Irritating Things
Almost without fail, when an open-for-business Veracruz taxi passes you they will signal you in some way. My guess is they think maybe you want a cab but forgot to look interested. Usually they just honk at you, which is annoying, but sometimes they have a “funny” honk sound, similar to an ambulance siren. The first few times I heard it I thought it was a car alarm, but today a cabby tried to coerce my fare with it.
The notion that people can forget to look interested is a belief that not only the cab drivers hold, but many, many dudes. Oh how I long for the days of yore where I could walk down the street without being hasseled. I want to say, “yes, I see you, stop staring at me,” but saying anything at all only seems to encourage them. I have tried being polite and just saying hello or good whatever, and I have tried rolling my eyes and looking annoyed, but either way you slice it they take any acknowledgment as an invitation to talk. This would explain why the local reaction to being talked to by someone you don’t want to talk to is to ignore them entirely. Vendors, dudes, whatever. It seems really rude to me, but if that’s the standard no wonder the fellas get so excited when that standard is deviated. A stupid cyclical thing.
Another irritating dude thing, is that they all know I speak English. I’ll be walking around or whatever, not saying a peep, and a leering dude will say something to me in English. Just as most folks in the U.S. know enough Spanish to say “pretty” and “lady” and things like that, everyone here knows them in English. It seems the cultural exchange is just strong enough to enable being a creep.
I did have one nice exchange with a muchacho yesterday, even though he immediately assumed I spoke English. I was waiting for the bus and a guy parked there and probably saw I was confused about him parking there, as that’s generally where the bus stops (it’s not marked, only a handful of bus stops are).
So he came up to me and said, “Bus?”
And I said, “Si, espero.”
“Uhm. . .uhm, it no. . .”
“Hay desviacion?”
“Si, si. Alla (pointing) two uh. . .”
“Dos manzanas?”
“Si, dos manzanas.”
“Ah, gracias!”
It was nice to have the opportunity to be like, “Hey, you don’t have to try to speak English, I am in your country and will use your language.” Take that Mexican expectations of gringos!