Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

This week is the last week of my one month stay in Tumbes. The work has been great and I´ll put up a few posts on the stuff I've been doing at work soon, cause it has been an interesting month and because that was the initial point of this blog, not all this ruminating on beautiful mountains and fiddlee dee dee. But as I get ready mentally to move back to Lima, I've started to feel at home here in Tumbes, a rewarding feeling that I want to write about.

When I first came, I thought adjusting would be a breeze since Lima had been so fun and easy but it wasn't and again, I had to learn to call a new place home. When you're a tourist, you're constantly on the move and there's no need to settle down and feel at home and you also don't have to learn to like places that don't immediately appeal to you. When you're a tourist, you spend the money and look the part and people treat you like it and it's comforting. You say your thank yous and pleases and do as you would in your home country, have a blast and people cater their actions for you and your tourist dollars. And in Lima..well I guess big cities are universally very similar. Busy streets, lots of different people, grocery stores, McDonald's and Starbucks if you're so inclined, roommates who watch Gossip Girl. It's all familiar before you get there with reminders everywhere that home is not that far away. But some places don't get along with you so quickly. For me it has taken an anxious month of second guessing to come to terms with Tumbes.

You walk around at first and you are looking everywhere, screening nothing. You pay attention to everything and it's overwhelming. And you better pay attention to the way people do things around here because not everyone is going to change just so you can keep doing things comfortably the way you do at home. Every sound and face is foreign. When the policeman whistles, you freeze and look at him and look at the street and wonder what the hell he is whistling about. It makes no sense. When you walk down the street, you look every single person in the face because you're kind of scared of getting robbed and you look over your shoulder a lot as if someone is following you. You make snap judgements, you have to. "Do I trust this person, do they have a trustworthy face, can I stop noticing them now?" and the passing of judgement affects how tightly you clutch your backpack.















(Stacey and Jorie guarding while Wendelien visits the ATM)

And you're back to the miscommunication and it sucks. And that old habit of saying things like questions because of uncertainty creeps back. And you can't handle the number of unknowns and because there are a lot of unknowns.

And sometimes you want more vegetables in your food and you think to ask but first you wonder "Is that allowed? Or will they think I'm rude and picky?" Or you want to yell out "taxi driver, slow the %!$# down," and you get kind of mad but you don't say it because before you do anything you always ask yourself if it's customary to do this or will they think I'm rude. You always think twice.

And everyday, you walk to work and cross the street when it's safe but your idea of safe starts to change because you walk the roads twice a day you get familiar with the few streets that you walk down all the time. Slowly parts of it are committed to memory and you start to learn little things, like how to make weak jokes. You learn to watch out crossing the street outside work because motos come flying down the hill but from home to work you can sneak across the street before motos start moving if the light is freshly green because they have no acceleration, especially going up a hill and plus, they'll swerve ever so slightly to avoid hitting you. You learn to take the shaded route to work back from lunch to avoid the midday heat.

So you can sneak across the street and hop onto the curb and go down the hill and cut through the market and get to work all sneaky and lithe. You get to know the traffic lights, like at Boundary Street and Nathan Street...or University and Westmount. Lithe. And you begin to relax a little more in your town, at ease.

And now when the policeman whistles, you hardly take notice and it still doesn't make sense but it's not an urgent matter. It's a conceptual police whistle and you filter it out as background noise because you have acquired the Tumbes filter. You have learned to separate background noise from what requires attention. Stray dogs will bark, won't bite - do not require full attention. People yelling are not yelling at you - ignore. That cute girl who works at the store on the corner - don't ignore. Conservation of mangroves - requires attention. You talk to a couple waiters that start to recognize you, and store owners and guards and you relax a little more and you sleep better because you know to point the industrial fan away from you to keep the mosquitos away without making you too cold and you start to feel like "yeah, no matter what is thrown at me right now, I can probably handle it." Though most of the time that is true from the beginning, it just takes realising. You know where to eat and where to buy water, what to do for breakfast, the routine provides comfort. And you realise that not everyone is trying to rob you or con you. And you go from biding your time and counting the days, to actually living them.



And at one point, that feeling of having settled in hits you and you smile to yourself, like when Steph said "God willing" to that guy. For me it was when I played my second game of chess with the 10 year-old kid local champion near the Plaza de Armas after he narrowly beat me last week with his defensive tactics and I told him I knew his strengths this time and that I would win, and I smiled inwardly and thought to myself that I didn't have to think twice about saying that and I don't have to think twice about as much anymore and it's nice to not have to think twice about everything though I should think twice about opening with my knights again.

So I go on and play with this hyperactive, chubby genius kid who drinks too much soda and uses his pawns so well and always controls the centre of the board. And he beats me twice, once just barely and then once easily and arrogantly, and I vow that I will beat him next week though I really doubt it.