Thirty-Two

I wrote this for the volunteer publication so I thought I'd share it with you as well. It is kind of specific to the Peace Corps so if you don't enjoy it it's only because you're on the outside and not because of my lousy writing. I've translated all of the Spanglish in parentheses. Here it goes:


The Plight of the Aardvark in Southeastern Botswana

According to the Oxford English Dictionary an Aardvark is “A South-African quadruped ( Orycterŏpus capensisCuv.), about the size of the badger, belonging to the insectivorous division of the Edentata, where it occupies an intermediate position between the Armadillos and Ant-eaters. I’m not an Aardvark, and this article is not about Aardvarks, but you’re crazy if you think I’m going to keep reading the dictionary until I get to the part about the American. That book is all character development and no plot.

But I wanted to read about the American because they tell me I am one. I’m skeptical. I was always under the impression that I was a “Man of the World.” Don’t ask me where I got this impression. I had done some traveling before I came here. A few months here, a few months there. But the problem with having done some traveling is it gives you a false sense of worldliness. And you get all of these college students coming home from a semester of drinking with other Americans in very Americanized bars in Spain who are now “wordly.” Well I was most definitely “worldly” when I signed up for the Peace Corps. I was not an American. American was Texas. American was 9-5 office job. American was credit cards and debt. I was above all of that. Destined for greater things. Like unemployment or a manual laborer in a communist nudist colony. But I was wrong. Because when you don’t spend more than three months in a place you never get past the First Stage of Culture Shock. I don’t remember what the stages are as they explained it to us in training because I wasn’t paying attention. Seriously, they talked at us a lot. And it was hot. But I’ve now looked back on the past two years and my time here does seem to fall into four vaguely distinct stages.

Stage 1: F#@K YEAH!

When I arrived in my community they all looked at me with a bit of distrust. But I was not worried. Yeah, the guy who took a cross-cultural psychology class in college is going to get worried. Come on! I immediately switched into objective thinking mode. What if a 25-year-old Guatemalan guy had showed up at my house in New Jersey and said, “Hi, I Pablo. I come for fix your plumbing. You help me?” I’d say “No way, Jose!” But I know better. “It’s OK.” I said to them in my head. “I am wordly. I understand you people.”

At first everything is very new and exciting. “Oh boy, they play their music so loud here. What an interesting cultural observation!” and “Poor drunk, toothless, old man. American imperialism has reduced you to this. Of course I’ll give you cinco pesos (approx. 13 cents).” All these cute and interesting cultural differences! I would laugh with my friends, “Oh I had a class today and only three of 15 students came. It’s not their fault though.” Nothing could defeat my idealism. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was built in 27 months.

Stage 2: ARE YOU F#@KING KIDDING ME!?

“AHHH! LAZY! LADRONES (theifs)! DON’T KNOW THEIR ASS FROM THEIR HEAD!”
Stage 2 is ugly. Getting stuck in Stage 2 is very dangerous. Stage 2 breeds hatred and racism and ulcers. Because eventually the “cultural quirks” that were so fascinating two months ago become “rage-inducing idiocies.” This is the part where you argue vehemently with the cobrador (guy who charges you on public transport) over those five pesos because “it’s the principle of the thing.” Nevermind the fact that you’re on the guagua (bus) to Cabarete (beach town) with a red bracelet duct taped to your wrist so you can rip off the all-inclusive. This stage is ugly but necessary. It’s tough love. Time to shake your romantic notions of the third world. Poor people are like rich people except with less money. Some of them suck. Some of them are awesome.

STAGE 3: OH WELL, F#@K IT.

Being angry all the time is very tiring. Eventually you won’t want to do it anymore. You’ll take some deep breaths and pull out your yoga mat and pop a horse tranquilizer and pass out on your floor. And when you wake up you’ll have come to the realization that the country is the way it is and you are not going to change it. Even if that does happen to be part of your job description. You do your job and put up with the absurd, no matter how You start to talk about the United States like it’s Candyland. “I can’t wait to go back to the United States and lick my chocolate ice cream roof!” If you never leave this stage then that’s OK. It’s relatively harmless for the most part. Despite what famous quote sayers might suggest, apathy is not the root of all evil. People with opinions – crazy, evil, stage 2, opinions – are. But if you can, try to push through to the much more ambiguous Stage 4.

STAGE 4: WE’RE ALL F#@KED.

While you’re in the acceptance stage your fury level will drop from a red alert to a green alert and your objective thinking device will be enabled once again. You will think about the United States and realize that we are also stupid in our own special way. Our government is plenty corrupt and equally unable to get things done effectively. We don’t rip off foreigners directly, we just buy everything from people who do. We don’t litter, because that Native American man cried a tear back in the 1970s, but the consumption of a single American results in the environmental contamination equivalent of 10,000 Dino cookie wrappers on the ground. Every country has its own flavor of bullshit. It is a bullshit not inherent in the people but learned over time. And once you’ve gotten used to the smell of your own bullshit it just becomes the normal smell and all other bullshit smells funny and makes you want to punch holes in the wall. But it’s important to remember that your bullshit is just poop too.

So then maybe that’s what it means to be an American. It’s the preference of a certain type of poop. But then where does that leave us? Should we just forget about this whole idea of helping other people and stick with our own kind? Wrong. People need help; in the USA and the DR and everywhere else. But your offer to help others does not obligate them to take on your ways. So while it might make you furious when people show up an hour late and don’t show enthusiasm when they’re digging holes in the ground, you can hardly blame them for not wanting to live in a constant state of stress and depression. Though a happy medium might be nice. So the next time you’re in a meeting and an Aardvark shows up an hour late and interrupts you to saludar (shake hands and say hi to) everybody, remember that that is just the way of the Aardvark.