Today:
I saw a lady crying into a mans shoulder outside of a veterinary clinic below my apartment.
I saw a nun.
I saw a clown harassing patrons in the park for change.
I saw Lost in Translation.
I made a video.. recorded 10 mins of me talking and touring my apartment…
Listened to The Moldy Peaches over and over again.
Went shopping with the last of my cash and bought: dried peas, rice, pasta, bananas, oranges, spinach, soup base, tomato sauce = $3 US dollars.
3am: couldn’t sleep because I kept having reoccurring daymares of what I could have done different when I got robbed.. did the kid break his neck when I flung him down the stairs?.. should I watch the news? What else could I have yelled at that lady with the asshole dog… why doesn’t Ben acknowledge when I email him when at one point he had said he’s not going anywhere.. and now we can’t even be friends I guess? Remembering coming back from Argentina last year and the guy I had been dating was dating someone else… what if that noise I just heard was someone breaking into the house and I suddenly wake up with a hand on my head and Chena will bark and the guy will try to stab her.. but I’ll jump in the way and get stabbed myself.. then bleeding I’ll cover my dog and beg they don’t hurt her.. this is what it’s like at 3 am here…ahh culture shock.
I went to the expats website for some reason.. and read a few posts on the forum. One person has asked about vonage and I built them (vonage) up into a god for them to worship.
A guy posted about how bad drivers are here and how hes almost been killed several times and afterwards several people starting telling him that he “better get used to it and this isn’t Kansas anymore” and “how pathetic is it when people show up at the airport and don’t even speak Spanish” and “why don’t you just go home if you don’t like it” .. and these are Exapts (ex-patriots.. basically a fancy way of saying unappreciative outsiders) telling other expats “to get over it or go home”.. what the fuck is that? So I ripped into them telling them that thats the most assholish thing they can say to someone just expressing their opinion and distress in a new place… and how fucked up it is of them to be less understanding than the people who are natives here.. I called them ‘newcomer bigots’ and said that they might as well be the drivers running other immigrants down. How fucked is it to hear that the only people in the whole fucking city who should relate or sympathize with your culture shock are the ones telling you to go back to your country of origin? That’s why I don’t go to any of the expat dinners or talk to any of those people anymore. Elitist “I’ve traveled the world 100 times and you’re stupid” assholes.
Other than that, it was a good day because I didn’t get robbed and Chena didn’t get attacked.. but I have a feeling that subconsciously I’m not going to get over being robbed too soon. I don’t know that I’ll ever feel safe taking my good camera out of the house… being a fucking girl alone in another country is just as fucked as I thought it would be. Being a girl photographer and into journalism sucks even more. I can’t go anywhere without being at risk of being robbed.. even if I had some skinny little guy trailing behind me that I never talked to while I was out taking photos. I would be at much less risk of being robbed.
wtf do I do.. I’m here to take pictures….
