Opt. Dup Zuck

Reading: Drift: the Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow

My very sparse sala

It often feels like every month is a celebration of something. In the States, we love to dub whole months in honor of groups, ideas, or causes. Here in Ecuador, we love to commemorate children, mothers, fathers, founding of towns, founding of churches, founding of foundings. While chatting with my host dad the other evening, he explained to me with a childlike animation how we were now entering the time of fiestas here in Paccha. He then proceeded to list off some sort of celebration in every month, minus the month of April. That is to imply that eleven months of the year Ecuadorians are partying. April sucks.

So in true form, I am going to christen June my personal month of visitors. As I have managed to have someone come visit me in Paccha every weekend in June. That theme will continue into the following week as Mary Rae is coming to pasear three whole weeks on the equator with me. Our party itinerary will include, but is not limited to: Inti Raymi, the Incan fiesta del sol, and a good ol’ ‘Merican Forth of July.

Aside from my intrepid friends, my new life is Paccha has become very pleasant and quite normal. I teach environmental education two days a week at the girls’ school. I have the organic fertilizer project. I help with a few family gardens. I tutor some local high school kids in English (infinitely better than teaching.) I hang out with my host family. And I’m going to use that normalcy as an excuse for my lack of blogging lately. I like to shoot for three to four blogs a month… this is my struggle for a second. Part of that might be due to June’s previously christened theme.

One part of life here in Paccha that is drastically different from my life in Chimbo is the simple fact that I have so much access to life at home. That is due largely and perhaps solely to the fact that I have internet. (The difference is also due in a small part to the fact that I am living in a house with out furniture, aside from my bed. I think it really gives it a minimalist, almost art galleryesque feel. My host family and the kids in town think I’m either cheap or crazy. Maybe both.) Before moving to Ecuador, I, somewhat deliberately, did not have internet in the apartment where I was living. But all I had to do was walk across the driveway to my aunt and uncles or head over to my favorite coffee shop and I was connected. However, having access right at my fingertips 24/7 is somewhat strange after almost two years of not having it.

Without a doubt, it has its perks. It means that can now skype my family, Grandma included, whenever I want. There is no planning and coordinating involved, all of which was contingent on finding an internet café it a high enough bandwidth to support video chats or finding a friend with internet that was willing to lend you their computer and apartment for an hour or so. It also means that I can revive my addiction to podcasts and news reports.

But that can become a huge time suck. It also makes me much less inclined to sit down and read. I have always been a bit of a “tangible media junky.” That is, I like my vinyl records, actual books, and printed magazines. The combination of living in another country where access to those tangibles is minimal and having internet again is not doing anything for fostering that devotion.

It does mean that I was able to watch the season finale of HBO’s Girls the day it came out. How’s that for living in the developing world?

It has also resurrected my old, love/hate relationship with facebook. Those of you who know me personally are well aware that I am prone to spells of deactivation. Upon the arrival of the interwebs in mi casita, I was reaching one of those points again. Facebook, with its newsfeed, tags, instant updates, locators, and whatnot has become too much. However, I was stuck in this huge dilemma, because it had become so vital to communicating with my life back in the states. I considered deactivating anyway, figuring that those that really needed to contact me had my email. But that meant I would have to find a new place to upload hundreds of photos that I wanted to share with my family back home. A real catch-22.

So, I decided that I would try to beat facebook at its own game. Yes, I would subscribe to its social media world, with targeted ads, status updates, and the tantalizing “like” button. But it would not own me. This process started several years ago, when I limited my “wall” so that only I could post to it. I had also blocked all photos of me so that only I was able to see ones that I was tagged in – and those are extremely limited.

Moving Opt. Dup Zuck into the next phase, I massively downsized the number of friends I had.

“We haven’t spoke since ‘senior week’ two years ago or that ‘After Graduation Party’ six years ago?” Unfriend. We floated around the same horseshow circuit? Unfriend. I don’t quite remember how we actually met or from where I know you. Unfriend. (There is still a lot of work to be done in this phase, but it’s a working progress.)

After that, I made sure that every thing that I was tagged in (or even some one was thinking of tagging me in a post or a picture) has to be approved by me. Nothing goes under my radar. Facebook will answer to me and me only.

The next step: tackle the newsfeed.

This part of facebook seems to be the most stalking-inducing part of the whole social media scheme. Fortunately, it has an Achilles’ heel. On the top right corner of each post, there’s a little arrow, which leads you to this magical menu with an “unsubscribe” option. The result is that my newsfeed now resembles what I would imagine twitter to be – a list of updates only from publications, musicians, and organizations that I have chosen to follow.

I am also making liberal use of that “Acquaintances” category for those pesky friend requests from people that you-don’t-really-want-to-be-friends-with-but-don’t-want-to-break-it-to-them.

Facebook 0. Whitni 1. Even if I’ve made myself out to be a soulless individual.

Happy Month of Visitors!