Karol Kucinsky, known fondly as KK).
What follows is a hypothetical conversation between me and the venerable KK:
KK: Hey All!
Me: Hi KK. There's just one of me. You look chipper. Good day?
KK: Is the pope Polish?
Me: No. He's German. So you're feeling terrible?
KK: I'm great! Just made a trip to the dump...
Me: So you are terrible.
KK: ...and I made some great finds!
Me: No pianos, I hope.
KK: ...seven claw-foot bathtubs...
Me: The cast-iron kind?
KK: ...three radiators, and a whole stack of windows.
Me: Storm windows, or double-paned?
KK: Rice paper. They're not very weatherproof, but they're very light!
Me: I'll be going now...
KK: So what are you doing this afternoon?
.....
In other news, I pulled off another interview today, with a poetic
middle-aged Santa Catarinian. I'm not sure I got a lot of new
information, but I got a hell of a kick out of the interview. Really
fun! What follows is a roughly translated account of a part of the
conversation we had, as I described to Emily.
They asked me about the project, and I told them I was going to be
traveling to Peru and Bolivia. They replied, "that must cost a lot,"
and I said, "yes, and that's hard. But the hardest part is that my wife
has to be back in the states." He then said something like:
I have spoken to many Guatemalans who have traveled to the United States
And they say that it is a wonderful place.
But even so, they miss their homeland--it is never the same.
And thus it is for you.
And worse because
When a man is away from his woman
Though they have two hearts
They are really of a single heart.
And even a man, yes, a man will really weep for being apart from his wife.
That is very hard.
May God be with you as as you do your work, so far from your family and
homeland.
And may god bless your work
And make all your efforts a success.
As his wife sat by, nodding her approval.
He also liked to accentuate a point in the conversation by grabbing the
handle of his machete, which was sitting on the table next to him, which
kind of freaked me out.
Super-nice guy, though.
I also took some more pictures of Sta. Catarina and San Antonio (next
door) which I'll add in here. I tried to take some pictures that give a
taste of what life is like here--it would be nice to have something like
that to show to students when explaining what my own academic research
is about--but I always feel so strange taking pictures of places where
people are around.
And anyways, the pictures never really capture the event...
Anyways, I took these pictures, but blogger is acting funny with the
picture upload feature, so they may not get up today. If not, I'll put
them up in another couple of days.
I was out walking the other day, before one of my interviews on Friday,
and I got out of town, into some fields, and I was passed repeatedly by
these farmers leading horses with packs, carring machetes, and wearing
Panama hats of the type common here. I wanted to take pictures, but
aside from the fact that I had forgotten my camera and would have been
to shy to ask even if I had been carrying it with me, the pictures could
never have expressed the feeling of the time and place...
Foggy morning, hot and humid, with the mountains and volcanoes drifting
in and out of the clouds, farmers passing, walking among these beautiful
fields of vegetables, fields lying fallow, all incredibly green and
lush, and listening to kids laughing off in the distance as the headed
off to school...
Time like that, I feel so fortunate to be doing this kind of work, but I
worry that I won't ever be able to express those experiences to anyone
very effectively, least of all my students.
No comments:
Post a Comment