated to be our only and very short-lived) dance decided to nibble my neck.
- Or the 45+ something year old man who followed me from one side of the bridge to the other, making kissing noises and calling me “deliciosa” all the way.

Someone please tell me where the “Best if consumed by you” sticker is.

Or who on Earth decided that men could be treated like animals.

The duration and Degrees of Unpleasantness of border crossings vary erratically and nonsensically week-to-week, depending entirely upon who happens to be the assigned Chief of Customs. This week’s must be – and I ask absolutely no pardon for my language in saying this – a real bastard.

One day’s crossing was particularly brutal. There were at least a dozen men being detained, without protection from the sun, in a chain-link cage about 1 metre wide, 2.5 metres high, and 13 metres or so long. The “express” student-line took an hour and twenty minutes to walk through. In the regular line, a little boy became so dehydrated that he fell, fainting. I don’t think I’ll ever forget his terrified mother’s scream. Or the great contrast in the responses of the crowd – which of its own accord instantly made way for the poor family as they ran for help – and the US Officials – who, even while the paramedics were still working on the boy, began berating the mother, asking her how she could have neglected her child and let this happen. This from the gits controlling the line, my least favourites of which, as of today are:

Captain Savage: Whenever one of the students goes through him, he – thoroughly convinced that there could not possibly be any other view of it – tells us how very glad we must be to “be back in civilization”. On our last day, we plan to give him something his bookshelf is clearly lacking: a book on manners.

Captain America: Whenever one of the students goes through him, should we commit the greatest of treasons and, before declaring our citizenship, instead say, “Hello” or “Good morning”, he yells – even though our ears are 6 inches from his mouth – “Say, ‘American’! Always say, ‘American’!” I would like to get him one of those dolls that says something whenever you pull the string attached to its back. It’s saying? “An American can come from [list of all countries on the two continents, with the US being mentioned between Cuba and Venezuela, just for sport]”.

Captain Power Trip: This one enjoys getting within 3 inches of your face, tapping his cap and sunglasses, and then asking if you can see him. He is also religiously unfair in his direction of the lines, and will advance one person from one queue and then 25 from the next. His favourite crowd control techniques? Hand-gestures so flourished that no one could possibly understand what they mean, and the random yelling of “Stop!” and “You’ll do as I tell you!” and “I can send you back!” to people who are being perfectly cooperative. This one, we think, should be forced to cross as a pedestrian one day when the queue takes 3 hours and the mean Chief is on-duty. The pie de résistance? I don’t think we’ll let him carry any ID.

Alas, in truth, the most we can do is don blank faces for the rest of our time here and then, after our final crossing, flick them all off. I haven’t taken any pictures here yet, but I promise to take one of that.

…Well… Of either that, or of me doing the arms-spread-eagled-“I’m free!” thing ;).

PS. Since writing all of the above I've regained my appetite a bit and had a fantastic weekend that included - in between a candlelit dance party and an absolutely fantastic, free time at the movies - using the entry card to a conference room from my work to break into a rooftop pool. Thus, the new Phrase of the Week is "Todo muy padre". Which means "Everything's great", but literally translates to "Everything very father" :D.