eating with 5 different people from 5 different countries speaking 6 languages.
Riding home standing on the bumper of a jeep with the wind in your face and the sunset at your back.
Sharing one corazón.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
...And That's Okay!
Someone I know once told me about a self-help book called That’s Okay! (if you’re reading this, whoever you are, please remind me it was you). The title of each chapter started with, “Sometimes you…” and ended with “And that’s okay!” The spectrum of emotional validation the chapters provided was quite disturbing:
Sometimes you get hurt…and that’s okay!
Sometimes you do the hurting…and that’s okay!
Sometimes others are selfish…and that’s okay!
Sometimes you are selfish…and that’s okay!
No, sometimes you do the hurting and that’s not okay. I remember telling Ruth about this and laughing somewhat melancholically about the blatant mistruth it was sending out into the universe. We started making jokes like “Sometimes you fall asleep sitting up…and that’s okay!” Sometimes you eat your brother’s Cheetos…and that’s okay! Sometimes you screen your boss’s calls…and that’s okay!” Of course the irony here is that sometimes you do things that are not okay at all, like peeing in the pool or telling the kid’s parents that you were babysitting for that no, you have no idea where they got the gum that ended up in their hair.
I worked a 12 hour day today, as has been becoming quite common recently. Normally when I work a long day, I do it not because I have to or because I’ve got too much to handle in 8 to 10 hours, but because I would rather work a long but satisfying day and get everything done than leave loose ends for the next morning. On days like these, I choose to work late because I am enjoying work and quite honestly have nothing to go home to. Today was not one of those days. I worked a 12 hour day today because I had to, and because I was STRESSED.
I left the office at 8 p.m., but only made it about 10 or 20 steps before sitting down on the curb and having a breakdown. Everything had gone wrong. What had been a frustrating day ended in an hour long discussion with a suspicious client accusing me of charging him double interest, inflating his loan amount, and all-together aiming to take advantage of he and his family. This was especially upsetting because I have spent probably 5 hours a week working to accommodate this particular client’s situation and assure that he and his family can take out a water tank loan that is affordable for them. He wasn`t suited with any of the payment plans I offerred him. Usually we offer one payment plan: take it or leave it. But his family really needed the loan, and I dealt with his waffling for weeks as I worked to design a loan he could benefit from. Of course not all clients will love you or the product that you (so lovingly and laboriously) designed, and I know not to take it personally.
But I sat on the curb and I cried. It was more of a gentle weeping at first—at least until I thought about how sad it was that I was crying on the side of the street. A kid on a bike clearly made for someone double his size stared at me as he rode by, smacking his bubblegum and looking scared. As I pulled myself together and started walking toward the bus stop, I couldn’t help but smile as I thought, Sometimes you sit down on the curb and cry…and that’s okay!
I think in this case it really might be. Tina Fey describes crying at work in her new book, Bossypants (which I highly recommend, by the way):
“And then I sobbed in my office for ten minutes. The same ten minutes that magazines urge me to use for sit-ups and triceps dips, I used for sobbing. Of course I’m not supposed to admit that there is triannual torrential sobbing in my office, because it’s bad for the feminist cause. It makes it harder for women to be taken seriously in the workplace. It makes it harder for other working moms to justify their cause. But I have friends who stay at home with their kids and they also have a triannual sob, so I think we should call it even. I think we should be kind to one another about it.”
Somehow it makes me feel better that Tina Fey has also cried at work. Triannually, in fact! Tina Fey works her dream job, and I’m working about as close to my dream job as possible for a recent college grad with no work experience in the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression. So here’s to crying at work. If you don’t care enough to cry about it once in a while, you probably don’t care enough.
Sometimes you get hurt…and that’s okay!
Sometimes you do the hurting…and that’s okay!
Sometimes others are selfish…and that’s okay!
Sometimes you are selfish…and that’s okay!
No, sometimes you do the hurting and that’s not okay. I remember telling Ruth about this and laughing somewhat melancholically about the blatant mistruth it was sending out into the universe. We started making jokes like “Sometimes you fall asleep sitting up…and that’s okay!” Sometimes you eat your brother’s Cheetos…and that’s okay! Sometimes you screen your boss’s calls…and that’s okay!” Of course the irony here is that sometimes you do things that are not okay at all, like peeing in the pool or telling the kid’s parents that you were babysitting for that no, you have no idea where they got the gum that ended up in their hair.
I worked a 12 hour day today, as has been becoming quite common recently. Normally when I work a long day, I do it not because I have to or because I’ve got too much to handle in 8 to 10 hours, but because I would rather work a long but satisfying day and get everything done than leave loose ends for the next morning. On days like these, I choose to work late because I am enjoying work and quite honestly have nothing to go home to. Today was not one of those days. I worked a 12 hour day today because I had to, and because I was STRESSED.
I left the office at 8 p.m., but only made it about 10 or 20 steps before sitting down on the curb and having a breakdown. Everything had gone wrong. What had been a frustrating day ended in an hour long discussion with a suspicious client accusing me of charging him double interest, inflating his loan amount, and all-together aiming to take advantage of he and his family. This was especially upsetting because I have spent probably 5 hours a week working to accommodate this particular client’s situation and assure that he and his family can take out a water tank loan that is affordable for them. He wasn`t suited with any of the payment plans I offerred him. Usually we offer one payment plan: take it or leave it. But his family really needed the loan, and I dealt with his waffling for weeks as I worked to design a loan he could benefit from. Of course not all clients will love you or the product that you (so lovingly and laboriously) designed, and I know not to take it personally.
But I sat on the curb and I cried. It was more of a gentle weeping at first—at least until I thought about how sad it was that I was crying on the side of the street. A kid on a bike clearly made for someone double his size stared at me as he rode by, smacking his bubblegum and looking scared. As I pulled myself together and started walking toward the bus stop, I couldn’t help but smile as I thought, Sometimes you sit down on the curb and cry…and that’s okay!
I think in this case it really might be. Tina Fey describes crying at work in her new book, Bossypants (which I highly recommend, by the way):
“And then I sobbed in my office for ten minutes. The same ten minutes that magazines urge me to use for sit-ups and triceps dips, I used for sobbing. Of course I’m not supposed to admit that there is triannual torrential sobbing in my office, because it’s bad for the feminist cause. It makes it harder for women to be taken seriously in the workplace. It makes it harder for other working moms to justify their cause. But I have friends who stay at home with their kids and they also have a triannual sob, so I think we should call it even. I think we should be kind to one another about it.”
Somehow it makes me feel better that Tina Fey has also cried at work. Triannually, in fact! Tina Fey works her dream job, and I’m working about as close to my dream job as possible for a recent college grad with no work experience in the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression. So here’s to crying at work. If you don’t care enough to cry about it once in a while, you probably don’t care enough.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Light in the Darkness
I am way behind on work and fighting the Monday fight--this weekend was SO not a good weekend to spring ahead and lose an hour of sleep--but I just have to post a quick little note to you. Yesterday I went to this town called Yelapa on the southernmost part of the bay, and you can only get there by boat. No cars, no roads, just the beach and the mountains and the hippies. We spent the day listening to live music and drinking up the sun and it was so beautiful and I was so thankful and blah blah blah. We stayed too late and took the boat back at twilight. I could write a whole post about it. But for now, I just have to say OMIGOSH.
There is this thing that happens in the water at night--I don't know if it only happens here or if this is an everwhere thing. Anyway, phosphorous in the water soaks up light during the day, and holds onto it until it is moved. So at night, as fish and rays and boats swim through the water, the movement stirs up the phosporus and makes it give off light. LIGHT! Light in the dark water! The wake created by our boat was lit up as if from a thousand glow sticks. We could look over the side of the boat and see fish moving, in stunning circles of glowing magical light.
So even though I'm feeling some serious Monday morning pain right now, I saw light in the darkness last night. Light from nowhere, glowing and sparkling. And you know what I keep thinking? It doesn't do that unless someone is there to move the water--life is what makes light.
There is this thing that happens in the water at night--I don't know if it only happens here or if this is an everwhere thing. Anyway, phosphorous in the water soaks up light during the day, and holds onto it until it is moved. So at night, as fish and rays and boats swim through the water, the movement stirs up the phosporus and makes it give off light. LIGHT! Light in the dark water! The wake created by our boat was lit up as if from a thousand glow sticks. We could look over the side of the boat and see fish moving, in stunning circles of glowing magical light.
So even though I'm feeling some serious Monday morning pain right now, I saw light in the darkness last night. Light from nowhere, glowing and sparkling. And you know what I keep thinking? It doesn't do that unless someone is there to move the water--life is what makes light.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
On Value
One of the most consistently commented-upon cultural differences between the US and Mexico is the perception of time. In Mexico (and most every Latin American country), time is free—that’s an actual saying! Where I come from, time is money. I wrote a post about this when I was in Chile, so I’ve been thinking about different concepts of time for a while now. In Chile I was focused on the wonderful ways that this “time is free” attitude challenges and grows me, on the way that it makes me take a deep breath and drop my stress-laden shoulders back to where they should be. But here in Mexico, I’m thinking about this time thing in a new light.
I suppose before I was focused on the divide in cultural personalities; we are rushed and they are mellow. I thought about it in a very self-depreciating way, thinking that it is Americans who need to learn to stop and smell the roses. Of course, we do. But recently I’ve begun to understand just why this Mexican disregard for time is so irritating to Americans: We feel devalued.
When a client is 25 minutes late to a meeting and I am forced to sit and wait until they arrive, it feels to me that they believe their time is more valuable than mine, that I am not important to them. Since to me time is money, their waste of my time seems to me a profession that I am of little worth. Mexicans, however, don’t internalize time in this way.
The need to feel valued by others is so essential to us as people. To value someone is to acknowledge and accommodate them. It’s how we express love to each other and give meaning to each other’s lives. It is so affirming to me when people tell me they enjoy reading my blog. Of course the compliment is nice, but what really makes me feel good is that you are showing up to witness my life. You are taking part in it with me, sharing my experience and affirming that things that I think have significance. And this is honoring and valuing to me.
Tonight I walked into my bedroom and the overhead light was on. It had never worked before, and after changing the light bulb to no avail I had assumed the light switch just didn’t work. It wasn’t really a big deal, but because I only have a little lamp and my window is blocked in by a concrete wall, it has always been really dark in my room. I was so excited about this that I ran outside to tell the boys. “Guys, I just flipped the light switch and suddenly it works!” They raised their eyebrows and pushed the corners of their lips down, saying cool and great but not really getting why this news was important. I get it—they never knew the light didn’t work in the first place and they’ve never been affected by my room being dark. It was a trivial, trivial thing, but I was happy and I wanted to share my happiness with someone. It’s like when you find a penny—it doesn’t really matter, but you tell whoever you’re with anyway just because they are there. But as I was walking back into my room, Kurt said:
I don’t care.
The boys burst into a fit of laughing that lasted a few minutes. Kurt was so proud of his joke, and every time it seemed the laughter had died they would remember the moment and get going again. I stood there for a few seconds feeling totally stupid and embarrassed, and then sat down at the table with my back to them so they wouldn’t see the rising color in my face. Ryan said, “Dude I think she heard you. I think she’s mad.” I turned around. “I’m right here guys, of course I heard you. I can still hear you.” Kurt has a quick wit, and the things he says at the expense of others can really hurt. He’s said things like this before, and this is the last straw for me.
I turn around, totally vulnerable. I tell him how I feel, that I was just excited at my discovery and didn’t think about how mundane it was. I tell him that I feel stupid, that the words he said were devaluing to me. He says “I’m sorry if you feel that way,” which isn’t actually an apology but rather a message that he thinks my feelings are illegitimate, that my feelings are the result of an over-sensitive and inaccurate contortion of what he said. If I feel that way, I am overreacting to his words and to his laughter at my expense, which were completely innocent.
We all need to be valued and affirmed, but I never really thought about it until tonight. Telling Kurt that he devalued me just kind of spilled out of my mouth, but once it did I was hit by the impact of those words. Isn’t being affirmed and valued by others one of the most meaningful parts of the human experience?
I’ve realized that maybe that’s why I love my work so much. Unfortunately our world ties personal worth to financial worth. Microfinance affirms people’s personal worth by giving them access to financial services. By providing poor people with access to capital, I am telling them that they are worth investing in, that they have value and can create businesses of value.
I suppose the purpose in all of this is to encourage all of you to start paying attention to the things that you do to value and affirm people, and the things that make you feel valued.
As always, thank you for being a part of my life by reading this blog.
I love you all so!
Amy
I suppose before I was focused on the divide in cultural personalities; we are rushed and they are mellow. I thought about it in a very self-depreciating way, thinking that it is Americans who need to learn to stop and smell the roses. Of course, we do. But recently I’ve begun to understand just why this Mexican disregard for time is so irritating to Americans: We feel devalued.
When a client is 25 minutes late to a meeting and I am forced to sit and wait until they arrive, it feels to me that they believe their time is more valuable than mine, that I am not important to them. Since to me time is money, their waste of my time seems to me a profession that I am of little worth. Mexicans, however, don’t internalize time in this way.
The need to feel valued by others is so essential to us as people. To value someone is to acknowledge and accommodate them. It’s how we express love to each other and give meaning to each other’s lives. It is so affirming to me when people tell me they enjoy reading my blog. Of course the compliment is nice, but what really makes me feel good is that you are showing up to witness my life. You are taking part in it with me, sharing my experience and affirming that things that I think have significance. And this is honoring and valuing to me.
Tonight I walked into my bedroom and the overhead light was on. It had never worked before, and after changing the light bulb to no avail I had assumed the light switch just didn’t work. It wasn’t really a big deal, but because I only have a little lamp and my window is blocked in by a concrete wall, it has always been really dark in my room. I was so excited about this that I ran outside to tell the boys. “Guys, I just flipped the light switch and suddenly it works!” They raised their eyebrows and pushed the corners of their lips down, saying cool and great but not really getting why this news was important. I get it—they never knew the light didn’t work in the first place and they’ve never been affected by my room being dark. It was a trivial, trivial thing, but I was happy and I wanted to share my happiness with someone. It’s like when you find a penny—it doesn’t really matter, but you tell whoever you’re with anyway just because they are there. But as I was walking back into my room, Kurt said:
I don’t care.
The boys burst into a fit of laughing that lasted a few minutes. Kurt was so proud of his joke, and every time it seemed the laughter had died they would remember the moment and get going again. I stood there for a few seconds feeling totally stupid and embarrassed, and then sat down at the table with my back to them so they wouldn’t see the rising color in my face. Ryan said, “Dude I think she heard you. I think she’s mad.” I turned around. “I’m right here guys, of course I heard you. I can still hear you.” Kurt has a quick wit, and the things he says at the expense of others can really hurt. He’s said things like this before, and this is the last straw for me.
I turn around, totally vulnerable. I tell him how I feel, that I was just excited at my discovery and didn’t think about how mundane it was. I tell him that I feel stupid, that the words he said were devaluing to me. He says “I’m sorry if you feel that way,” which isn’t actually an apology but rather a message that he thinks my feelings are illegitimate, that my feelings are the result of an over-sensitive and inaccurate contortion of what he said. If I feel that way, I am overreacting to his words and to his laughter at my expense, which were completely innocent.
We all need to be valued and affirmed, but I never really thought about it until tonight. Telling Kurt that he devalued me just kind of spilled out of my mouth, but once it did I was hit by the impact of those words. Isn’t being affirmed and valued by others one of the most meaningful parts of the human experience?
I’ve realized that maybe that’s why I love my work so much. Unfortunately our world ties personal worth to financial worth. Microfinance affirms people’s personal worth by giving them access to financial services. By providing poor people with access to capital, I am telling them that they are worth investing in, that they have value and can create businesses of value.
I suppose the purpose in all of this is to encourage all of you to start paying attention to the things that you do to value and affirm people, and the things that make you feel valued.
As always, thank you for being a part of my life by reading this blog.
I love you all so!
Amy
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Day in the Life
You guysssss!
I’m the worst blogger ever! In fact, I may not even be able to call myself a blogger anymore (not that I take great pride in that title…). Anyway, I am sorry I have been SO remiss in writing and updating. I have been busy, yes, but business usually doesn’t keep me from blogging. More than that, I think I’ve just settled into this routine where time has started passing without me noticing too much. All I’m doing is going to work every day, and it seems a little bit unremarkable.
One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of you keep asking, “So, what is it that you DO exactly?” I told you I’ve settled into this routine, so the routine is what I’m going to record. Hopefully that will also provide a little window into what I do day-to-day. Yesterday was a very average day, so I decided to keep a record of it to share.
That being said, this could be the most flop of a flop blog post ever.
7:45 am. I hit snooze and snuggle deeper into the covers. I am at that perfect sleeping temperature, and morning came too fast. I drift in and out of sleep, rallying myself to wake up. I remember how last night I was too lazy to wash the sand from the beach off my feet before getting into bed, so I put socks on to keep the bed from getting sandy. I regret that decision.
8:02 am. The sandy socks get shaken out and thrown in the laundry. I put hot water on for coffee (gotta boil the tap water to kill the germs!), put my contacts in, wash my face, brush my teeth, and pause for a moment in front of the mirror. I think I look wonderful and happy. I think that I look young, that these freckles are signs of a life being lived. I wonder if my skin is going to age prematurely because of all the sun exposure. I put sunscreen on, like always.
8:20 am. I’ve thrown on a tank top and ratty brown capris that Molly (PEACE’s founder) gave me. They are soft and worn in, and I’m enjoying the delicate morning as I grind coffee beans, cut up strawberries, and pour some yogurt (Activia!) for breakfast.
8:30 am. I’m working now. Well…kind of. As I eat breakfast, I look at before and after tsunami pictures of Japan, and shoot up a quick prayer for them. I pray that they find grace, that they find moments of peace and clarity in tragedy. I pray that everyone has at least one other human to cling to as they deal with their changed lives. I pray for calm. I check Facebook, and pray for safe travels for my Mom—she’s driving to my grandparent’s in Missouri today. The boys are up now, which to my continued confusion always fills the apartment with a cacophony of grunts, burps, and low grumbles. Their voices are about an octave lower in the morning, and they shuffle around sleepily. I am kind of grossed out by the burping. I wonder I could ever be married to a boy and not be grossed out by those waking up sounds. Maybe my boy will be a quiet waker-upper.
9:00 am. The boys are packing their backpacks and heading to Vallarta for the day. They tell me their plans and confirm bus routes with me. Yes, I say, switch busses at the cruise dock and get on the one that goes toward the Rio Cuale. We agree to meet back here at 6:00 for our friend Kathy’s book talk. From 9:00 to 10:30 I answer emails, translate a document for my boss, and calculate loan renewal rates and group renewal rates for our loan officer, Mar. I figure out that exactly 75% of our clients take out a second loan after completing their first loan cycle. Our group growth rate is 118%--that’s good. I once again think about how I need to update my blog. This time, I actually have an idea. I write what you just read. ☺
10:45 am. I wash my breakfast dishes and pour the extra coffee from the french press into the jar of iced coffee in the fridge. I put on my blue collared Sé Más shirt. I hate my Sé Más shirt. I put my hair into a ponytail and look in the mirror before heading out the door. I worry that I dress like I’m 31 instead of 21.
11:04 am. I head toward the hardware store. Tomorrow the plumber is going to install our first water tank (for the loan product that I created)! I’ve arranged discount pricing with a certain store since we’re providing them quite a bit of business (and since my boss is dating the owner…), so I’ve got to stop by to make sure they have all the supplies ready for the plumber to pick up on his way out to the client’s house tomorrow. Once I arrive, they have nothing ready but they promise me that it will be ready by tomorrow. Suuuure.
Our loan officer, Mar, is supposed to pick me up at 11:45, so I walk down to a corner store for groceries in my extra few minutes. I pick up the ingredients for some awesome vegetarian chili and run home to drop the groceries off. On my way home I walk past a welding business, and try to maintain a serious face as 10-15 men stop their work and lift their masks to whistle and cat call. In Mexico I am “la guera”—someone who is blond or has light skin. I’m never sure if cat calls like this are flattering or offensive.
11:50 am. Mar calls me and tells me he’s running late. I give him my usual response: the clients will be late too. This is a joke between us. No matter how late we are it seems the clients are always later. We are going to fill out applications with a group of potential clients in a town about 15 min south of Bucerías.
12:08 pm. Mar finally arrives, and he risks both of our lives in an effort to arrive to the meeting on time. We arrive to find that although we are 20 minutes late, no one is there yet. Welcome to Mexico. The house where we are filling out applications is typical of our clients. The living room is furnished with buckets for seats and plastic patio furniture. A bedazzled TV rests on of those Sterilite plastic sets of drawers, and a single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling. Potential clients start arriving around 12:30, and Mar presents our loan product. He explains our interest rates, the way financial education works, and hands out credit applications.
By 1:15 pm all nine of the clients have filled out applications—this is fast. Most of our clients have never done even a simple budget before filling out the application. It is difficult for me to explain math and budgeting to them in Spanish, although I’ve gotten much better at it. Most of them have less than a high school education, and they struggle to understand concepts that to me seem obvious. For example, we ask them to list their expenses. They list things like food, transportation, rent, and the electric bill. However, they write how much they spend on food every 3 days, how much they spend on transportation every week, how much they spend on rent every month, and how much they spend on electricity every 2 months. They rarely understand my efforts to explain that to make a budget, they must list everything in the same unit of time. It’s not that they are stupid—they aren’t. But these are things we learn in school, and these concepts aren’t obvious to them. I thank God for my education and guard myself against taking it for granted.
1:30 pm. Mar drops me off back in Bucerías and I spend the rest of the afternoon calculating growth rates, entering data from the new applications, updating the Sé Más Facebook page, calling clients to remind them of our meeting tomorrow, responding to email, and working on our social impact survey. I stop for lunch around 3:00, heating up leftover black bean burgers and eating half an avacado straight out of its skin. The heat fogs my brain, and I struggle to focus. I listen to the new Kanye and Adele cds, as well as James Taylor’s Greatest Hits.
5:00 pm. Ryan and Kurt come home. They tell me about their day, and I still have stuff to get done, but instead I Skype with Meagan. Working at home all afternoon alone wears me out, and by 6:00 I’ve given up. Ryan tells me we need to get going to our friend Kathy’s book reading. I look like a ball of trash, but I quickly put on some mascara and switch the ratty capris for jeans and a nice top. Kathy is a retired Bucerías resident, and she has written a book about her grandmother’s journey from Palestine to the US to Mexico. It is an inspiring tale of a woman of strength and of softness, and the story makes me tear up. As Kathy reads, we watch the sun set over the water in the background. Ryan and I are the only people under 50 at the event; that’s what happens when you live in a town of retired US and Canadian ex-pats. Someone yet again asks us how long we’ve been married. By now we’re good at laughing off this particular assumption, and you can’t blame people for jumping to this conclusion (most women don’t wear their diamond engagement rings in Mexico).
9:00 pm. We come home and I put pasta on to boil while I take a quick shower. I douse the pasta in fresh pesto from the Sunday farmer’s market, and watch an episode of Mad Men as I eat. By 11:30 I’m both tired and out of stuff to do, so I go to bed.
Wow, recording a day in my life is exhausting (and long, sorry!) It makes me feel like I’ve lived the day twice—hopefully this was at least moderately interesting! I’ll write again soon.
Amy
I’m the worst blogger ever! In fact, I may not even be able to call myself a blogger anymore (not that I take great pride in that title…). Anyway, I am sorry I have been SO remiss in writing and updating. I have been busy, yes, but business usually doesn’t keep me from blogging. More than that, I think I’ve just settled into this routine where time has started passing without me noticing too much. All I’m doing is going to work every day, and it seems a little bit unremarkable.
One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of you keep asking, “So, what is it that you DO exactly?” I told you I’ve settled into this routine, so the routine is what I’m going to record. Hopefully that will also provide a little window into what I do day-to-day. Yesterday was a very average day, so I decided to keep a record of it to share.
That being said, this could be the most flop of a flop blog post ever.
7:45 am. I hit snooze and snuggle deeper into the covers. I am at that perfect sleeping temperature, and morning came too fast. I drift in and out of sleep, rallying myself to wake up. I remember how last night I was too lazy to wash the sand from the beach off my feet before getting into bed, so I put socks on to keep the bed from getting sandy. I regret that decision.
8:02 am. The sandy socks get shaken out and thrown in the laundry. I put hot water on for coffee (gotta boil the tap water to kill the germs!), put my contacts in, wash my face, brush my teeth, and pause for a moment in front of the mirror. I think I look wonderful and happy. I think that I look young, that these freckles are signs of a life being lived. I wonder if my skin is going to age prematurely because of all the sun exposure. I put sunscreen on, like always.
8:20 am. I’ve thrown on a tank top and ratty brown capris that Molly (PEACE’s founder) gave me. They are soft and worn in, and I’m enjoying the delicate morning as I grind coffee beans, cut up strawberries, and pour some yogurt (Activia!) for breakfast.
8:30 am. I’m working now. Well…kind of. As I eat breakfast, I look at before and after tsunami pictures of Japan, and shoot up a quick prayer for them. I pray that they find grace, that they find moments of peace and clarity in tragedy. I pray that everyone has at least one other human to cling to as they deal with their changed lives. I pray for calm. I check Facebook, and pray for safe travels for my Mom—she’s driving to my grandparent’s in Missouri today. The boys are up now, which to my continued confusion always fills the apartment with a cacophony of grunts, burps, and low grumbles. Their voices are about an octave lower in the morning, and they shuffle around sleepily. I am kind of grossed out by the burping. I wonder I could ever be married to a boy and not be grossed out by those waking up sounds. Maybe my boy will be a quiet waker-upper.
9:00 am. The boys are packing their backpacks and heading to Vallarta for the day. They tell me their plans and confirm bus routes with me. Yes, I say, switch busses at the cruise dock and get on the one that goes toward the Rio Cuale. We agree to meet back here at 6:00 for our friend Kathy’s book talk. From 9:00 to 10:30 I answer emails, translate a document for my boss, and calculate loan renewal rates and group renewal rates for our loan officer, Mar. I figure out that exactly 75% of our clients take out a second loan after completing their first loan cycle. Our group growth rate is 118%--that’s good. I once again think about how I need to update my blog. This time, I actually have an idea. I write what you just read. ☺
10:45 am. I wash my breakfast dishes and pour the extra coffee from the french press into the jar of iced coffee in the fridge. I put on my blue collared Sé Más shirt. I hate my Sé Más shirt. I put my hair into a ponytail and look in the mirror before heading out the door. I worry that I dress like I’m 31 instead of 21.
11:04 am. I head toward the hardware store. Tomorrow the plumber is going to install our first water tank (for the loan product that I created)! I’ve arranged discount pricing with a certain store since we’re providing them quite a bit of business (and since my boss is dating the owner…), so I’ve got to stop by to make sure they have all the supplies ready for the plumber to pick up on his way out to the client’s house tomorrow. Once I arrive, they have nothing ready but they promise me that it will be ready by tomorrow. Suuuure.
Our loan officer, Mar, is supposed to pick me up at 11:45, so I walk down to a corner store for groceries in my extra few minutes. I pick up the ingredients for some awesome vegetarian chili and run home to drop the groceries off. On my way home I walk past a welding business, and try to maintain a serious face as 10-15 men stop their work and lift their masks to whistle and cat call. In Mexico I am “la guera”—someone who is blond or has light skin. I’m never sure if cat calls like this are flattering or offensive.
11:50 am. Mar calls me and tells me he’s running late. I give him my usual response: the clients will be late too. This is a joke between us. No matter how late we are it seems the clients are always later. We are going to fill out applications with a group of potential clients in a town about 15 min south of Bucerías.
12:08 pm. Mar finally arrives, and he risks both of our lives in an effort to arrive to the meeting on time. We arrive to find that although we are 20 minutes late, no one is there yet. Welcome to Mexico. The house where we are filling out applications is typical of our clients. The living room is furnished with buckets for seats and plastic patio furniture. A bedazzled TV rests on of those Sterilite plastic sets of drawers, and a single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling. Potential clients start arriving around 12:30, and Mar presents our loan product. He explains our interest rates, the way financial education works, and hands out credit applications.
By 1:15 pm all nine of the clients have filled out applications—this is fast. Most of our clients have never done even a simple budget before filling out the application. It is difficult for me to explain math and budgeting to them in Spanish, although I’ve gotten much better at it. Most of them have less than a high school education, and they struggle to understand concepts that to me seem obvious. For example, we ask them to list their expenses. They list things like food, transportation, rent, and the electric bill. However, they write how much they spend on food every 3 days, how much they spend on transportation every week, how much they spend on rent every month, and how much they spend on electricity every 2 months. They rarely understand my efforts to explain that to make a budget, they must list everything in the same unit of time. It’s not that they are stupid—they aren’t. But these are things we learn in school, and these concepts aren’t obvious to them. I thank God for my education and guard myself against taking it for granted.
1:30 pm. Mar drops me off back in Bucerías and I spend the rest of the afternoon calculating growth rates, entering data from the new applications, updating the Sé Más Facebook page, calling clients to remind them of our meeting tomorrow, responding to email, and working on our social impact survey. I stop for lunch around 3:00, heating up leftover black bean burgers and eating half an avacado straight out of its skin. The heat fogs my brain, and I struggle to focus. I listen to the new Kanye and Adele cds, as well as James Taylor’s Greatest Hits.
5:00 pm. Ryan and Kurt come home. They tell me about their day, and I still have stuff to get done, but instead I Skype with Meagan. Working at home all afternoon alone wears me out, and by 6:00 I’ve given up. Ryan tells me we need to get going to our friend Kathy’s book reading. I look like a ball of trash, but I quickly put on some mascara and switch the ratty capris for jeans and a nice top. Kathy is a retired Bucerías resident, and she has written a book about her grandmother’s journey from Palestine to the US to Mexico. It is an inspiring tale of a woman of strength and of softness, and the story makes me tear up. As Kathy reads, we watch the sun set over the water in the background. Ryan and I are the only people under 50 at the event; that’s what happens when you live in a town of retired US and Canadian ex-pats. Someone yet again asks us how long we’ve been married. By now we’re good at laughing off this particular assumption, and you can’t blame people for jumping to this conclusion (most women don’t wear their diamond engagement rings in Mexico).
9:00 pm. We come home and I put pasta on to boil while I take a quick shower. I douse the pasta in fresh pesto from the Sunday farmer’s market, and watch an episode of Mad Men as I eat. By 11:30 I’m both tired and out of stuff to do, so I go to bed.
Wow, recording a day in my life is exhausting (and long, sorry!) It makes me feel like I’ve lived the day twice—hopefully this was at least moderately interesting! I’ll write again soon.
Amy
Friday, February 11, 2011
Things I Love About This Place
-the sun shines every day
-the Thursday night Bucerías art walk: free tamales, sangría, and if you come early enough, cake. Thursday night is always tamale night. YUM.
-strawberries are sold on a truck that drives up and down the streets
-no import tax on corona. just kidding...what's corona?
-every morning my commute involves walking around a corner and gasping at an amazing view of the bay. It's cliche, but true: every time I see it is like the first time.
-the avacado is always fresh and always cheap
-I get to do a job that empowers women and makes their lives better
-every night I walk on the beach at sunset. It is the best part of my day.
-I have a personal relationship with the owner of my favorite café, and every time I come in he brings me "the usual" without me asking for it
-there is this thing called a chocofresa--frozen strawberries on a stick dipped in chocolate. I am also quite fond of it's cousin, the chocobanana. The perfect 80 cent treat on a hot day
-the mustache is back
-the Thursday night Bucerías art walk: free tamales, sangría, and if you come early enough, cake. Thursday night is always tamale night. YUM.
-strawberries are sold on a truck that drives up and down the streets
-no import tax on corona. just kidding...what's corona?
-every morning my commute involves walking around a corner and gasping at an amazing view of the bay. It's cliche, but true: every time I see it is like the first time.
-the avacado is always fresh and always cheap
-I get to do a job that empowers women and makes their lives better
-every night I walk on the beach at sunset. It is the best part of my day.
-I have a personal relationship with the owner of my favorite café, and every time I come in he brings me "the usual" without me asking for it
-there is this thing called a chocofresa--frozen strawberries on a stick dipped in chocolate. I am also quite fond of it's cousin, the chocobanana. The perfect 80 cent treat on a hot day
-the mustache is back
Monday, February 7, 2011
Doing the Difficult Thing
Weekends can be rough when you have little to no friends. Ryan and I spent Friday night withering away on our computers in our apartment, as I mentally beat up on myself for not having a vibrant social life by my third weekend in this new place. I struggle with guilt, and knowing this I kept trying to give myself little pep talks: Give it time. This is normal. You are not going to feel like this forever. I was beating myself up for being unhappy in a tropical climate; as if the “At least it’s warm there!” brightside would solve all my problems—it doesn’t. The pity party continued Saturday night; I literally called everyone in my phone (all 5 of them) in an effort to get out of the house, to no avail. Over Skype my mom implored me to join clubs, do crafts, learn to cook, or develop some new hobby.
Her suggestions themselves were good ideas, and I knew that they came from her mother’s heart, from the deep and soft part of her that loves me desperately and sees me as an extension of herself. However, the more suggestions she threw my way, the more frustrated I became. “Mom, I don’t have any money and I don’t want to learn to knit!” I explained (not very kindly or patiently) that her lists of all the things I could be doing only made me feel worse for not doing them. How many people would love to have a free Friday night? I felt horrible because I am 21 and healthy and intelligent and doing exactly what I want to do with my life, and yet I spent my Saturday night whining and waiting for an episode of Mad Men to download on our slooooowww internet.
Weekend nights are the hardest. Workdays are full of clients, email, spreadsheets, marketing, and loan portfolios. Even though work can be frustrating and difficult, the challenge makes me feel good. I spend weekend days at the beach letting the sun warm my skin and lift my spirits. Yesterday I was lying on the beach thinking about the sad little weekend I had just “survived,” and I think I made some attitude progress.
I realized that being successful doesn’t take just one difficult step like moving to Mexico. It takes the courage to keep stepping to places outside your comfort zone. Although I was not excited about learning new skills or finding hobbies to keep me busy, I realized that there are things I can do to feel better here, to make this place my home. What bothers me about developing hobbies is that they seem so trivial, like ways to get my mind off of things instead of becoming truly happy with my reality.
For example, I need to take care of my body. I need to be hydrated and well rested. I need to be eating healthy food and exercising regularly. These are things that I can do, and I know that doing them will improve my outlook and give me energy. So often after a hard day I don’t want to try a new exercise class or put myself in yet another new and unfamiliar situation; I’m tired! But just like eating a ton of junk food after a hard day doesn’t actually make you feel better, many of the easy, knee-jerk things that I want to do in my free time can actually make me feel worse. I need to focus on those things that really will help me in the long run.
Honestly I still don’t have a good attitude about this.
I wish it were just easy.
I’m working on it.
Amy
Her suggestions themselves were good ideas, and I knew that they came from her mother’s heart, from the deep and soft part of her that loves me desperately and sees me as an extension of herself. However, the more suggestions she threw my way, the more frustrated I became. “Mom, I don’t have any money and I don’t want to learn to knit!” I explained (not very kindly or patiently) that her lists of all the things I could be doing only made me feel worse for not doing them. How many people would love to have a free Friday night? I felt horrible because I am 21 and healthy and intelligent and doing exactly what I want to do with my life, and yet I spent my Saturday night whining and waiting for an episode of Mad Men to download on our slooooowww internet.
Weekend nights are the hardest. Workdays are full of clients, email, spreadsheets, marketing, and loan portfolios. Even though work can be frustrating and difficult, the challenge makes me feel good. I spend weekend days at the beach letting the sun warm my skin and lift my spirits. Yesterday I was lying on the beach thinking about the sad little weekend I had just “survived,” and I think I made some attitude progress.
I realized that being successful doesn’t take just one difficult step like moving to Mexico. It takes the courage to keep stepping to places outside your comfort zone. Although I was not excited about learning new skills or finding hobbies to keep me busy, I realized that there are things I can do to feel better here, to make this place my home. What bothers me about developing hobbies is that they seem so trivial, like ways to get my mind off of things instead of becoming truly happy with my reality.
For example, I need to take care of my body. I need to be hydrated and well rested. I need to be eating healthy food and exercising regularly. These are things that I can do, and I know that doing them will improve my outlook and give me energy. So often after a hard day I don’t want to try a new exercise class or put myself in yet another new and unfamiliar situation; I’m tired! But just like eating a ton of junk food after a hard day doesn’t actually make you feel better, many of the easy, knee-jerk things that I want to do in my free time can actually make me feel worse. I need to focus on those things that really will help me in the long run.
Honestly I still don’t have a good attitude about this.
I wish it were just easy.
I’m working on it.
Amy
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