Sights and Sounds of Bilwi

It's quite a process, one I don't know I would manage very well. The first person sits on the bike frame and holds on to the middle of the handle bars. The second person puts their hands on the handles of the handlebars and begins pushing. The second person then jumps onto the seat of the bike and tries to begin pedalling while the person sitting on the bike frame helps steer the bike straight down the road. Once the bike gets going, you better hope you have a clear path, because any loss of momentum puts you at risk of toppling over and having to start the process all over again.

It's tandem biking (on a single person bike), and it's just one of many things that have rooted themselves in my conscious mind as normal, despite how abnormal they would appear to me in the States. Of course there are rules for tandem biking: It is often a chauffeur service for young ladies. Young men will bring their counterparts to their destination, but apart from helping getting the bike going, the females do not steer. Same-sex tandem biking is also common, but then one person steers and brakes while the other person pedals in the back, balancing him or herself by putting hands on the steerers shoulders.

Physical contact between friends is also much more common. Hand-holding among women and walking with an arm draped around a friend's neck and shoulder among men are visible on a daily basis. When someone's knee falls into yours as you sit side-by-side, there's no uncomfortable shift to avoid the contact - you just sit there "connected at the knee", so to speak. I am not shocked to see opposite-sex friends rubbing each other's backs or sitting on each other's laps as though they are dating. At first, I thought one of my friends from choir had about five girlfriends, until it stuck that the physical contact is just that much more common.

Palm trees have mostly assimilated themselves into what I would consider a normal everyday sight. There are some real tall ones that still catch my eye and remind me that all these trees around me are not ones I would see much of in Wisconsin, but the palm tree has become just another piece of nature. Actually, I should probably appreciate them more while I'm here!

School uniforms. Man, you should see the parade of kids around the noon hour when primary school classes have just gotten out and secondary school classes are about to begin. The streets are just filled with kids in white tops and navy blue slacks and skirts. Well, except the nursing school, who has their students wear green skirts (nope, no male nurses here yet, that I know of). There were a couple shops in the market that went almost exclusively into School Uniform mode a few weeks ago. Must be a good business since all the kids have to have them. I'm not sure how long they keep them. I wonder how often those unis get washed...

Barking dogs have pretty much become an afterthought. When I'm Skyping with people, they're like "What's going on? Why are all those dogs barking?" And I don't even really notice that there are dogs barking! The dogs tend to bark for any reason, and the barking is contagious so all the dogs in the neighborhood break into a symphony of "ruffs", "woofs," and, for little guys like our neighbor's dog Pando, "squeeks." But it's such a regular occurance that it doesn't really do much to me anymore.

Taxi horns were also confusing and somewhat aggravating when we first got here. Taxi drivers are hard up for work and don't want to let any customer slip through their fingers, so they'll honk multiple times as they approach from behind and look at you as they drive past and honk one more time just in case you didn't know they were an in-service taxi. Honking in general is used for the same reasons as it is in the States - "Watch out, pedestrian thinking about crossing the street!", "Excuse me, car in front of me and stopped to drop of people, I would like to get through!", and "I'm here in front of your house waiting for you, customer that called me - Please come out!" It's just in such an abundance that I barely even think about it now because it blends in with the sounds of the day. Of course, when you actually get INTO a taxi, there's no getting used to the Grand Prix race you're in for, but you just have to trust that they know what they're doing.

Si Dios Quiere

There's a certain level of comfort that comes along with knowing what lies ahead. Knowing what to expect or what is expected of you allows for appropriate plans to be made and preparations to take place. But that's not how things work here.

Aside from what it says about the apparent religiosity of the people here, the phrase Si Dios quiere ("If God wants", or, in more familiar English terms "God willing...") carries a connotation about a perception of the future, specifically the lack of focus on the future, that people have here in Port. Trying to get information out of somebody for an event two months--even two weeks--down the line can be downright painful. Even simple conversation closers like, "Alright, I'll see you next Friday" can induce a Si Dios me presta la vida (If God allows me to live [until then]). Cripes, people! All I wanted to hear back was a Va, pues (Alright, then).

This can be, for someone with my personality, quite a challenge. I like to be able to plan for the next step, to be able to make a schedule. My first reaction to the lack of setting plans for the future is What if... What if this happens? What if that happens? What if it's the day before classes and we don't have an English teacher (real life example!)? We need to have these things figured out!

But it also makes me consider my own propensity to overthink the future and not live in the here and now; and sometimes to the point that I start concerning myself with outcomes that haven't even occurred yet. Maybe you've had the same experience. If it's really bad, I almost get paralyzed by these concerns--I put off doing something because I don't want to experience one of the potential results I have in my head.

I've seen it in myself and other people--the tendency to create a new reality that is separate from the actual reality, and then worry about the new reality and live according to it. But that's not healthy. Nor is it productive. So I tell myself instead of forming new realities and living in the future, live in reality and allow the future to form itself.

Now, of course there are times when thinking about the future is appropriate...planning a celebration, working on a long-term project, putting money into a retirement account (of course, I could argue against this logic, using my timing of opening and dumping a bunch of money into a retirement account in August 2008 [If you don't get my drift, read here http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm]).

But getting wrapped up in the outcome and losing sleep over how well something will turn out is not worthwhile. It's funny - on my mp3 player I recently found a couple audio tracks from a hypnotist I saw in college. Maybe he's where I subconsciously started developing this idea from five or six years ago, seeing as though he talks about this very topic. Anyway, he suggests picking a future event, say something a week down the line. Then, everyday until that event, worry about it for an hour. It's kind of extreme, but that's essentially what people do--or at least I do--when I get wrapped up in something over which I don't have complete control. But it's really not worth it.

I'm sure I'll still have my moments when I got lost in thought about the outcome of something weeks or months or even years down the line. And I don't know that I'll ever fully adjust to this Si Dios quiere/Si Dios me presta la vida mentality that comes so naturally here. But simply catching myself when I start to create realities helps me to curb the anxiety, letting the future worry about itself.