Haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately. Many noteworthy events have come and gone; many anecdotes have been shared and pondered upon; many songs have been grooved to; many dishes have been ordered and thoroughly enjoyed; many tourists have come and gone from Cerro Catedral; and many many cups and glasses and silverware and plates have been hand polished at a particular restaurant where our protagonist now sits on a stool behind a hand carved cypress bar sipping a rather strong coffee and staring out at the snow delicately dusting the mountain looming over the indecisively smalltownbigcity Bariloche.
I’m tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. The kind of black hole exhaustion that destroys energy and ganas. I haven’t felt like doing very much of anything lately. Which is not like me.
But when would I have time to do anything anyway? With 13 hour on-my-feet-constantly-smiling-and-being-pleasant work days, seven days a week, I’m left with a few hours for sleeping, a few hours for commuting, and a few for waking up and falling asleep. Rinse repeat. It’s tough.
So why am I subjecting myself to such torture?
Because I secretly love it.
Honestly I do. I love being busy. I love working working working. I love the manual labor. I love the experience of waiting tables in another country. I love meeting people and watching their faces when they realize I’m not Argentine, but rather a New York City girl with an international heart. I love hearing people’s stories and sharing my own. Needlesstosay, I’m not doing this for the money. Because waiting tables in a third world country does not fill my bank account. But it’s not money I’m after. So what is it?
Hmmm… to better explain this, I’ll digress into the reason why I travel in the first place.
I’ve been tremendously fortunate to have had a generous helping of international experience before I could even utter my first song lyric or stew recipe. Zoom in on my traveling debut as a wide-eyed infant cooing in the arms of Italian strangers. As the ages accumulated, so did my worldly adventures. Toddler running through the streets of Rome and squealing in the sands of Costa Rican beaches. Child exploring temples in rural Japan and cringing at Australian vegemite. Adolescent eating the best ice cream ever from a Kyrgyz street vendor and being awkwardly hit on in an upstairs carpet factory overlooking a sprawling Moroccan market. But yes, even I was an extremely angsty teenager. It culminated on an Ecuadorian boat to the Galapagos Islands where I made one of the most important decisions of my life.
It dawned on me that I didn’t want to travel with my parents anymore. Nothing against my parents; they are lovely people. But I was an adolescent and, on top of that, I had realized that my parents and I had very different traveling objectives. I no longer wanted to spend a week-long vacation taking photos, staying at hotels, and touring tourist sites. I wanted to learn the local language, I wanted to eat at the best hole-in-the-wall local restaurant, I wanted learn the culture, I wanted to see what couldn’t be seen in only a few days, I wanted to throw off my tourist cape and become a local.
The next year I applied to, and got accepted for, an opportunity to spend a school year in Zaragoza, Spain. It was my first international experience without my parents. It was life-changing. Lots of great times and, of course, lots of lessons learned.
Since then I’ve been constantly reinventing myself as a traveler. Each consequent trip had something to teach me. And every trip was obliged to be better than the previous one. My colorful five week Mexico to Panama whirlwind with Harry. My various Middle Eastern wanderings. And now this Panama to Argentina journey has been the most surprising. Everything I’ve seen, experienced, eaten, heard, and learned on these travels could fill a book and is not necessarily what this particular blog post is about. But I digress, I guess I travel to be a chameleon. To absorb the local colors, flavors, smells, sights, histories, personalities, and subtleties. I let them wash over me, I learn from them, and then selectively adopt them. And grow.
My goal is to be a local wherever I go. Learn the slang, learn the customs, learn the music, learn the recipes. Walk the walk, talk the talk. It’s so fun. But more than that, it opens your mind and makes you a more mature, well-rounded, deeper individual.
So, why am I working a million and a half hours at a physically demanding job that pays me less than minimum wage? Because I’m a local. Because that’s what most people here do, at least once. Because I can’t pretend like I’ve had the true Bariloche experience without working the winter season at the Cerro. Because I love food and working in a food environment. Because I love chatting with people from all over the world. Because I love the people I work with. Because my “office” view is a gigantic snowy mountain. And because I’m learning a lot.
I’m learning more than just new recipes and names of wineries. I’m learning so much about balancing being productive and being laid back; the delicate fine line of efficiency and not being stressed out. I’m learning about work-place dynamics. I’m learning about healthy (and unhealthy) ways to deal with stress. I’m learning by observing and interacting. I’m learning more about people. I’m learning more about what kind of person I want to be.
We’re a month and a half into the season. And it’s been a great experience. But I’m tired. I’m burnt out. I find myself with zero energy, zero interest, zero desire to do anything at all. And then I chant my favorite mantra of the season: three months, three months, three months. This is all only for three months, and then we hit low season and jobs are scarce and the whole city of Bariloche takes a deep breath.
In the meantime, I’ll just sit here meditating on my coffee cup, acquiring a healthy sitting posture, and my daily self-imposed goals.
I had wanted this post to be about illegal immigrant workers… but it has turned out quite different. Well, it is what it is, and there will always be another blog post. Hasta la proxima!
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