Breaking My Brain
Communication in Mexico is something that, after 11 months, I have still to learn. It's not simply learning the language, it's the mind set!
I am trying to get used to the fact that my Anglo-Saxon ways are useless here. My brain is nearly done in every day by this culture that doesn't know how to say "no" or "I don't know." If I ask a simple question, it might be forty-five minutes of listening later and I am still unenlightened as to the answer...the monologue has taken a turn into a story about one's crazy brother who got on the wrong side of the Mexican Mafia.
Trying to make appointments, plan an hour or start a project involving anyone but myself is maddening. I see people going here and there, doing this and that and wonder how long it took for that particular action to occur.
Issues of money are interesting too. Since few people have it, it is generally shared. "Do you have 100 pesos?" and the Mexican friend will produce it for you immediately. If you are foreign, they know you will pay them back. If you are one of their own, they will wait until they need it rather than expect it back today or tomorrow. At that time, they will come to your house and ask for it at about 9:30 at night.
The ability to outwait each other is astonishing here. One will rent a piece of equipment at a certain rate, say 50 pesos a day. Four months later the owner of the equpiment calls indignantly for the equipment and says "Leave it at this location, I will be in a meeting." What this means is that they know darned well you're not going to pay and since they are so angry with you that they would like to rip your teeth out they choose to not be there. And no money is exchanged even though arrangements to discuss it "tomorrow" are made. I guess this is why everybody else has contracts.
What is very funny is that people here will do these things to each other, yet when it is done to them they are very angry.
I've been reading some online articles about Mexico and I still don't understand this wild culture any more than I did when I first got here. But Ensenada is not completely Mexico. After reading encounters of people in Guadalajara and Mexico City, I think I'll just not go there.
In reading accounts of others, I can see where Northern Baja is very Americanized. I can't imagine what would have happened to me mentally had I chosen a place in the interior. Well, I wouldn't have anyway.
As I engage in soul searching, it never ceases to amaze me how deeply programmed we are by our cultures. I have a better appreciation for what Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek. But that was easy, watching Star Trek. After an hour you just turned off the television and got on with your life. Living in a culture so very foreign to mine is a challenge every day and I move between being thoroughly charmed to being completely disgusted.
Learning another language does not mean you are going to accept the mind set of the native speakers of that language. But as I turn inward and look out, sometimes feeling so homesick I think I am surely going to shrivel up and die inside, I investigate my own programming; I keep what is valuable to me. If it turns out that I'm the only one on the team, so be it...I'll just pick my projects that I can do alone.
As you can tell by reading this, this hasn't been the very best weekend. But there have been more best weekends than not here. So here I remain with my new people, in a distant galaxy, far far away.
I am trying to get used to the fact that my Anglo-Saxon ways are useless here. My brain is nearly done in every day by this culture that doesn't know how to say "no" or "I don't know." If I ask a simple question, it might be forty-five minutes of listening later and I am still unenlightened as to the answer...the monologue has taken a turn into a story about one's crazy brother who got on the wrong side of the Mexican Mafia.
Trying to make appointments, plan an hour or start a project involving anyone but myself is maddening. I see people going here and there, doing this and that and wonder how long it took for that particular action to occur.
Issues of money are interesting too. Since few people have it, it is generally shared. "Do you have 100 pesos?" and the Mexican friend will produce it for you immediately. If you are foreign, they know you will pay them back. If you are one of their own, they will wait until they need it rather than expect it back today or tomorrow. At that time, they will come to your house and ask for it at about 9:30 at night.
The ability to outwait each other is astonishing here. One will rent a piece of equipment at a certain rate, say 50 pesos a day. Four months later the owner of the equpiment calls indignantly for the equipment and says "Leave it at this location, I will be in a meeting." What this means is that they know darned well you're not going to pay and since they are so angry with you that they would like to rip your teeth out they choose to not be there. And no money is exchanged even though arrangements to discuss it "tomorrow" are made. I guess this is why everybody else has contracts.
What is very funny is that people here will do these things to each other, yet when it is done to them they are very angry.
I've been reading some online articles about Mexico and I still don't understand this wild culture any more than I did when I first got here. But Ensenada is not completely Mexico. After reading encounters of people in Guadalajara and Mexico City, I think I'll just not go there.
In reading accounts of others, I can see where Northern Baja is very Americanized. I can't imagine what would have happened to me mentally had I chosen a place in the interior. Well, I wouldn't have anyway.
As I engage in soul searching, it never ceases to amaze me how deeply programmed we are by our cultures. I have a better appreciation for what Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek. But that was easy, watching Star Trek. After an hour you just turned off the television and got on with your life. Living in a culture so very foreign to mine is a challenge every day and I move between being thoroughly charmed to being completely disgusted.
Learning another language does not mean you are going to accept the mind set of the native speakers of that language. But as I turn inward and look out, sometimes feeling so homesick I think I am surely going to shrivel up and die inside, I investigate my own programming; I keep what is valuable to me. If it turns out that I'm the only one on the team, so be it...I'll just pick my projects that I can do alone.
As you can tell by reading this, this hasn't been the very best weekend. But there have been more best weekends than not here. So here I remain with my new people, in a distant galaxy, far far away.
posted by Triana Elan @ 12:27 PM
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