After talking to my friend here, Katie, I determined I need to pick up women the Ecuadorian man style of approach. Whenever I come back to the United States, I need to be taken to a bar. There I need to test my Ecua-guy pickup skills. Here is how the whole conversation (on my end) would work out:
1. Hello.
2. How are you?
3. What's your name?
4. Where are you from?
5. Are you married?
6. No, do you have a boyfriend?
7. Why don't you have any children?
8. I own 4 hectacres of land, I can show you sometime!
Where it goes after #7 I do not really know. It probably is borderline offensive or unbelievable. Complete strangers, out of the blue. Do you think this approach would go over well in the States? How many slaps in one night? Turn downs? Jaws dropped? Men here are so blunt about their pick up skills to the women, I think they have a test back when they are little. They memorize all of those above questions and hope the die end up on lucky seven. Just promise me, if/when I come back to visit in the States, I try this out in a bar one night. I need to report back my success or failure rate.
Two other notes- For the next week or so I will be in the southern part of the country forThanksgiving, so if something is in the mail for me (mom and Rachel) I will let you know when I get back if they arrived. Second note, apparently some trick when sending mail is checking off the little ¨Documents¨ box on the little slip you fill out at the post office in the US.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
What´s New?
Nothing new to report here, but digging through my archives, I came across this little piece of my randomness. I initially wrote it for our Peace Corps volunteer run newsletter, paper, whatever. It was usually a collection of random stories, ranging the spectrum from funny to serious. You can probably venture a guess where mine fits in. I wrote this in July and never got a chance to submit it (had a beach vacation in Mompiche). Eventually, the paper got axed due to budget cuts within Peace Corps (and some other issues). Let's hope that all the promise Obama is can get some money for a bigger Peace Corps budget! Vamos a ver.
Also, before I give you the story, I NEED books. You can mail them to me ONE BY ONE without causing me a hassle, as long as they aren't hardcore or ginormous. Claim $0 on the customs slip and label it as books. If you have any GRE study guides that you can get to me before the end of the year, I would love you! I haven't really discriminated in what I have read, but lately I've preferred more non-fiction type books. Instead of mailing them to the address I have listed on the right send them to this address:
Christopher Gallup
Cuerpo de Paz
Correo Central Atacames
Atacames, Esmeraldas, Ecuador, South America
If I do not see the mail lady hailing me down from three blocks away, I will be upset with everyone back at home! So without further ado, here's my story:
If you are a back book cover reader, much like myself, and had this been a book- you would have probably seen “Based on a True Story” or “Based on Actual Events.” Whatever you happen to fancy. Usually, that is enough to catch my interest, so I open it up, and what do I find: All names, places, and dates have been changed to protect the innocent. I will protect the innocent in this case.
Sometime between gym class and algebra, in high school, one would think that administration would have enough sense to teach their students how to shake a hand. Maybe even in college, between beer pong and toga parties, they could have squeezed Handshaking 101 into the curriculum. Hell, they could have made it a 099 class and gave it no college credit. The handshake has become so important that it can be a deal breaker. The quantum physics and organic chemistry of the handshake need to be incorporated into our education sometime before we are “grown up.”
The story really begins with Cristobal Guadalupe (remember we are protecting the innocent here) of Reese's Pieces Corps Equator. He was a member of Omni-camioneta 66, the single greatest group of missionaries in Reese's Pieces Corps Equator history. It was after a long day of tricycle shopping with another missionary in the area where the international incident occurred. It was late at night, well past 6:30 pm- the normal bedtime of the typical person in Cristobal's shoes, so he was understandably tired. A day of tricycle shopping in the searing heat would make even the most durable of people feel somewhat weak. His friends in town, Sharon and Pat, invited him to go talk to one of their friends. Being the social butterfly he was, Cristobal decided to go.
He had some formal training in the martial art of handshaking. He was in his twenty-fourth year of life, handshaking should come naturally by now. The subconscious should take over and make the perfectly firm handshake without worry. The long day had caught up to Cristobal and the weakness had transferred to the handshake. Little did he know at the time the importance of this particular exchange. The rest of the night and next few weeks went by without incident.
Cristobal met back up with his friends, Sharon and Pat, a few weeks later. That's when tragedy struck. News got back to Cristobal, “Cristobal, are you a racist?” He hadn't the slightest idea what his friends were talking about. “Our friend was worried the other week. He said you shook his hand awkwardly- somewhat hesitant. He asked us if we knew if you were a racist or not?”
A racist handshake- does even such a thing exist? In Equator, there were handshakes to signify sex, but none that he learned about in training to say, “Hey look! I'm a racist!” This had been the second time in a week that Cristobal had been accused of being a racist, the other being a story about meaning being lost in translation. He explained to his friends the circumstances of the handshake and they seemed to understand. He also redeemed himself with the friend of Sharon and Pat, giving a nice firm handshake each time thereafter.
After Reese's Pieces Corps, Cristobal became a lobbyist for a small group in the United Nations. He petitioned successfully for the abolition of the handshake as a form of greetings and deal makers around the world. The world is a better place with the Japanese bow as a salutation anyway.
Moral of the story: Practice handshaking on the creepily life-like Ecuadorian mannequins so you are not mistakingly labeled as a racist.
Also, before I give you the story, I NEED books. You can mail them to me ONE BY ONE without causing me a hassle, as long as they aren't hardcore or ginormous. Claim $0 on the customs slip and label it as books. If you have any GRE study guides that you can get to me before the end of the year, I would love you! I haven't really discriminated in what I have read, but lately I've preferred more non-fiction type books. Instead of mailing them to the address I have listed on the right send them to this address:
Christopher Gallup
Cuerpo de Paz
Correo Central Atacames
Atacames, Esmeraldas, Ecuador, South America
If I do not see the mail lady hailing me down from three blocks away, I will be upset with everyone back at home! So without further ado, here's my story:
If you are a back book cover reader, much like myself, and had this been a book- you would have probably seen “Based on a True Story” or “Based on Actual Events.” Whatever you happen to fancy. Usually, that is enough to catch my interest, so I open it up, and what do I find: All names, places, and dates have been changed to protect the innocent. I will protect the innocent in this case.
Sometime between gym class and algebra, in high school, one would think that administration would have enough sense to teach their students how to shake a hand. Maybe even in college, between beer pong and toga parties, they could have squeezed Handshaking 101 into the curriculum. Hell, they could have made it a 099 class and gave it no college credit. The handshake has become so important that it can be a deal breaker. The quantum physics and organic chemistry of the handshake need to be incorporated into our education sometime before we are “grown up.”
The story really begins with Cristobal Guadalupe (remember we are protecting the innocent here) of Reese's Pieces Corps Equator. He was a member of Omni-camioneta 66, the single greatest group of missionaries in Reese's Pieces Corps Equator history. It was after a long day of tricycle shopping with another missionary in the area where the international incident occurred. It was late at night, well past 6:30 pm- the normal bedtime of the typical person in Cristobal's shoes, so he was understandably tired. A day of tricycle shopping in the searing heat would make even the most durable of people feel somewhat weak. His friends in town, Sharon and Pat, invited him to go talk to one of their friends. Being the social butterfly he was, Cristobal decided to go.
He had some formal training in the martial art of handshaking. He was in his twenty-fourth year of life, handshaking should come naturally by now. The subconscious should take over and make the perfectly firm handshake without worry. The long day had caught up to Cristobal and the weakness had transferred to the handshake. Little did he know at the time the importance of this particular exchange. The rest of the night and next few weeks went by without incident.
Cristobal met back up with his friends, Sharon and Pat, a few weeks later. That's when tragedy struck. News got back to Cristobal, “Cristobal, are you a racist?” He hadn't the slightest idea what his friends were talking about. “Our friend was worried the other week. He said you shook his hand awkwardly- somewhat hesitant. He asked us if we knew if you were a racist or not?”
A racist handshake- does even such a thing exist? In Equator, there were handshakes to signify sex, but none that he learned about in training to say, “Hey look! I'm a racist!” This had been the second time in a week that Cristobal had been accused of being a racist, the other being a story about meaning being lost in translation. He explained to his friends the circumstances of the handshake and they seemed to understand. He also redeemed himself with the friend of Sharon and Pat, giving a nice firm handshake each time thereafter.
After Reese's Pieces Corps, Cristobal became a lobbyist for a small group in the United Nations. He petitioned successfully for the abolition of the handshake as a form of greetings and deal makers around the world. The world is a better place with the Japanese bow as a salutation anyway.
Moral of the story: Practice handshaking on the creepily life-like Ecuadorian mannequins so you are not mistakingly labeled as a racist.
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