My patience is used up right now. I don’t know what to do. I am really used to being able to control more of my circumstances.
Things I am able to control usually which are beyond my means right now:
- the decoration of my living space
- the noise level
- what, how much, and when I eat
- the options for my entertainment
- how my clothes are washed
I guess I would be relatively content if I had a nice, unlit, large, living space with no TV or radio and no neighbors with TV or radio. I could put up with part of the current situation, but everything combined is a little much.
My Spanish is annoying me, too. It takes me at least two times saying any sentence of more than two words for the native speakers to understand me. It makes me so sad to think that now I’ve spent years learning Spanish, but so far have not succeeded.
The thing is I have coping skills for these feelings of annoyance and personal inadequacy, but many of these coping mechanisms involve quiet, personal choice, and personal space. I find it hard to meditate with the blasting TVs and radios. I find it hard to go and do something relaxing with the sheer volume of noise.
The noise must have something to say about the culture here. Do people have a different boundary between personal space and public space? Is the (liberal) concept of public and private foreign? Do people want to share their noise just like they share so many other things? Do people feel lonely without noise? Are the TVs and radios just substitutes for people.
Or– here’s another idea that involves learned behavior. Maybe some asshole someplace bought a radio and put it at the highest volume, not knowing how to play music at a moderate volume instead. Maybe when everyone subsequently got appliances that produced amplified sound, they could only imagine turning up the volume all the way.
Maybe people don’t have any other way to show off their material possessions. Expensive things, they think, should not be seen, but heard loudly.
Or perhaps it’s simpler than all this. One person in the neighborhood wakes up in the morning and turns his TV on at what I’m gonna call a “reasonable” level. Then someone else wakes up and wants to listen to the radio. Person A then feels obliged to raise the volume to overpower Person B’s radio. A noise war ensues. Other people in the barrio also want to listen to their music and watch their telenovelas.
Papito says that I’ve got to understand that, you know, everyone likes to party, but not everyone likes the same music. In the campo, says he, it’s different, but here, “los capiteleños fiestan por siempre. ” He tells me I’d best just get used to it, which is, of course, both the truth and something that’s easier said than done.
Note to readers: This is a review of my personal journal from my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic more than a decade ago. I have done my best not to change what I wrote, even if I feel differently now or found out later that I what I wrote was factually incorrect. Part of the joy of reading old journals is seeing a story arc where I’ve learned new things.
- The next entry in this series is Distractedly packing for Aguacate
- The previous entry in this series is Powerless, sweaty, and moist
- You can see the journal entries as I post them here.
- If you’re just starting, here’s the first entry.
