¡Olé!
I live in a loud and obnoxious culture. Loud because there are motors, cars, horns, music, chickens, goats, dogs, babies and people yelling at every street corner at every hour of the day. For example, my friend lives in a house on main street right in front of the largest colmado in town. At least once a day, some car with a huge bass and amazing sound system (ways people choose to spend their money in a place with such poverty will be the subject of another mensaje entirely) parks in front of the house and spends 15 minutes with music blaring, much to the dismay of said friend. She told me the other day, “I’m pretty sure I could do all my work in half the time here if only there weren’t so many interruptions.” Oh girl...I feel you!
The top five most notable common interruptions are as follows:
1) In the middle of a meeting, someone will show up late and scream “SALUDOS/GREETINGS” and walking from participant to participant kissing them on the cheek (sometimes catching up about families and children) while breaking everyone’s concentration and starting a waterfall of mumbled “hellos” and “good day my friends" and rendering it nearly impossible to get back on track, especially when the interruptions with people showing up late for meetings happens for at least an hour after said meeting starts.
2) When you’re on the phone with someone, it’s more than acceptable to start and finish a conversation with someone face to face in the interim. This one doesn’t make sense to me because cellphone minutes are really expensive here and everyone is super stingy with their cellphone time, so I don’t really understand why people think it’s okay to interrupt and bombard other peoples minutes. This interruption has caused much headache to American callers who want to kill me when I say, “Hang on, one sec, someone’s calling me, be right back, lemme just finish this conversation, ah I can’t hear you, someone’s yelling at me.”
3) During class, a student from another course will walk in and say, “I need to talk to so and so” or “Can I borrow a pencil?” and just strut on in, interrupting whoever’s speaking with no care in the world for the lesson at hand, teachers present, or people doing their work. Also related, during at least 1 or 2 school days a week, something “important” will come up and the school lets out for the day a period or full afternoon early. Some of these important interruptions include: the food for the day wasn’t enough and 2 entire classes were left without food, the food sent from a nearby cafeteria for all the students is rotten, the teachers have to cash in their paychecks in the town over, it might rain, or the teachers need to discuss something as a group.
4) When you really need electricity for something (laundry, internet, hair drying, cooking something, blending, ironing) and it goes out in the middle of your chore. They say we are on a lights schedule here in Manzanillo but I can’t tell what it is and sometimes I can get all my laundry done before it goes out, otherwise it’s an interrupted laundry day where I just have to leave wet, soggy, mushy clothes in the hot sun to get moldy and grody. Or, I'll be having a much needed conversation in English with a friend from home and all the sudden, boom, no internet! No electricity, take that!
5) If my door is open, no matter what I’m doing, people can enter. Favorite moments include when I’m sweaty and doing a workout video and children just come and watch me from the balcony. Or when I’m working and tell kids to leave me in peace until the afternoon and they’re back in five minutes just checking in, “When can I come back, when are you going to be done, can I help, can I color on the floor, can I just watch you, can I interrupt you?” I still don't have a solution to this one because I hate to close the door because it’s a) rude and b) hot, but dayumm, sometimes I just have to to get things done!
Let's be real, I don’t really mind all the day’s little interruptions, they add flavor and spice to the day's happenings! I only ever feel bad when I’m on the phone talking to an American and I keep having to yell during our conversations. Apologies for all of you this has happened to! It’s just the way it is here, and it all boils down to culture.
Gotta go, being pulled out by little girls who want to color!
Until next time,
Bea
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