ser extranjera

A Peruvian friend recently read my blog and told me that all I write about is food and traffic, so I will take a stab at candor only with the disclaimer that it is not my strong suit and I only attempt this within the secure confines of relative anonymity that the internet has to offer.

The experience of being a foreigner resembles, to use a ratty old cliche, a roller coaster ride. First you must pay the absurd sum to enter the amusement park, with no reassurance of the goods offered other than the fanatic insistence of your friends that it will be a mind blowing experience. After finally locating the premiere amusement park attraction, you wait in line for what seems like eternity, absolutely sure that it will never be your turn to ride. When you finally arrive, which contrary to all sentiments you inevitably do, anticipation floods your veins as your body tenses up, poised for the first taste of whatever the crazy unknown has to offer you. You ascend that first hill slowly, slowly, slowly, absolutely sure that the car is slowing down, so you impatiently peer around you to see what else is going on while you are waiting, and suddenly you realize how high up you are, and the bottom falls out of your stomach. Every last nucleotide of your DNA screams no, no, no, take me back now, I still don't know whats going to happen next but I REALLY don't like the look of it, and while somewhere down in your esophagus a bubble of panicked air attempts to struggle its way out of your vocal chords, you have reached the apex, the point of no return, and you reach this funny moment where you encounter the absolute value of gravity, that moment when you realize you didn't get the modicum of flavor you asked for but rather a full shot of pisco to the face and it was way, way too much, and any second your throat will go up in flames and your stomach will decide to take a stab at acrobatics. And you just hang there, suspended, stupefied, speechless; and, really, this is the moment that you will remember afterward, this moment of not being able to go back, not being able to go forward, and not being able to stay where you are. Because that vertical, ninety degree culture shock plunge is such a traumatic overload that your self-preservation reflexes tuck it away in a mental lock box somewhere where you couldn't remember it even if you wanted to, and even if you did, you could never accurately articulate it.

I live in a constant juxtaposition of weird eternal moments such as this, when the present seems overwhelming and interminable and yet simultaneously the semester goes by faster than a combi race. Suddenly it's been two weeks since my last blog post, and I sit down to write it and realize that I have no idea what I've done in that time. But mostly I just feel that frustrated fatigue from trying to run through water. Daily life has transformed into such a colossal effort that I look at my assignments and requirements with bemusement: how can anyone realistically expect such things out of me at a time like this? It's not a hopeless sadness or anything like that, it's more like being inside a movie where the viewer has turned up the color contrast and volume on the TV set, or like living all the insecurities and general amazement of childhood all over again. The other day I was watching a South Park marathon with a bilingual friend of mine, and we had already watched two or three episodes dubbed in Spanish (which Parker and Stone actually accomplish surprisingly well). Ten minutes into the subsequent episode, we abruptly turned to each other and said, "Did you realize it was in English?!" For ten minutes we had been reading the Spanish subtitles and not realized that they had switched the language. It was extremely disconcerting.

On the one hand, I have times such as this when I've become so comfortable with the language that I don't even register the switch, yet as soon as I need to formulate a coherent sentence all ease fails me, and I revert to these elementary verb structures that I've latched onto in order to avoid conjugating anything ever. The language barrier generates a dual frustration, firstly with my incapacity to correctly communicate what I want to say, and secondly with the raised eyebrows and rolling eyes my maimed phrases tend to elicit. Perhaps it is my youthful impatience at work, but I can't stand awkwardly sitting in the corner at a party, unable to supplement the verbal ambiance. On the bright side, occasionally, when I finally say something after spending half an hour in new company, the people who don't know me delightedly exclaim, "Wait, you speak Spanish? You understand us?" It always feels good to at least be able to put forth an effort, even a pitiful one: it lends substance to my staunch insistence that I am a student, not a tourist.

I suppose that is really the crux of this situation. Not that being a student is better than being a tourist, although that is most certainly true, but rather even when panic and frustration overwhelm every aspect of my being,  and all I can seem to do is hysterically sob "I can't do this, I can't do this," the fact of the matter is that I am doing this. Even if I fail all of my classes, and my host family hates me, and I never pick up the slang, and I never cultivate an appreciation for ceviche, I had the audacity to relinquish familiarity for no immediate benefits. In fact, in almost every conceivable way, this trip has only made my life harder. Yet I am now certain that somewhere in the depths of my person there is a scrap of bravery and perseverance being forged in the fires of experience. I don't really know why I am here, only that for some reason, being here is necessary for who I am meant to be.

And I'll leave you to ponder my new motto: always be down to try something new. And if you don't like it the first time, try it again just to make sure.