arthur richards

It's been nearly four weeks since we set foot in Guadalajara, Mexico. And it's been a long while since I've felt so confused, inspired, exhausted, excited, embarrassed, tongue-tied, adventurous and reclusive all at the same, prolonged period of time.

After wrapping up our language classes a week and a half ago, moved into our own apartment smack in the middle of Guadalajara and we started working on our project, Adapting to Scarcity, in earnest. We're subletting a sweet apartment from our friend Andrei who's currently off doing field work for his doctorate. The apartment is great (sick roof access!) and aside from the noise, air quality and pace of the area, we're in a sweet spot (tortas within a block or two in every direction, on the bus lines we care about, etc).

It's been awesome to finally get going with the project - but going from the safe, friendly, "oh you speak Spanish so well!" atmosphere of language school to serious multi-hour long meetings in fast, colloquial Spanish has been a bit of a doozy. Straining to understand what's being said around me, it's been hard to find the chutzpa to speak up. I realized that I've let the inability to express myself half as well in Spanish as I can in English be entirely paralyzing. It's been remarkably frustrating and embarrassing (especially the blunders...). But honestly, everyone we've met so far (especially the folks we're working with) are incredible - brilliant, funny, charismatic and incredibly warm. They make it easier for me to try and get over embarrassed timidity.

Thanks to Sarah's wisdom and worldly experience, I was diagnosed last week with a case of 'culture shock'. Early last week I fell into something of a funk - incredibly moody, disheartened, withdrawn, homesick, distressed and irritated by the big, noisy, dirty city. This was quite a change from the first week or two here when I was incredibly excited, eager to explore, desperate to try all the foods and confident. Apparently, classic culture shock - a 'honeymoon' stage followed by an anxiety-ridden 'negotiation' phase.

After an amazing trip to Temacapulín this past weekend, I'm feeling a lot better about being here. Temacapulín is a small town nestled in a steep-walled valley. The Mexican government is planning on building a dam that will flood much of the valley, including the town itself. The residents are really upset - they have no interest in moving and generally feel like the government has lied to them failed to hear there voices. Anyway, we spent the weekend with them and attended a community meeting where they were working to come up with their own alternatives to the dam. The fresh air, open space, slower pace and incredible warmth of the people (not to mention patience with my Spanish...) made me feel tremendously more at ease - and excited to be here, taking on the work we're doing. Check out some of the pictures (clicking on them will take you to bigger versions on Flickr - I'm working on a better way to handle this :):

Still, my brain feels fried, I've got a bit of a cold (I think my sinuses are revolting from the air here...) and it's hard to shake the exhaustion. Learning more Spanish is having interesting effects on my synapses - I find myself peppering my English with bits of Spanish and vice-versa without really thinking about it. I think it's a good sign - I'm eager to be able to think coherently in Spanish. Although, it's hard to imagine with what feels like such a limited vocabulary. But all in all, I'm glad to know why I've been feeling the way I have - and that it's not particularly unusual. Even if I'm not fully out of it, being able to identify what's going on is very helpful for figuring out ways to better adapt to life here. And it's wonderful to feel excited about our work and being here all over again.