Dehydrated Vegetables Rock (So Squeeze the Orange)

It’s stiflingly hot in Endeavor’s office today. I’m sweating bullets (shotgun shells, in fact). But somehow people here are wearing long sleeves and scarves. I guess it goes without saying – although I’ll say it anyway – that the soupy air makes my investigation of clients and dehydrated vegetable prices in the foreign market much tougher.

The advantage of all this? Doing these kind of gigs has been giving big ups to my spanish. Especially of the technical, work-force type. How else do you learn to say ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘board meeting’? I’ll tell you, the first couple weeks of spanish had my head in a vice. Somone would say something and my brain wanted to curl up in a ball. Now I’m hitting the ball back with some umph.

Why the change? Making a conscious effort to speak and hang out with natives and not of gringos, which aren’t even called gringos in this part of latin america (Instead they say “yankees” to refer to north americans. Why? Not exactly sure, but you’re definitely asking great questions. If it were up to me, I’d rather be called a “red sox” or “celtic”.)   

I had a solid conversation with my buddy Eric last night about language frustration. Throughout big E’s little adventures, he confessed that he didn’t feel his spanish had improved that much – in terms of speaking and comprehension. “I’ve been here a month and a half,” he said, “and it doesn’t appear to be getting better.” 

I tossed a frown. Upset to hear that. Then I asked Eric how he spent his days. He responded, “well drinkin gmate, of course. Cooking, Mercosur, parques, rambla, and classes after”. Then I asked him who he socialized with. And that’s when the godzilla truth revealed itself: Too much time passed around the group and isolated, with not enough spent getting closer to locals. How else do you learn another language?

It made perfect sense. After all, the same happened to me the first few weeks here. In orientation week, we had listened to each other bumble over syllables and ask textbook questions to our directors. The next week we knew nobody of course and classes were off because of la Semana de Turismo, so we did the feel-good thing and stuck together. The third week our classes, internships, and “normal” life routines began. A lot of routines did not get off to the best start; internships delayed or got screwed up, classes needed to get sorted out and chosen, all while miscellaneous hassles filled the air. Hell, one girl even got surgery that week after a glass broke on her leg, cutting part of her tendon. Consequently, in just under a month, the yankee paste held firm.

At least for some.

This kind of trend of sticking together had grown slowly but surely and was hard for me to take note of at first. The natural tendency when you’re foreign is to hang juntos (together). You can see this pattern back in the States: China towns, Brazilian neighborhoods in northern Massachusetts, or international student cliques at most universities or colleges. Simply put, people like what feels comfortable and what comes easy. Or what feels instinctually natural.

But none of this is natural. And I told Eric that in so many words. This semester  (or for him, a year) is a total college curveball. Once we’re out of here, it’s back to the real world grind. So?

Squeeze the orange.

Corny, I know (even though its an orange). But that was the phrase I heard in Mexico years back. Plus it sounded fruitier than ‘carpe diem’ (in more ways than one) so I remembered it. I told Eric that I had felt the same way a few weeks before. Sometimes I closed myself off in my room to read “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”. I even started my internship typing away in the corner with headphones on. Pretty anti-social actually.

Then I realized being in the basement of Brecha wasn’t a problem, it was an opportunity. I quit listening to music while I was writing and started talking and asking questions. Stupid ones at first, just to get conversation started and get to know other people. And I took that attitude everywhere. I purposefully went a few hours early to La Facultad to hang out with the lady who makes delicious pizza and microwaves my empanadas. I’d stay up late listening to my host mother drone on about relatively unimportant stuff when I just wanted to go to bed. Or I’d go to the supermarket with Leticia to talk more.

And as they say, the rest is history. So here’s to the future…