cultural exchange well underway
Cultural exchange is, of course, a clear theme of my volunteering project at the organization I’m at right now, and it was in that spirit yesterday that Ivanildo and I agreed that I should teach him how to curse at his employees in English. The thinking here is that he would be free to fully express himself without having to worry too much about anybody’s feelings. And let’s face it, we’d all love to go around not having to worry about people’s feelings – lots of people already do and they’re doing just fine.
The most difficult part of this process, for me at least, was deciding which curse, swearword/phrase or whatever would be most expressive and at the same time most useful in a variety of situations. So I started going over a number of my personal favorites. I don’t know if it’s the crowd I’m running with now, or (bad) luck, or what, but most of the mechanical things I’ve encountered in Salvador, from light switches to PCs, are broken in one way or another. And usually there’s some level of surprise there when something that has every reason to be working just fine craps out (or it’s clear that it crapped out long ago) when you hit the power switch. This level of disappointment, in my humble opinion, can really be expressed in one way, and that is by saying, in an obnoxiously loud and sometimes overly nasal voice: “What the f*?”
I must admit that not all of my motivation here was truly altruistic. I know this is hard to believe based on the clear selflessness I’ve thus far exhibited in this particular instnace. Providing myself with a little entertainment at the expense of my hosts seemed like a relatively victimless crime. OK, maybe there are a few victims, maybe even potentially as many as 15 (the number of employees) but wouldn’t you rather not know what your boss is saying when it’s clear that he’s pissed at you? I figure I’m doing these poor bastards a favor, that happens to also be extremely funny (to me) when properly executed.
It took us a good 15 minutes to get Ivanildo to properly pronounce the chosen phrase and with the correct emphasis. Then he asked what it means, and I kind of had to be honest, which was to say “Nothing, really. It means ‘What is this?’, when you’re angry, and the last word is a really bad swearword, but its literal meaning doesn’t really apply here. It’s like saying ‘What is this?’ in a way that lets you know I’m pretty angry.” A the same time I had to qualify that explanation by saying that people use the phrase all the time, with varying levels of seriousness, so the meaning depended almost entirely on context and could be either really funny or really bad, or both.
So immediately after I gave my explanation and we practiced the chosen phrase a few times, Adriana walked into the office, probably just because she was bored, and Ivanildo belted out with a barely recognizable “Whut tha foc?!” His pronounciation and emphasis were all wrong, but I told him he was on the right track and with practice he’d get better. Adriana, of course, barely flinched, since I get the feeling she’s seen it all, especially from this guy (they worked together at a previous job). After pausing momentarily in the doorway as Ivanildo struggled to half blurt, half spit what to her was gibberish, she walked to the corner where the coffee serving area is and proceeded to make herself a cup. Apparently she’s used to him yelling gibberish, unprovoked, late in the afternoon. After all, that office is pretty hot.
The fruits of my labor were reaped, however, when a few hours later Ivanildo and Adriana were in a half-joking, half-serious argument about something I couldn’t discern, and it escalated to the point where they were both talking at the same time and not listening to the other person. When it was clear that nobody cared what the other said, Ivanildo threw up his hands and yelled “Whot thafoc!” I laughed for a good ten minutes.
And on the drive home, just as he was dropping me off (Adriana and Edilza were crammed in the back with a bunch of groceries we’d picked up at the Bahian equivalent of Costco) some jackass decided to do a 10-point turn in the middle of the very busy Avenida Sete de Setembro where I live. While we didn’t have to wait, since Ivanildo, being the “don’t have respect for human life” type of driver that most Bahians are, swung into the oncoming traffic lane around the guy while he was shifting to reverse. It was still annoying, however, and so I put in my two cents, which was to throw up my hands and yell “Filho da puta! (son of a bitch)” And apparently my timing and emphasis were correct, or at least partly, because Ivanildo didn’t stop laughing until I’d stepped out of the car a few blocks up.
The most difficult part of this process, for me at least, was deciding which curse, swearword/phrase or whatever would be most expressive and at the same time most useful in a variety of situations. So I started going over a number of my personal favorites. I don’t know if it’s the crowd I’m running with now, or (bad) luck, or what, but most of the mechanical things I’ve encountered in Salvador, from light switches to PCs, are broken in one way or another. And usually there’s some level of surprise there when something that has every reason to be working just fine craps out (or it’s clear that it crapped out long ago) when you hit the power switch. This level of disappointment, in my humble opinion, can really be expressed in one way, and that is by saying, in an obnoxiously loud and sometimes overly nasal voice: “What the f*?”
I must admit that not all of my motivation here was truly altruistic. I know this is hard to believe based on the clear selflessness I’ve thus far exhibited in this particular instnace. Providing myself with a little entertainment at the expense of my hosts seemed like a relatively victimless crime. OK, maybe there are a few victims, maybe even potentially as many as 15 (the number of employees) but wouldn’t you rather not know what your boss is saying when it’s clear that he’s pissed at you? I figure I’m doing these poor bastards a favor, that happens to also be extremely funny (to me) when properly executed.
It took us a good 15 minutes to get Ivanildo to properly pronounce the chosen phrase and with the correct emphasis. Then he asked what it means, and I kind of had to be honest, which was to say “Nothing, really. It means ‘What is this?’, when you’re angry, and the last word is a really bad swearword, but its literal meaning doesn’t really apply here. It’s like saying ‘What is this?’ in a way that lets you know I’m pretty angry.” A the same time I had to qualify that explanation by saying that people use the phrase all the time, with varying levels of seriousness, so the meaning depended almost entirely on context and could be either really funny or really bad, or both.
So immediately after I gave my explanation and we practiced the chosen phrase a few times, Adriana walked into the office, probably just because she was bored, and Ivanildo belted out with a barely recognizable “Whut tha foc?!” His pronounciation and emphasis were all wrong, but I told him he was on the right track and with practice he’d get better. Adriana, of course, barely flinched, since I get the feeling she’s seen it all, especially from this guy (they worked together at a previous job). After pausing momentarily in the doorway as Ivanildo struggled to half blurt, half spit what to her was gibberish, she walked to the corner where the coffee serving area is and proceeded to make herself a cup. Apparently she’s used to him yelling gibberish, unprovoked, late in the afternoon. After all, that office is pretty hot.
The fruits of my labor were reaped, however, when a few hours later Ivanildo and Adriana were in a half-joking, half-serious argument about something I couldn’t discern, and it escalated to the point where they were both talking at the same time and not listening to the other person. When it was clear that nobody cared what the other said, Ivanildo threw up his hands and yelled “Whot thafoc!” I laughed for a good ten minutes.
And on the drive home, just as he was dropping me off (Adriana and Edilza were crammed in the back with a bunch of groceries we’d picked up at the Bahian equivalent of Costco) some jackass decided to do a 10-point turn in the middle of the very busy Avenida Sete de Setembro where I live. While we didn’t have to wait, since Ivanildo, being the “don’t have respect for human life” type of driver that most Bahians are, swung into the oncoming traffic lane around the guy while he was shifting to reverse. It was still annoying, however, and so I put in my two cents, which was to throw up my hands and yell “Filho da puta! (son of a bitch)” And apparently my timing and emphasis were correct, or at least partly, because Ivanildo didn’t stop laughing until I’d stepped out of the car a few blocks up.
posted by n10471 at 6:28 AM
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