arthur richards

Nearly 6 months after snapping my collar bone in half from a mountain bike accident, I got back in the saddle for one of Guadalajara's 'paseo de todos' - a critical mass-esque bike ride through the city's biker unfriendly streets. It was nothing short of epic.

It was a crowning moment that happily coincided with my general sentiments of feeling comfortable, at peace and very happy to be here. After re-reading my second-to-last post, I think I can safely say I'm over the nasty hump of culture shock, although I'm sure it will be an ongoing process. Finally getting two working bikes together, beginning to get a grip on the different ways of doing things and learning to let go has helped push me in the right direction.

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.