This was definitely confirmed with Fernando. Now, Fernando is our speaking partner (us being myself and Michael, another student from OSU). I was a little worried when we first met, because one of the first things he said was about going to a fiesta, and it made me think that I was probably going to have to be the lame duck, and dodge out. I don't like going to parties or bars where I don't have a person that is going to make sure some muy suave spanish guy doesn't whisk me away to places that I don't want to go.
But regardless of my fear of having to be lame, we meet at the Ayuntamiento, underneath the clock, right at 5 as scheduled. We walked for some time, saw a little more of the city that I hadn't explored, and just chatted. It turned out to be actually fun; we all corrected eachother, in english and spanish.
After walking, we decided to go to a bar for a beer before we split up. As we were talking, the subject turned to drinking games... and we spent nearly an hour trying to explain, him in ingles and us in espanol the different games. I mean seriously, who knows the spanish word for ping-pong ball? (It's pelota del ping pong, by the way) As it turns out, the spanish play drinking games in bars (who knew), but usually only in the ones owned by the people with the ojos... at this point, Fernando pulls the corners of his eyes out, into almond shapes. Yup, we caught on :) They use dice, dados, and do way more drinking of cali-mochos... 5 pitchers for only 15 euros! Think of the trouble we could cause...
The whole conversation, which ended pleasantly, made me realize how ethnocentric we truly are. We were not able to just listen to him tell us the games... we had to convert everything to english, and compare it to life in Corvallis. We had to tell him how we said things, like 'oh, we call that getting 'blacked out'" or common phrases that we have in the young adult life, as an estadounidense. Is that really necessary though? Aren't we here to learn their culture, not impose ours on them? But this is a very American way of thinking. That everything we have is bigger and better. And in some (many) cases, it's true. Waterheaters. Heating systems in general. Houses. Toilets. Showers. Showerheads. Cheap clothes. Lights. Electricity. Fridgerators. Microwaves. Dishwashers. Washing machines.
But do these things really matter? These people all have a very close standard of living; you know more things about your neighbor than most people would really want to know. But they can survive the noise, and lack of personal bubble enough to kiss each other on the cheeks when they see each other. And what a life.
I love my life in the United States. I love being an American, for what we stand for, and that our country doesn't depend (for the most part) on the state of other countries. And I love that we can build the houses that we want because we have the space and the land, and it's easy to buy, if you have the money. And if you don't have the money, all you have to do is get a job. But the thing to remember, is that our way is not the best. Our STUFF, is not the best. It's just a different standard of living. We call it higher, but really it's just a different perspective.
This may mean that I am slowly working my way out of the denial stage, and into the adaptation stage... yet the American music played everywhere is really disorienting
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