Lessons Learned

So I've been reflecting a little bit on different parts of my trip and life in general and just thought I'd put a few words into it.

The first lesson I thought about was the importance of confidence in your daily life. If you go to a bookstore or look up an article on it you'll probably find countless this articulated in a similar manner but I'll just use a few examples to illustrate it. So were at this club with live music on Friday. It's a salsa dancing club called La Candelita and 5 of us have no experience, while the 3 girls who were here last year are pretty damn good. There's not a whole lot of people dancing at first(basically 2 of the girls and the same number of random guys at the club). As they go on for a bit, I decide to throw caution to the wind and get my first salsa lesson. It was predictably awful as I had trouble getting the basic movement down, stepped on the poor girl's feet a few times, and don't even get me started on the hands part of it.
My reaction after moment's like that has always kind of held me back. In the past if I got rejected by a chick, or wasn't very good doing something for the first time, or just had to work hard to get better at something, I'd usually just abandon whatever it was and say it wasn't a talent or skill or usually girl that I was meant to have. Well I decided to get another shot and told my next partner to explain it to me like I was a 2 year old. We had to stop a few times, but by the end of it I'd made some improvement and at least avoided putting her toes out of commission. Encouraged by this minor improvement, I subtly practiced the 4 step move under the table while I was working on a Sol and talking to the rest of the group. After a few songs I decided to try my rudimentary skills with the best dancer in our group, Anisha. I tried to incoporate a few of the spins I'd seen some of the other guys doing all night into my arsenal with mixed results. She corrected my form and by the end I could do all of the above without staring at my feet. We decided to leave after the next song so I got back with my first partner and it was almost second nature to my at this point. After the song she said my dancing was "buenisima". High praise indeed.

That moment along with just having a few successful, random Spanish conversations with the people here, are the perfect examples to how important confidence is and how much it's held me back in the past. It's just seems so dumb to me how we deny ourselves chances to be happy or do something new and crazy because we're worried we'll embarass ourselves or make a mistake. Of course you might look like an idiot for a moment or suck at something the first time you do it, but if your confident you know that you'll be even more of an idiot if you refuse to try because of that. People will respect you a hell of a lot more if you've got the balls to step up and fail, than sit on the bench when your name is called. Basically the lesson is the only person your hurting is yourself, when you fail to try.

The other lesson I've been thinking a lot about was told to me by none other than my fraternity brother Grant Mulligan. During one of his many monologues during a trip to the Hungry Fox this past semester, he started talking about how the main reason he talks about nature and birds and the like is that he likes to be aware of his surroundings and all the amazing stuff that many people go through life looking through. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I was in a small food coma but it really has hit home lately. Earlier today it came full circle as we made a trip to Teotitlan, which is the home of many Zapotec people and has all kinds of natural weaving enterprises and cooperatives. We went to one run by a bunch of Zapotec women. I've seen a lot of the rugs around so I wasn't really enthused about having to spend the whole day there and figured I'd get bored after a bit. Much to my surprise, the whole thing was really fascinating as they showed us the whole process starting with the wool being smoothed out, to being spun into fiber, to the natural dyes they use to color it(for many of the colors they use this insect that's on almost every cactus that I never knew existed). Each rug is a 2 month process and has it's own unique meaning. At the same time they've been perfecting these techniques for thousands of years and each year send some of the rugs into art competitions in the US. It got me thinking to how little I know about most of the stuff I buy, and how most of it was made by machines to an exact specification and are identical to millions of others. It was just really cool for me to see how everything comes together to make something beautiful like that, and yes we all did end up buying rugs at the end to take back. So to sum up there's a million things I feel like I've taken for granted and never really wondered how they got there or how the hell they're made.

The other cool thing about the Teotitlan trip was a Zapotec ritual we got to participate in called "la limpia" or the cleansing in English. We were standing in a room with pictures of various saints and people who had passed away in the collective with just a little bit of light coming in from outside. The woman who was one of the leaders lit some incense and showed us the proper way to rub these herbs through our hair neck and arms. After we each took turns one at a time she changed the lighting and told us to relax for a bit. She told us to hold hands and get closer together. Then she lit a fire in a circle around us which was really cool and scared the crap out of Oliver(our teacher and guide for our trips). It was definitely really interesting and it clears your mind a bit. We also had a huge, delicious lunch there a big soup with corn in it, a large salad, tortillas, and a fried egg, cheese and chili pepper.

That's all I've got for now. Nos Vemos!