Here in Vallarta, we are in the midst of “low season”. It’s hot, and there are almost no American/Canadian tourists here. It’s mostly Mexican Nationals visiting, if anyone, and life has slowed down a lot. Dinner takes 2 hours. You can’t walk 10 feet without running into someone you know. “Sorry, I’m really sweaty” is something we say to each other often, for one reason or another.
I stopped at Vinos America for a bottle of wine tonight on my way home from dinner. Said “hi” to the guard on the way in, and he followed us to the wine section, because he loves him some Ruby while I shop.
Soon after, a very toothy, very white (but spray tanned) guy in a crisp linen shirt blew in, guffawing loudly with his wife and two friends (also clad from head to toe in linen) about how “YOU were supposed to sort the restaurant location and WE were supposed to get the wine! HAHAHAHA! But here we all are! HAHAHAHAHA! How many pesos do you have darling? I have only FIVE THOUSAND ON ME RIGHT NOW. Where are the kids? Oh there they are! Where should we eat, should we get wine now, what should we doooooooI’msoconfused!?!?!”
<Children rummaging through snacks. “White asparagus? EW! MOOOOOOM!”>
They were probably a little tipsy. It IS a resort town. I get it. But it’s low season. People like that are not expected to be here right now, so it was very woah, and wow they’re really loud and oblivious! A shock to the system. They really stood out. Didn’t seem to realize.
So this tornado blew in my general direction and it screeched a whole lot of things about a LOT of pesos and iPods and kids and things that were weird to talk about in public, that made me look at the guard in horror, who at this point must have read my face and was looking at me like “MMMhmmm gurl.”
Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Americans can be really loud, and we do seem oblivious to a lot of things. We often don’t come across as wordly, or aware, or high quality people. We often come across as entitled, self-absorbed, and kind of dumb really.
I want to mention that one of the most poignant aspects to my existence/experience in life right now is the fact that I am American, and that I don’t live in the USA. On some level right now, I am writing about me. This is harder for me to write than you might think, but I believe it’s worth saying. I’ve been these annoying people. Not just that, I’ve been these annoying people in multiple countries. This “quality” of mine, has been beaten out of me for the last 2.5 years while living abroad, and I’m going to stick around for more, because there’s still a bit left worth pummeling.
I’ve seen it (and been it) many times before tonight: we don’t give the world much reason to look fondly upon us. And I mean that in a lot of different senses, but in the traveling sense, if we act like idiots when representing the American people abroad, where does that leave us? Looking like idiots. Which maybe we deserve. Because we do, look like idiots, sometimes.
We can be loud, brash, oblivious, blind, and entitled. We as Americans, with the whole world watching, need to realize that we can be all of those things, and we need to wise up and grow up and figure out how to be better. We need to be good world citizens.
If I didn’t know the people who were working at Vinos America tonight I would not have been afforded the looks, and the “see, dude?” eyebrow raise. But I got it tonight. I’m no longer the Ugly American (to them), per se, but I am. I still am. Or I wouldn’t have something to say about it. This wouldn’t bother me if I no longer identified with it.
I grabbed a bottle of Friday-quality Malbec, told Ruby to high five the guard, and we went to the register. The two families, now joined by their linen-clad children, filed in line behind me.
The lady who works there… I’ve always liked her, partly because I sensed for a long time that she didn’t really like me. I’ve had to work for her approval, and I’ve slowly earned it, and I’ve come to understand why I needed to earn it, and we’re friends now. She gives me shit every time I buy beef jerky for my dog, because she knows that I know it’s ridiculous, so she can poke fun.
So I grab some jerky and she shoots me a look, and rings it up and says in broken English what the total is. I repeat it, in broken Spanish, and a little louder, and she meets my tone with a correction to my Spanish and a big smile. I pay her. She says “thank you, gracias”, and I say “see you later Amiga”, and she says very loudly “HASTA LUEGO CHICA!”
And we shoot each other one more look because OMG that’s a lot of linen, man.
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