Living in Three Worlds

During my Election Day blog, I talked a bit how jarring it was to move back and forth between my English and Spanish world. After being at site for two months, I have come to realize that I have three different worlds that I live in – my Spanish world, my own little world, and my gringo world.

Obviously, my Spanish world is when I’m in my community and interacting with the folks here. Interacting is a good way to describe it, because saying talking and listening would leave out the big portion of finger pointing and hand gestures that help me to fully understand something. My favorite gesture is the finger point to the sky that represents the person is interested in the United States. Yes, it took me a few times to catch onto this, but now I’m good to go. Being in my Spanish world can be mentally exhausting, but the challenge is fun.

The second world that I know is my own little world. This expression came from my dad when he used it to describe my cousin once. Many years ago, my dad, my cousin and I went to a mall after Thanksgiving where my cousin lived. After my cousin navigated us to the mall, we started to walk to the entrance of the bookstore. As we neared the door, my cousin started walking really fast oblivious to the situation and pretty soon he was well ahead of us. This lead my dad to remark, “there goes Ryan into his own little world”. Now I find me in my own little world often as this is when I’m listening to my iPod, reading a book, or using the computer. Similar to my cousin, when I’m in my own world, I tune out the world around me.

Finally there is my gringo world where I’m talking with friends and family back home or hanging out with some other volunteers here in Panama. The gringo world is a nice change of pace, because it reminds me of life back home in the States.

Each of the three is a different from the next and as a result sometimes shifting between them can be difficult. For instance, during Thanksgiving when I was in Santiago, I had taken the bus there and jammed on my iPod in my own little world. After getting dropped off, I had a ten minute walk to the house where we were celebrating Thanksgiving. After stopping for a king sized Snickers, I started on my way. A few minutes later , I encountered two other volunteers. As we started to converse, I barely knew how to act at first. My own little world was disturbed and it took me a couple minutes to snap out of it.

Speaking of which, I’ve been in my own little world long enough, time to go back to my Spanish one. Now that’s the one that is toughest to switch my mind into.