Little by Little

 

Today I’ll have been in Chimbote for two weeks. What do I have to show for my time?

For starters, I survived my first earthquake.

Alright, so they called it a “tremor.” I’m still adding it to my résumé.   

Katie and I were cooking lunch (Chicken soup, which was an adventure in itself since the chicken we were trying to figure out what to do with had been alive little more than a few hours before) when I felt a little rumble. 

"Did you feel that?" I asked Katie.

"Feel what?"

"It felt like a dumb truck just drove by..."

"Oh. No."

And almost as soon as she said that, it seemed like the entire Earth began to rock back and forth. The water in the pots sloshed around, and the trees in the back yard started swaying.   

Katie grabbed my arm and asked me wide eyed, "What do we dooo?"

Bravely, I said, "...I dont know."

Emily, yelled from the living room, "Guys, I think we should go out to the street!"

"Why didnt I think of that..." 

By the time we made it to the street, the ordeal was over. Was I scared? 

No

Would I want it to happen again.

Definitely not.

I’ve learned some Spanish.

What phrases have I used besides “Donde esta el bano?”

Some of my favorites:

                        Lo siento – I’m sorry.

                        Perdona mi – Pardon me.

                        Desculpa me – Forgive me.

(Noticing a trend here?)

Some other classics include:

                        No entiendo – I don’t understand.

                        and

                        No entiendes? – You don’t understand?

Luckily, the people here are pretty patient and helpful. A lot of people even see it as an opportunity to bust out some English they’ve been practicing. Mostly: “Ello, ow are ju?”

Besides learning Spanish, I’ve cooked twice without killing anybody. So that’s good.

I’ve made a lot of new friends, including a mute guy named John who owns the gym I’ve been working out at behind my new parish. So, actually I’m also learning a form of sign language – better known as Charades. He was in a bad car accident a while ago and now he can’t talk. But in a sense, at this point, neither can I, so we get along juuust fine. He’s also taught me another phrase that I’ve come to like a lot: “Poco a poco.” Little by little.

He first mouthed the words and made the universal slow down motion when I looked at him in disbelief as he handed me two 5lb dumbbells. 

“Seriously?” I asked.

            “Poco a poco.”

I successfully washed my clothes. By hand. Talk about a real chore. My blue jeans are so stiff I actually thought about standing them up against the wall instead of folding them up. But the rest of my clothes came out smelling pretty good at least, and besides everything coming out a little baggier, I think I did an alright job. From now on though, I’ll definitely think twice before tossing that “passably clean” shirt into the dirty clothes pile.

Looking back, I feel like I’ve learned a lot already. Besides the language, and learning the outlay of the city, I’ve learned a few, more subtle, lessons. 

For instance, here, mealtimes are special. You don’t just eat and run. You eat, drink some tea. And sit. And talk. And just…kind of…hang out. I had gotten so used to shoveling down my food so fast I hardly even tasted it before rushing off to run some errand. At school I sometimes even ate while running errands.

So, at first, I can only describe the experience as being almost painful. I would sit, slouched back in my chair, impatiently waiting for the girls to finish eating so we could clean up the table and move on to something else. But they just sat there, staring at each other. Talking.

It was weird.

I mean, I’m used to the whole family dinner around the table thing, for sure. But we’re talking about a whole hour here people!

Even at restaurants, after the waitress delivers the last plate, she assumes that she’s done waiting on you, and won’t “bother” you until you flag her down in order to pay. When I waited tables back home, a sure way to tell people they’d overstayed their welcome was “ready for the check?” Here, there’s no such concept as staying too long.

But now that I’ve gotten over the initial shock, it’s actually pretty cool, definitely a movement I can get behind. Everything, therefore, becomes more about living in the moment. Just wanting to be with the people you’re with. I can dig that.

And that pretty much sums up the pace around here. Everything just moves a little slower. People also take siesta time very seriously. Essentially, it boils down to publicly enforced (because everything closes) required naptime. It’s practically sacred. Lunch, conversation, lay down for a little nap, then go back to work.

It’s still hard for me to totally switch over to this new lifestyle, but I’m getting there. Poco a poco.