I’m a straight up nerd. I love technology and am on an undying quest to expand people’s access to information. Moving to Guadalajara, Mexico from San Francisco, CA to get Adapting to Scarcity off the ground has proved to be an… interesting transition for me. For years I’ve relied on finding well organized information about nearly anything in a matter of moments – without moving much more than my fingers. Here, it’s a different story. I’ve had to completely retool my way of getting information and relating to the city I live in.
In San Francisco I developed some kind of technology tunnel-vision. EVERYTHING you need to know to get by in life (quite happily and comfortably, I might add) can be found online. It’s perfectly acceptable for your primary mode of communication to be e-mail and it’s almost a requisite to be constantly connected. Loving the seemingly infinite access to information, I settled into the lifestyle quite comfortably. Now I even write software to help make information more freely available and accessible. But true to the nerd stereotype, my interpersonal skills diminished in direct proportion to how much I was able to accomplish electronically.
Arriving in Guadalajara was something of a shock to my nerd notions. At first, information was seemingly impossible to come by – hardly any websites?! No easy way to figure out how to get from A to B, let alone a simple map of bus routes?! My emails go answered for days (if not forever)?! No way to figure out the best place to buy a mattress close by?! No way to figure out the best bar/restaurant/fill in the blank?! Google Maps doesn’t even work quite right?! Perhaps this all seems trivial to you, especially you seasoned travelers. But particularly when I first arrived with a very limited Spanish vocabulary, a mediocre guidebook aimed at someone with very different tastes, and a timidity bred from unabashed access to anything I might need to know, I felt lost in a way I have never felt before.
But really, there’s a simple answer: just talk to people. It seems like such a small thing, but learning this has completely changed my ability to get by in Guadalajara. Even if you only have a few words in the language, making the effort to reach out and communicate can bring a wealth of information. From something as trivial as helping you get from A to B or something more complicated like getting together the tools and parts to build your own steadycam, just asking around will get you everything you need. Not always quickly, but usually you wind up making a few friends on the way or at least come out of it with a good story.
Like fellow La Vida Idealist blogger radroots says in A Lesson in Life: Accepting the Unknown, certain ” ideas of ‘efficiency’ and ‘order’ . . . just don’t apply here.” The seeming disorder and lack of information can be incredibly intimidating or overwhelming. But the greatest resource to get through it are the people themselves. This has definitely reshaped my thinking about technology and access to information. Now I strive to expand people’s access to information while preserving the warmth, intimacy and extraordinary wealth found in interpersonal communication.
Along with fellow La Vida Idealist blogger Sarah Kelly, Arthur Richards is the co-director of Adapting to Scarcity, a nonprofit that focuses on community water management in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Sarah- Great post. I, too, struggled with having to suck up my pride and ask questions like, “Where can I buy raisins?” I often used to blank out when people were responding to me with directions, knowing that I could always just look at Google Maps as a more reliable source. But people are truly the original wealths of information that we need.