I talk English really good

I’ve never had more fun or felt more alive than I have this past year in Mexico, but I’ve also never felt more self-aware, or more uncomfortable and ungrounded in certain aspects.  It’s definitely been a humbling experience to learn how to operate in a constant state of heightened stress in a new culture and language, and to never come across as eloquently as you would like (or to feel as smart as you’re pretty sure you used to be).  

For example, last week my coworker Fabricio asked me “do you know what Caldo Suflicacico is?”  I did create a brochure for another coworker on this topic last summer, but all I could say was “yeah…. it’s a thing. I have a brochure on that.”  He said “don’t worry about it” – and then he went into the main room and announced to the office: “Autumn doesn’t know what Caldo Suflicalcico is,” which made everyone bust out laughing. 

 I love all the brightly colored houses.

I'm not so sure it's great to have such a brightly colored green pond. 

Also, because I know you’re dying to know:  Caldo Sulfocalcico is used to treat diseases in crops caused by fungi (without using agrochemicals), to cultivate fruit trees and control other pests, like mites. 

While my lack of knowledge is hilarious, it’s also a prime example of how much harder it is to retain and explain things in another language.  If I designed a brochure for you in English, chances are I could tell you a little something about it several months later.  In this case, the scientific terms in Spanish were not familiar to me, and although I did translate them when creating that brochure last year, that knowledge has clearly faded.  FYI – I’m not always super smooth in English these days either.  I recently struggled to remember how to say "Seattle" in English, and when I was home at Christmas, I told my brother two times that “I talk English really good.” I wish I could say I was joking, but both times it took me a minute to process that something was wrong.  

I kind of love this pig stencil I pass every morning (which has nothing at all to do with the content of this post).

The other day my boss asked me to help with a grant application to reduce deforestation through enhanced institutional partnerships and funding for sustainable livestock practices.  He asked me to help with both translation and content review.  I sent him some notes and he said “these suggestions look great! Please add them to the application.”  It felt a little bit like Christmas and I realized that was because a) he asked me to provide input on content, and b) I received positive feedback.  

My boss has told me how much he thinks my Spanish has improved, which I definitely appreciate, but I haven’t heard people receive much in the way of praise or kudos for a job well-done this past year.  I mean, I've seen What's App messages with the "thumbs up" icon, but that's not really the same.  My last three bosses in the US were great at giving feedback and celebrating the successes of their employees, and I always felt like a high-performing, valuable (and valued) employee.  It turns out that I kind of need that feedback – and in fact depend on it – to help me define my worth as an employee.  It's taken me awhile to realize that I was missing that, and that loss has had me a little off-kilter.  When a big part of your identity is wrapped into being a super productive, invaluable employee (even if that identity is only in your head ;), and you find yourself without a feedback loop to reinforce that image, well, it's really weird and unsettling. To counterbalance that weirdness, I'm listening to this new Ryan Adams album all the time because it's a fitting soundtrack for a super self-aware, slightly uncomfortable and ungrounded period (and it's really awesome). 

Old soda bottles used by a local teacher to make a plant border. 

Hanging with some local students while they learn about soil health from Ing. Poli. 

A friend recently asked me why I don't write a lot about my work in my blog and it's because most of my work is in an office.  Unlike the environmental education volunteers, I don't have a class of students that I'm working with every day and I'm not creating cool things like benches made from empty plastic bottles.  Don't get me wrong, the project our office is leading is super cool with the potential to have a big impact for sustainable land management practices on a national level.  It's just that I'm currently working on getting all of the content for our website developed, teaching weekly English classes, assisting with organizational development and strategic planning for community groups, co-developing an environmental education plan for local primary schools, assisting with the Peregrino Sustentable committee activities, tagging along to community workshops to absorb information and take photos, and helping with anything else as needed.  It's all good work but not exactly riveting reading material at this point.  

I figure you'd rather hear about super funny or good things that happen to me, like when my English class student Sonia offered me a ride home the other night and then said, hey, do you want to stop for tacos? And so we ate tacos, and tostadas with grilled onions, and drank Sprite, and talked about the week.  And I formulated a plan to visit and review every taco stand in town, purely for your reading pleasure in the future.  Or when my neighbor Elena messaged me to ask if I wanted to visit and then gave me tea, toast with jam and all kinds of insight into local relationships.  She let me chat with her in English, and offered to help me find someone to talk with every week as a sort of Spanish teacher.  A few days later she invited me on a walk in the countryside where we saw bulls fighting and enjoyed the year's most perfect weather as the sun began to set.

View during a tasty lunch eating machaca con juego. 

Or when Ing. Poli took us to eat lunch with a lovely señora who served machaca con juego with fresh tortillas and avocados.  And then we got back to our office to find that they had ordered a ton of pizza, and thus, we had to eat some pizza too.  In other words, I'm pretty sure you'd rather hear about all the different types of food that I eat and learn what "el mal del puerco" means and why it's important, right?