{"id":16702,"date":"2014-03-09T11:48:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T18:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=16702"},"modified":"2014-03-09T11:48:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T18:48:04","slug":"can-you-imagine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/09\/can-you-imagine\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you imagine …?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DrSuessInSpanish_SMALL_030914\"<\/a><\/p>\n

… the challenge of translating Dr. Suess into Spanish?<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I just got taken by a street vendor. Totally my own fault. I bargained him down. Then (because I didn’t properly calculate the local currency in my head, gave him the amount he originally asked for).<\/p>\n

Only a couple of bucks, but it’s the principle of the thing. He’s probably chortling right now about the gringa estupida<\/i>.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I go on a boat tour. Feeding monkeys is involved. The tour guide recommended Oreos, but that sounds like simian abuse to me.<\/p>\n

It is, BTW, a “three-hour tour.” Does that seem familiarly ominous<\/a>, or what?<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Every morning I’ve been here, I’ve awakened thinking of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”<\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t make a habit of that. Not in the usual run of things. I’m pretty sure it’s because of this verse:<\/p>\n

\nA man walks down the street
\nIt’s a street in a strange world
\nMaybe it’s the Third World
\nMaybe it’s his first time around
\nHe doesn’t speak the language
\nHe holds no currency
\nHe is a foreign man
\nHe is surrounded by the sound
\nThe sound
\nCattle in the marketplace
\nScatterlings and orphanages
\nHe looks around, around
\nHe sees angels in the architecture
\nSpinning in infinity
\nHe says Amen and Hallelujah!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Precisely. Except that instead of cattle in the marketplace it was goats in the park. Definitely lots of angels in the architecture. I don’t think gringos<\/i> hold much currency here in the philosophical sense. Whether I should be trusted to hold currency in the literal sense is another question. By tomorrow, every vendor in the town square will probably have me in his or her sights.<\/p>\n

Oh wait. They already did.<\/p>\n