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.

I was originally going to write this a few days ago and title it "I've been here for almost a week and I still haven't had a taco". But all that changed after I ate two and experienced "La Venganza de Montezuma". After a friend suggested papaya enzymes (you rule, Dion!), I'm feeling immensely better.

It's been an exhausting week. For the most part we've just been trying to get oriented and acclimated. The altitude, the city, the heat, the food, the people, going back to school (!), the exchange rate, the pollution... have all been dizzying in their own way.