…dubious new theory on culture shock…? (with special thanks to Richard Curtis –of Blackadder fame)

It’s quite amazing how the mind and body adapts to new environments. The phenomenon of culture shock is widely written about and documented. (For a quiki.. go to wiki) It goes a little something like this:

Edmund: [looks down at the cups] Errrrrr, yes... I suppose if someone had taken one and wished that he'd hadn't, he'd be able to do something about it...



Smedley: No, no -- they're very odd things, you see. The symptoms are most peculiar. First of all, the victims become very very depressed. [sits on the bed, face in his hands] Oh, god! [near to tears] This whole revolution is so depressing, I mean, sometimes I wonder why I bother... I mean, I'm so lonely, and nobody loves me...



Edmund: ...and after the depression comes death.


Smedley: No -- after the depression comes [jumps off the bed and grabs Edmund's lapels, shouting] the loss of temper, you stuck-up bastard!!! [turns to Baldrick] What you are staring at??? [punches Baldrick]


Edmund: ...and after the >temper< comes death.



Smedley: No! After the temper comes the, er... comes the, er...



Edmund: ...forgetfulness?


Smedley: Er, yes, that's it... er... comes the, er...



Edmund: ...forgetfulness.



Smedley: Yes, yes. Right in the middle of a...of a...thingy... you completely forget what it was you...oh, nice pair of shoes!



Edmund: ...and after the forgetfulness, you die.



Smedley: Oh, no! I forgot one! After the forgetfulness comes a moment of exquisite happiness! [laughs, jumps up and down, waving his arms in the air] Jumping up and down, and waving your arms in the air, and knowing that in a minute we're all going to be free! free!! free!!!



Edmund: [getting tired of this] ...and >then< death?


Smedley: No -- you jump into a corner first. [jumps into a corner; dies]



Baldrick: Hurray! It's the Scarlet Pimpernel!



Edmund: Yes, Baldrick...



Baldrick: ...and you killed him!



Edmund: Yes, Baldrick... I mean, what's the bloody point of being the Scarlet Pimpernel if you're going to fall for the old poisoned-cup routine? Scarlet Pimpernel, my foot!

Ok, well obviously not the dying part. But everything else is the same. Well obviously not the part about forgetfulness.. and well actually it’s all in a different order… and officially has only three stages rather than five.

Ok, well it’s not that similar but perhaps the parallel lies in the prescriptive nature of the stages and its annoying ridiculousness when you find yourself succumbing to it. It’s not until you know the beast that is ‘culture shock’ that you can ever try and errr… nice pair of shoes… now where was I? errr. ..do anything about it.

DISCLAIMER: Dubiously humorous in parts, but almost guaranteed to be indecipherable unless you like Blackadder and have watched Series III Episode ‘Nob and Nobility’ as many times as I have.

…anyone for toasted marshmallows?

Tonight I have gone to bed. It’s my 18^th night here. The night time ritual is as follows… 1) Remove torch from under pillow and wind up ….2) Unfold mosquito net, tuck into all corners…3) Disrobe rapidly so as to avoid mosquitoes …4) Switch off light and read by torch. ..whilst smugly listening to mosquitoes on the OUTSIDE of the net!

It occurred to me last night how much like camping it is! Me, in my little mosquito net tent illuminated by the light of my torch on what is a very hard base! And I like it…I’m used to it. I used to be used to it and then I wasn’t and now I’ve become accustomed to it again.

…on Tena and the apocalypse

Maybe it’s the heat affecting my mind, but sometimes one of my senses switches off or gets confused and makes me think that what I’m seeing or hearing in Tena is not the Amazon but rather something out of an apocalyptic movie….

Picture this if you may…

We live in a small neighbourhood, perhaps six houses to a block and relatively grown up with tropical vegetation. The heat of the day mixes with the cool of the night to produce wisps of moisture in the air that float past the orange glow of an odd street lamp. The neighbourhood for a moment is unusually still except for the buzz of insects that rises in crescendos before receding.

I’m sitting having dinner, I hear an unfamiliar sound a bit like an overenthusiastic lawnmower. The sound keeps growing closer and then further away and then suddenly it is upon us.. It passes the entrance to the kitchen. The sound is coming from the back of a moving vehicle carrying a large vat of liquid and two people in white suits wearing gas masks. Their radical appearance seems to indicate on a purely intuitive level that they are spraying something incredibly toxic into the air. They speed past up and down the rows of houses spraying into each yard. The dark semi-lit neighbourhood fills with a solemn mist. Dogs howl. There’s something rather apocalyptic about it.

I find out they are spraying to kill the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever. However the image of men in white suits with gas masks, mixed (in only the way dreams can) with the hourly school bell waking me from a lethargic slumber which sounds very much like an authentic air-raid siren, and the giant frogs (the size of a small children) that produce giant croaks as you walk past all make for great fodder for a scene in a scary movie!

…letter to ISAS (The International Sarong Appreciation Society)

Dear Sir/Madam.

Please excuse the impersonal greeting. I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of your acquaintance but I felt I must write. I have long been a fan of the sarong. Quite frankly an indispensable item of, would we call it, ‘clothing’?

So useful is the sarong, its list of capabilities is seemingly endless. The sarong never ceases to amaze in its versatility. One day it might be used as a curtain, another day as a bathing towel, another as a pillow for a long haul flight; as a skirt, a top, an acting changing room for getting undressed in front of other people and, please excuse my boldness, but also most helpful in my hour of need after a rather unfortunate incident on a bus. Perhaps there is no need to share details, suffice to say its capacity for cleaning and mopping of brows was much appreciated. My admiration for the sarong knows no limits. It is a fabulous item.

May the work of ISAS long continue with its promotion.

Yours faithfully,

....an unexpected end to the day

Today I went to visit my friend Baldemar’s community. It is some 20 minutes outside Tena. We spent the morning wandering on a short walk through the rain forest to some small cascades. Baldemar was such a great guide for our short trip and we came back refreshed to the house of his wife’s family where we had lunch. At 4.25 ready to take the bus back to Tena I began to feel a little peculiar. I hoped I wouldn’t spend a 40 minute bus journey throwing up!

Alas, 2 minutes up the hill I had some tough decisions to make.. carrier bag or al fresco. I guessed it was something I ate and I didn’t want Baldemar to feel bad. How best could I get away with it..?! Quite frankly I spent most of the following journey (not 40 minutes an absolute lifetime!) trying not to care as I ,discreetly as possible, threw things forth from the window whilst sweating profusely… just about ok whilst bumbling through dusty tracks outside of Tena but oh, the indignity in the town!

Bilma, my God daughter’s mother is the resident medicine woman. She prepared me some very special teas (especially nauseating but the sentiment was there!). It appeared I was unable to keep anything down at all.

Bilma returned shortly to share a new possible theory. She explained that here they believe that sometimes if you walk in the forest in places unknown [to you], you can come across ‘ malaires’ – like ‘bad air’ or ‘evil spirits’ and they can attach themselves to you and make you ill. Bilma suggested what I needed was a cleansing ritual. In my delirious state I think my answer was.. “errrrr. Yes well I’ll try anything that can make me feel better’. Bilma returned after a while with a large bunch of different herbs and leaves. She briskly brushed these repeatedly over all the parts of my body for some minutes. The smell was agreeable and it felt as though the leaves stimulated the blood circulation in my skin.

Indeed about 4 hours later I felt well enough to shuffle to the shop in my pyjamas and buy a special secret remedy of my own… dare I mention it…’Coca Cola’!

….what is that smell..?!

There’s an incredibly sickly sweet smell emanating from the bag I’ve just brought home from the shop. It’s irritatingly familiar but I can’t put my finger on it. Feeling slightly nauseous I’m loath to investigate. I pick out each item in turn and sniff.. They all smell the same.. but it appears that one item is the culprit.

I have accidentally purchased the very strongly scented floral toilet paper. The name ‘Flor’ should have given it away but for some reason I have forgotten the significance of this. This smell for me is reminiscent of too much time sitting in bathrooms in South America….never pleasant! I banish the paper to the shower shack… maybe it’ll act as a mosquito deterrent?

I shouldn’t really be surprised. My bread roll is topped with sugar but has cheese inside and the bird outside sounds like two alternating notes of a pan pipe. Nothing quite as you expect.

..in my back yard..

...British wildlife in Tena

…on notes from afar

So we throw ourselves into a different culture… and it’s a shock. And we start out by clocking all the differences. The ‘quaint’ peculiarities with the tendency if we’re not careful to be ever so slightly patronising and even derogatory!. And then we spent some more time and start seeing all the similarities and we find it harder to see the differences. And before long the unfamiliar becomes familiar and we can’t see anymore what we saw before. And that’s an awfully difficult thing to write about. Writing about what’s become incredibly normal but may be totally unfamiliar to many.

....God I’m not very good at this game but I’m getting gooderer at pool!

Saturday night is party night in Tena, but I am tired and accept a modest invitation for dinner at my God daughter’s Uncle’s house. What they fail to mention was that he has returned that day for his annual visit form the US.

Rocking up at the house, we step into it from the street into a designated pool room. Designated in that there is nothing else in the room except for a pool table and a large fridge containing nothing but beer. I kiss everyone and have the usual introductory conversation and I am invited to play. After potting a few lucky balls on the table, I am offered a glass of beer and as the hours progress it becomes clear what I am really being invited to play is an age old game called Ecuadorian drinking. It goes a little something like this..

One by one people circulate the room with a single glass and a large bottle of Pilsener beer. They pour a glass. You raise your glass. You say cheers. You are then required to drink this as quickly as possible so as not to keep everyone else waiting for their glass of beer. No sippage allowed. It’s impolite to refuse. You can get in quick and say ‘a ti’ - for you and then they have to drink… but then they pour you one anyway. Similarly this works against you if you are the one taking your turn to dole out drink, as people have the right to get you as drunk as possible by saying ‘a ti’ with every person you come to.

And if it’s realised that you’re above average at pool, the game is to try not to get drunk whilst everyone else is doing their best to get you as drunk as possible so you lose at pool. Amazingly the drunkerer I get the bettterer and gooder I become at pool… only I don’t appear to be winning anymore!

…daily routine

Wash
Change clothes
Sweat
Put clothes on
Walk somewhere
Sweat profusely
Have the most welcome cold shower in the world
Cool down
Put clothes on
Heat up
Sweat
Walk somewhere
Sweat profusely
Get covered in dust
Arrive.. looking hot and dirty

…I make that 40 bites..6 bites a day.. must have been here 8 days then

So today I finally settled. I’ve stopped feeling I am in a 3 dimensional dream. It’s no longer possible when your feet itch as much as mine. Walking down the road I am rubbing my legs together to get some extra scratch time.. doesn’t count if it’s not with your hands , right?! Things are becoming routine and it’s amazing what you learn to love. Discotheque in the morning is actually quite rousing for the soul! Ear plugs have been returned to travel case.. for the moment at least.

…so you’re single….?

At least once a day this is the conversation I have, most often at bus stops.

Me “Good afternoon”
Person 1 “Good afternoon”
LONG PAUSE
LONGER PAUSE
Person 1 “Where are you from?
Me “England”
Person 1 “Ah, the United States”
Me “No, England, in Europe.. long way from here”
Person 1 “Ahhhh”
Person 1 “They speak English in England?
Me “Yes”
Person 1 “Which is better the English there or in the United States”
Person 1 “England, [they say] it’s purer there”
Me Could be
Person 1 “Are you single or married?”
Me “Single”
Person 1 “Ah”
LONG PAUSE
LONGER PAUSE
Person 1 “What does your boyfriend in England do?”
Me “I don’t have a boyfriend”
Person 1 “Your family are here?”
Me “No”
Person 1 “How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Me “One, sister”
Person 1 “Older or younger”
Me “Older, she’s 32”
Person 1 “How many children do people in England have?”
Me “Usually 2 or 3 but quite often a few more”
Person 1 “Ah”
PAUSE
SECOND PERSON ARRIVES
PAUSE
Person 1 “She’s from England.. single.
Person 2 “Ahh..”
PAUSE
Person 2 “What does your boyfriend in England do?”

Maybe I do have a boyfriend.. just no-one’s told me who he is?!

…a trip down memory lane

Last week I spent 6 hours winding my way down the Andes to Tena, immersed in very nostalgic bus music. And although it felt like a dream all my senses were immersed, taste, smell, hearing, seeing and touch. It made me remember the strangest things. Names came back to me of people here I hadn’t thought of for years. Things that had happened and places I used to go.

I remembered the main street in Tena, the high pavements near the bridge at the bottom and a metal stump that stood proud of the pavement by 5cm. A post that frequently caught me out and made my eyes water and me to utter some understated expletive. Many of my thoughts over the past week have been consumed with the amount of change there is here, people are building, starting businesses, buying new pieces for the house - fridges, microwaves, washing machines.. and renovating left right and centre.

As I strolled down the main street towards the bridge today I was thinking how sad that everything is modernising so much. And, WHAM! my foot wraps itself round a rather familiar piece of metal stump 5cm proud of the pavement. Wincing with the pain, tears in my eyes, I managed a smile. At least some things haven’t changed.

…get me a taxonomist on the phone quick.. I’ve discovered a nanomosquito..

It’s simply impossible. I just can’t explain the places I have bites. They must just be waiting for me. The second a piece of clothing comes loose, they must be lining up for a drink of tasty ‘ol me. The irony is that there don’t seem to be that many hanging round….it’s only when I take of all my clothes and run vulnerably naked into the shower shack for a shower that I meet with clouds of mosquitoes. Like this, as I dance round under the cold water, trying to get the water to touch my head first, warming it slightly before it falls and strikes the rest of my body. Nothing quite like a cold shower at 7am. Oh yeah!

… a list of things that wake me up

- 3am Connor coming in drunk.

It’s fun being 21 but do we have to sing?

- 4am Dogs on heat.

A neighbourhood war over which one’s allowed to shack up with my neighbour’s dog. It’s loud and I want to throttle the dogs as their barks enter my room through the open window, reverberate round it and my head.

- 5.30am The bus next door.

Starts its engine running for a nice long warm up. It sounds like it’s driving through my head

- 6.00am The cockerel crowing.

His friend at 6.01am, his friend at 6.02, his friend at 6.03am and back to my mate the cockerel who sounds like he’s outside my door at 6.04am. Bless them, they facilitate my high cholesterol egg breakfast

- 6.15am Rain on the metal roof .

A torrential downpour lasts over an hour. It’s unbelievably loud and unable to sleep I can see the back garden rapidly filling up with water heading ever closer to my bedroom door.

- 7.15am It’s disco time!

Music for breakfast lunch and dinner! Essential items in Ecuadorian house: music system, amplifier, super woofer speakers and a catalogue of raeggaton, ballanatos, cumbia, meringue and salsa.

So that’s a ‘no’ to sleeping then…