Resistance and Re-entry

Santa Lucia, Ecuador

Tomorrow is my first day of class as a graduate student. This post is about what it has been like to come back to the United States "for good" and what reverse culture shock looks like when it's not really shocking, just a slow dragging of the feet.

I ended my time in Ecuador with unconscious resistance. This was most obvious when I was scheduled to be flying out of the country but was actually-- true story-- drinking wine 3 hours from the airport (not totally my fault, but my inattentiveness to numerical dates could partially be blamed). Then, I accidentally rescheduled my departure for two days later instead of one, which I only realized after a series of goodbyes which had to be awkwardly repeated 24 hours later. Once it was finally my departure date, I missed my first car to Quito (again, not my fault, but might have been avoided with pro-activeness), and then nearly missed the 10pm deadline to pass through immigration when my flight was delayed (I thought a 4 hour delay would mean a few extra hours hanging out in a cafe with my boyfriend).

Ambato, Ecuador, from my former apartment

It's like the world didn't actually want me to leave. Or I didn't want me to leave. Self-sabotage?

For me, the difficulties of what people call "reverse culture shock" or re-adjustment to one's home culture no longer take the form of panic attacks in Wal-Mart and acute disgust for Americans. During my trips back and forth, I've found I generally slide between the USA and Ecuador with relative ease. The American public = tall, rude, obsessed with convenience. The Ecuadorian public = short, rude, doesn't understand convenience. Both places are fascinating and eternally frustrating. You get over it.

My former apartment, 2 years after moving in

So my "reverse culture shock" has little to do with cultural differences, but a lot to do with cognitive disputes between Ameri-Kim and Ecua-Kim. Let's get serious: Ameri-Kim would NEVER have missed the initial flight on July 29th, would have offered one goodbye per loved one, would have showed up alone and on-time in the airport just as planned. And yet I didn't and wasn't. I was Ecua-Kim, irresponsible with dates and irresponsible with... you know... responsibilities, good at a lot of things most foreigners will never be able to do in Ecuador, but progressively worse at things like preparation, production, and punctuality.

This resistance-- not only manifest when I left Ecuador but also in things ongoing (I still haven't prepared for my first class tomorrow, or learned where the library is)-- does not stem from a disdain for the USA or reluctance to be a graduate student. I've been applying for two years, I want and need to start. I am privileged to start at Brown. It also didn't stem from a self-righteous vision of "personal significance" in Ecuador that I don't have here; I don't claim to have 'made a difference' in the '3rd world', being candid-- I was mostly on vacation.

Hiking above Ambato, Ecuador

Rather, I would attribute the foot-dragging to hanging on too long to habits that need to be left in the Southern Hemisphere. It's time to let Ecua-Kim be somewhere else... Lord knows she can't cut it in grad school. I've been on much-needed, completely beautiful, 2.5 year vacation from a place (academia), an idea (academia), and a person (Ameri-Kim). I haven't sprinted back, but I'm here, so it's time to be present.

Social Math

I have this theory that if the United States were to stop minting pennies, Ecuador would fall into some sort of social and political chaos. It might actually prompt the government to dust off the Sucre again, Ecuador's national currency which was eliminated in 2000 in favor of the stable USD. Pennies count here. The practice of many Americans of throwing away pennies (yes, people do this, there is a facebook page) is wildly appalling to those of us in the southern hemisphere.

While there's nothing that can make you feel more like an ass than paying for something in the United States with a $1 coin, coins (exact change) are a powerful thing in Ecuador. And the queen of exact change is Sacagewea. Apparently there are other versions of the $1 coin (Susan B. Anthony in the '90's, and more recently they've decided women shouldn't be on coins and switched to former presidents), but the U.S. mint appears to exclusively send Ecuador's central bank Sacageweas. I hardly ever see $1 bills, and have never seen another type of dollar coin in circulation.  

So Ecuador is where much-hated American coins go to happily live, yet a paradoxical vacuum of exact change. To quote an American friend living in Quito: "I have accumulated 15 $1 coins. I kiiiiiiiiiind of feel like this is more valuable than a 20 dollar bill."

Amen, sister. Let me give you an example. Right now I'm waiting for the gas truck to come and replace two tanks of my indoor carbon monoxide machines, ie my gas tanks. These tanks are crucial to my life, since I light that gas to heat my shower and boil the water I drink. Right now I'm in my pajamas and haven't showered (since I have no gas), and the gas truck is on its way. I have $4.95 in coins. I also have a $20 bill. These tanks are going to cost $5, plus a $1 tip for the man to haul it upstairs to my apartment. I'm going to go ahead and predict that the man will accept my $4.95 in coins-- thus eliminating his tip and not even covering the normal cost of the tanks-- instead of changing my $20 bill. He won't have change. 

I've been in banks where they won't change a $100 bill into smaller bills/coins, real national BANKS. Small currency, while maybe not an economic commodity, is certainly a social commodity. This is what I've deemed social math.

Social math quiz: If I get into a taxi with a friend and I have 3 $1 coins and she has a $20 bill, which one of us is richer? That's right, me, because I can pay for the taxi. There's no way that cab driver has $19 in change. If on the off chance he does, he'll certainly whine about it and shame us ruthlessly. Social math explains why I'll only recharge my cell phone (prepaid phones... sigh) at one specific tienda in my neighborhood. They always change big (ie $10) bills without whining, and I in turn pay in exact change when feeling benevolent.

Money

<- This is $3.80 of food. It's 25 cents of bananas, 1 dollar of oranges, 1 dollar of grapes, 1 dollar of pineapple, 20 cents of papaya, 25 cents of lime, and 10 cents of tomato. That, below, is 50 cents of monster ecua carrots, a mystery of Andean nature which makes your skinny American carrots look weak and pathetic.

I started knowing exactly how much food does and should cost around November of last year. Around November I had been long-abandoned by Fulbright grant, yet went unpaid by the University that employs me. For months. I got to Christmas' doorstep before I saw a single cent of my salary... first because the finance office lost my contract, then because my bank wouldn't accept that I was a public employee (and am therefore paid by the state), then because important people started to hate me. I'm easy to hate when I can't afford a bottle of wine. So I went through 1st semester teacher blues, faculty meetings (bleh), mid-term exams, and a host of extra re-accreditation work without being paid. I also began feeling, for the first time in my decently long Ecualife, like I was approaching some semblance of equal footing with many of my colleagues and students-- lost in the bureaucratic jumble and thinking about pennies.

Escaped food

When people talk about food here, they are often talking about money, and what food their money will buy. A trip back from the market will often accompany a detailed report on the 10 cent increase in a pound of blackberries. "What's your favorite pizza in Ambato?" always comes with a multi-tiered explanation involving cost and how much free hot sauce you can get. Only the privileged buy produce at the supermarket, the rest of us are comparing cucumbers on street corners. Last November, fighting with old ladies at the market about how many tomatoes my 25 cents would buy, I began to get it.

First Communion/ Bible food

I should say the Ambato I occupy (and urban Ambato in general) is pretty solidly middle-class mestizo and I truly would hate to cement misguided fantasies about "the third-world." Middle-class Ecuadorians are not as consumption-obsessed and stuff-heavy as the American middle class, but are not poor and would never accept such a characterization. However, one of the unexpected consequences of being post-Fulbright, working for the Ecuadorian government, and generally being one of the gente (people), is a new perspective on normal economic constraints in Ecuador.

Just like when people talk about food they're usually talking about money, when people talk about education they're usually talking about money. And education is pretty much the only thing I do right now. Teacher soapbox: out.

 Food I Recently Learned to Identify (cactus fruit)

I teach at a free public university, or higher ed for the masses. Wealthy families in Ambato send their children to the private university, or to Quito where the universities are better. Like many many public school teachers around the world, I pay out of pocket for classroom materials and any non-textbook thing I want to use in my classes. My university gives me access to my empty classroom, a whiteboard, and the occasional projector I can check out if there are any left in the computer lab. I pay for everything else-- from the toilet paper I use in the bathroom, to the marker to write on that whiteboard, to the paper to print an activity, to any/all copies I make. I am fined each time I don't sign in within 10 minutes before, or 5 minutes after, every class. Fined. Like $. For being 5 seconds late AFTER a class, even if I spent that 5 minutes peeing or helping a student (both noble causes).

Guinea Pigs (ie food)

Let's say it's exam time. My exam is 3 pages long and I have 120 students. That's 2 cents x 3 pages x 120 students = $7.20. That's a lot of ecua-money, in fact, that's more dollars than I make in the hour it takes to administer the exam.Or let's take a 10-page article/question packet for my history class. That's 2 cents x 10 pages x 30 students = $6.00... for 1 assignment for 1 class. Now you know how professors here spend their first 10 minutes of class-- letting students file out to make copies of the activity packet.

I know how this looks, me asking students to cover the costs of running a class. Is it a financial hardship for students to make their $2 of copies per week? Yes, in many cases. But it is for me too, and much more for teachers who have families and cars and health problems. Students don't complain-- they've been asked to cover these classroom costs since Kindergarten and the money collection for copies is highly ingrained in the culture. So I'll complain on their behalf. Why is Ecuador's "free public education" (guaranteed at the university level) not free, either for me or for them? Why can they NOT pay us on time, but then also fine me for being hospitalized (ie missing class for 1 day for obvious emergency)? And why, as professional university faculty, are we often so concerned about how many tomatoes we'll get for our 25 cents?

Brown (trying to try to be a Dr.)

I remember when I first found out it was possible to be a "Dr." without cutting people open. I was in elementary school, and it was report card season.

As kids we couldn't open the report card, only examine the envelope home to our parents. We would compare envelopes, trying to analyze each others family situation based upon the address label. Some kids had two envelopes, one for each divorced parent. Some kids had "Mr. and Mrs. _(last name)_" and some kids had "Dr. and Mrs. _(last name)_," which meant their dad was a doctor and they lived in a big house. It was an unrefined, vaguely cruel exercise in elementary school social comparison. My envelope was unique and therefore brag-worthy: "Dr. and Mr."

Mom's Graduation

Cue the first conversation about the "Ph.D." with my mother, a clinical psychologist, who (happy mother's day!) got her Ph.D. with 3 children and many more obstacles than I will likely face. Cue the first time, of many, I would count how old I would be when I was fully "educated." How many years until I graduated from middle school, then high school, then college, then got my PhD (I think 4 was the number in my head, although that number seems laughable now). Eventually, that age turned into just "old" and the idea of being "educated" faded away. That's when I knew I was ready.

Not What Anthropology Is, Unfortunately

Trying to try to be a Dr. was not always inevitable. In elementary school, I didn't know about "years off" and South America and the academic job market. Or that people who write books aren't usually famous, or wealthy, and sometimes people with Ph.D.s turn into crusty professors with nothing interesting to say in real life, or no sense of what real life is.

I didn't know it would take me 13 applications over 2 years to receive one single acceptance to graduate school. Why don't more people say that? That tons of capable people in the world want to be (fully funded) anthropologists and getting into a program is this absurd gauntlet (for being fully funded)? I did interviews with faculty members who spent the whole hour trying to talk me out of their university, or the Ph.D. in general. I went to one interview weekend which was so ridiculous in its applicant one-up-manship, it felt like a jargon-filled reality television show. Feature characters included the former pro baseball player (anthropology of sports) and the already practicing M.D.  (anthropology of medicine, apparently 6 years of postgraduate work was not enough).

So here it is: In September, I begin my Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at Brown University. It's a small cohort (8) and we all got the big prize (full funding). Providence looks like a nice place to spend several years, and the Anthro building is on the corner of Hope Street and Power Street (which I can only take as a positive sign). I'll be back in Ecuador during the summers for my research. 

In case you read this post a year ago, I haven't forgotten about you, aimless 20-somethings. I'll finish with the same Samuel Beckett quote: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Peripheral/Beloved Characters, part 3

One thing that never ceases to amaze me about Ecuador is the nonchalant way people do absurd things in weird places without any sense of irony or self-awareness. Even in comedic tastes, Americans love their self-aware mock-umentaries while Ecuadorians prefer what we might call the "obvious"-- like clowns and secret camera shows. Often cultural differences make it so people around me just don't sense an irony which is so blatant and hilarious. So with that, I present the next installment of Peripheral/Beloved characters, all of whom strike me as people doing radically weird things in daily life but who are barely worth a second glance to Ecuadorians.

 The goats are like these. But in a city. On leashes.

1.) Goat-Walker
Goat-Walker is a middle-aged gentleman I see at least once a week walking past the University, usually Wednesday mornings or Friday afternoons. He is always wearing boots and holding a long rope with 5-6 leashed goats attached to them. He always looks as though his goats are pulling in a direction he does not want to go.

Goat-Walker has begun noticing me, because being light-skinned and light-eyed draws even more attention here than a man walking a legion of goats. I have this ongoing speculation about what Goat-Walker does. Is he selling his goats? If so, why are they always the same goats? Where do his goats need to go, or is this simply for exercise? Why is goat cheese 6 dollars a packet at the supermarket and not available at any local store I have inquired?

I can't resist stray alpacas.

There's also this unresolved question of how I am supposed to interact with a goat-walker and his leashed goats on city streets. If it were 6 dogs on leashes, I would definitely stop and ask to pet the dogs. So do I want to pet the goats? I think the answer is yes. However, I don't want to offend him, get an awkward "no", draw unwanted attention to him (does a man walking goats worry about unwanted attention?), or most importantly, make him think I want a date. It is this kind of social paralysis by analysis that keeps me from saying anything to Goat-Walker.

2.) Nut-Cracker Man on the Corner

As I'm turning onto the street where I usually see Goat-Walker, I pass a furniture store on the corner. In the early afternoons, there are sometimes 1-2 men sitting on the furniture store corner cracking walnuts with a hammer. They look to be store attendants. Again, they usually give me a "what the hell are you doing here?" look, as though a gringa walking to work is more absurd than furniture salesmen cracking walnuts on city streets. My primary questions regarding Nut-Cracker Man on the Corner are as follows: Do they sell the nuts or is this subsistence-only nut-cracking? Why are they pounding away with an old hammer instead of investing in an actual nut-cracking device, considering the amount of time they dedicate to this? Is this work at all related to the furniture store?

3.) Ancient Car-Sitting Neighbor

My neighborhood from across the river.

I wrote a year and a half ago about these peripheral characters -- the young children that live below me and run in fear every time they see me enter/leave our gate. I've since solved the mystery as to why they won't engage with me, or at least come to a logical resolution in my head. My neighbor below... hates me. She complains about every activity that occurs in my incredibly-boring house, as though my two friends coming over for wine is some kind of wild drunken orgy (in English) her kids will absorb and repeat. Anyway, I believe she has instructed her children not to engage with me in any form.

There is one neighbor who seems to like me though-- Ancient Car-Sitting Neighbor. He's probably about 90 years old, though still in decent physical shape, probably because he spends a lot of his time washing things in his garage. When he's not washing things, he likes to hang out in his car. At first I thought he was always waiting for someone, like his wife, who moves a lot slower than him. He usually is wearing a hat or sunglasses, as if he's about to go somewhere. But if I leave to run an errand, chances are high he'll STILL be sitting in his car outside his house when I get back. I think he just likes to sit in his car.

Incredibly elaborate dress-up parades downtown.

I suppose if most of your life consists of sitting and washing things, it's a perfect day to wash your car and then sit in it. At least then you have a view of things going on outside, like people leisurely walking their goats.