Adventures in Cultural Differences

Riding on the stinking hot bus and feeling like I’m going to vomit on the poor sleeping woman next to me, I scurried over to the other end where there was a tiny unopened window.  I threw it open and breathed, desperate to keep my avocado sandwich in place.  The man next to me tried to chat with me and I said, “I’m sorry.  I don’t feel like talking right now.  I’m really nauseous.”  He said, “Oh, it’s probably the cold air that made you feel bad.  You should close the window.”

Feeling incredibly nauseous again after a day of working at the municipality, I was trying to pull myself together to stay at the mayor’s birthday party, complete with cake, incense, and lots of municipality men to talk about the weather with.  One of the ladies knew I was sick and said, “Here, smell this.  It will help.”  Not wanting to be rude, I did.  It was rubbing alcohol.  Jesus.

I think I have giardia. 

Need to get your sheep from one town to the other?  Tie them to the top of the bus!  Or if you only have one, put it on the motorcycle with yourself and your friend.

Only smile in pictures when you’re drunk.

Love American pop culture from the 80’s.  Especially Michael Jackson.  Bonus points if you can sing along to the syllables. 

Make us guess whether you have a baby or a bunch of potatoes in your manta. 

Have a section of the market that specializes in animal heads.  Make sure that Stasia has to walk through it to find the lentils.

If you get scared, drink the blood of the pito bird.  It’s the original anti-anxiety drug.  

If you ask where something is, you’ll get a reply of, “arriba,” “abajo,” o “del frente.”  It doesn’t have any correlation to slope or elevation that I can figure out.  And they don’t seem to be set directions, either.  Arriba could be south or east as easily as abajo could.  I end up walking a bit in the gestured direction then asking again and correcting my trajectory.  It’s like echo-location for the hardware store.