I have arrived in Pachuca. I don’t know if this is a culture bump, but it is a bump: Magdalene, dueña of mi casa and head of our internship program here (with whom I’m also living) continues to be evasive about who my students will be. I start teaching in two days. I have no idea what to do. I’ve been trying to prepare and was hoping to use this weekend to cobble something together, expecting that I’d know a little more. Now, after months of uncertainty and anxiety, I’ve lost my desire to invest anything in this. I don’t know how to teach. This is an internship. I need some direction. I’m not a veteran who may be tossed into a situation with more grace.

I didn’t want to pressure Magdalena for information, even though I believe I’m owed it under these circumstances. I tried to respect her silence on the matter, which may be due to her human traits or cultural ones: I don’t know which. But I did gently prod for a little more, and what I infer now is that she doesn’t have enough students for me (a minimum of six) to fulfill my internship requirements. “The economy is bad and people can’t pay,” she told me. Why didn’t she flag us as to the warning signs earlier.

After a little more casual and superficially calm interrogation on my part, I gave up. She was mum. “Will I still be teaching on Monday night?” I asked. (That’s, as I said, the day after tomorrow.) “We’ll see,” she replied. I didn’t say anything: didn’t express the anxiety and frustration I felt, or the anger at her cavalier attitude. “Might I be teaching at the university if there aren’t enough students at ABC?” Maybe, she replied. During our last conversation she asked if I might be interested in teaching children. I told her I’d do what she needed, but that was never in my intentions.

Is this personal or cultural? I don’t know. Either way, since I’ll be living with her for seven weeks, I want to walk softly. No big stick. I sensed that she was uncomfortable with the conversation, and didn’t want to discuss the matter. I have heard and seen that Mexicans never want to disappoint, so when you ask them something they can’t deliver, they still act as though it will happen. Is this what’s happening now?

I will write to Elka but she’s in Bulgaria. And I’m here for my internship that starts in two days but there aren’t enough students for me (as far as I can tell).

My decision is to try to breathe and try not to think about it, and not to pressure Magdalena for more information, in hopes that it will unfold as it should. But this is really, really hard. Here I am alone in a new city and new culture, and Magdalena is not exactly warm. She seems a bit brusque. But maybe I’m wrong.

So how does one tell the difference between a “culture bump” and a “person bump.” Is it important to make the distinction? I guess so. If it’s a person bump, we may need to work through it. If it’s a culture bump, we may need either to accept it as is. It may be arrogant but necessary to explore how our culture is different than the other in a specific matter, and find ways of meeting in the middle.

This is the first time in my two weeks in Mexico that I’ve had a noticeable bump. It’s always frustrating trying to learn and hear the language, of course. When I’m out and about, those I speak to look confused as I tried to talk, and I look confused as they speak. And Oaxaca my Spanish teachers made fun of the way Americans need to know everything, from details of language usage to what exact time a plan is scheduled for. Those have been bumps, though, but instead interesting realizations. And I’m always aware of the differences — more economic than cultural — between me and those around me as I walked through Oaxaca or Chiapas or any of the small pueblos we visited, particularly those that were very poor and largely indigenous. But aside from a mutual awareness of our differences, they didn’t interfere in any obvious way. To the contrary, I’ve been amazed at how friendly and open most of the Mexicans have  been to a seemingly genuine connection. Enrique and his friends were full of warmth, and even the trio from Mexico City that we met on the bus to Palenque were friendly and offered cheeks for kisses when we parted. The only other guy who raised my hackles was our guide to the villages of San Juan Chamula and San Lorenzo Zinacantán. He was irritable and arrogant, waving away our questions (I’ll get to that later”) and refusing to speak more slowly in Spanish when I asked. It was the only time I had an extended frustrating experience with a person in Mexico till that time. And again, it may have been — in fact, I think it was — a more personal trait on his part that caused the problem. That said, I can’t separate his character from his culture. He may have carried underlying resentment of Americans as well as a certain machismo.