November 23, 2011
DAY 6
It is difficult at times to balance what the ego wants and what the soul wants. I sit here in a country where I do not know the language, at this moment I am listening to beautiful latin music and do not know the words or what she is singing about. The sound in her voice makes me think she must be singing about love. The passion is a universal theme in the world, everyone loves, even the hardest person loves something such as their favorite drink or food. Love does not need words, when someone radiates a loving presence others can feel that. I feel like this is similar to the vision quest I did, on the vision quest the guides took you slowly into the descent of the wilderness. Initially we all camped with our cars parked nearby, then we had to take fewer things with us as we carpooled with only a few cars through the rough terrain going deeper. The third stage was carrying everything we needed on our backs and hiking into a remote area, no cars, no other contact with the outside world, no cell phones, no books etc... Then the fourth stage was hiking in with a small day pack to a remote area to be alone for 3 days, the fasting started the previous day to make it a 4 day fast. Where I am at now, Ciro loves U.S. music, so I hear familiar music when Ciro gets home from his work in the early afternoon. So there is still a little bit of a connection to home. He had not heard of Toni Childs and he became in instant fan. The bottom floor of their home is an internet cafe' and he played a lot of her stuff on youtube. During the late afternoon we walked into town to the mall for some shopping. The cars here really do own the road, even at a stop sign you'd think it would be safe to step off the curb and walk, no the cars don't usually stop at stop signs and people are supposed to get out of the way of cars. Vehicles always have the right of way here no matter what! The shops here are tiny and it is amazing how people manage with such small spaces, the typical little shop may consist of a 10'x20' size. The shops also overflow onto the sidewalks as people are busy walking up and down, cars and buses back and forth with lots of diesel smoke in the air. Lots of noise and life everywhere in this town of 10 million people. Afterwards we took a taxi home, taxis and buses are everywhere and by US standards very inexpensive transportation, no reason to really own a car and many don't. A very common method of transportation is by motorcycle since they can navigate between cars and get places quicker. I did see a guy on a motorcycle with a tiny baby up front with him and his wife on back. Motorcycles are very cheap and there are many motorcycle service stations.
looking out the window
We are walking to the green and blue building in the distance.
Appgetting ready to go into the mall
I am wanting to be objective with what I see around me. For me to impose our cultural standards on their way of life would be very narrow minded of me. I am trying to see the culture like an anthroplogist would, no bias no judgement. There are many dogs that wander around the streets but they look pretty healthy and none are aggressive, I have not seen an aggressive dog at all.
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