Feature Photo: philliecasablancaPhoto: **Maurice**

Most Brit and American teachers are all too aware of the differences between our deceivingly similar languages.

We share a sarcastic disdain for each other’s pronunciation of ‘tomato’ and have long argued about the difference between ‘biscuit’ and ‘cookie’ or ‘chip’ and ‘crisp’. There is always a right or wrong answer- it just depends on who’s being asked.

Pettiness aside, these inconsistencies pose a few questions when faced with a class full of ESL students, particularly when those students are schooled in British grammar and combine this with phrases learnt from American TV shows and movies.

So which ‘English’ should you teach?

Often teachers are hired based on their nationality. I found my niche in Buenos Aires teaching Business English to students dealing regularly with Europeans, whereas international companies with New York headquarters opted for my American friends.

Photo: walkadog

The best advice is to stick to what you know. As a British native, I teach British English but I allow students (especially beginners) to use American conjugations and pronunciation if they find it easier to do so.

Try to resist the urge to make generalizations about whether something is right or wrong.

I once had students bring in American advertisements to prove me wrong on a grammar point I had made and it’s not a good way to gain their trust!

Never underestimate your students’ ability to catch you out – many take great pleasure in doing this. Keep it simple and make it clear that you are teaching only one style of English.

As a starting point, here are six of the most common differences you may encounter whilst teaching:

1. Regular or Irregular?

The most notable difference between American and British grammar is their inability to agree on whether verbs follow regular or irregular conjugations.

The past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, burn, dream, smell, spill, leap, lit, spit and saw amongst others, are all irregular in Britain (learnt, burnt) but regular in America (learned, burned) and many others follow similar patterns.

Confusingly, despite having regular past participles, irregular adjectives may still be used in American English. ‘Burnt toast’ for example.

American English is generally easier to teach owing to its greater concentration of regular verbs, however it could be argued that if you teach the irregular patterns then students will understand both.

2. Realize or Realise?

Any Brit who has inadvertently subjected their writing to an American spell-check will already be familiar with their annoyingly similar yet different spellings.

After hours spent agonizing over whether to use a ‘z’ or an ‘s’ or whether travelling is correctly spelt with one ‘l’ or two, I lost all memory of what I was taught in school.

The main differences are that American English omits extra letters and favours phonetic spellings – ‘traveller’ becomes ‘traveler’, ‘colour’ becomes ‘color’, ‘centre’ becomes ‘center’ and ‘recognise’ becomes ‘recognize’.

I let my students use whichever spelling they are familiar with but I always check for consistency – whichever method they prefer, they have to stick to it!

3. Use of the Present Perfect

The present perfect is one of the most difficult tenses for foreign students to grasp, a problem unaided by its different uses overseas.

Whereas Europeans would say, “I’ve already eaten”, an American may simply use the past tense and say, “I already ate”, a phrase that is deemed grammatically incorrect in England.

When teaching, particularly with beginners, it’s best to give clear examples that clearly follow the grammatical ‘rules’.

For this reason I teach students to use the present perfect with prepositions such as ‘already’, ‘yet’, ‘never’ and ‘ever’ and would disallow the use of the past tense.

4. Use of Modal Verbs

In the UK we tend to use more modals than our American peers. On numerous occasions I’ve overheard American teachers dismissing expressions using ‘shall’, ‘shan’t’ or ‘ought to’ as out-of-date, unaware that they are still used in England.

Photo: Steph and Adam

Students benefit greatly from a few pointers on modern language usage (I would definitely discourage the use of ‘how do you do?’, for example) but make sure you are aware of international variations before you make these statements.

If unsure, simply state: ‘In America, we say it like this…’.

5. Numbers and dates

These basics are the bane of early language learning, as anyone trying to master their telephone number in a new country will agree.

Most significant is the order of dates – 25th January 2009 would be expressed 25/01/09 in the UK but 01/25/09 in America.

Numbers may be pronounced differently too – ‘twelve hundred’ is more common in America than in England, where ‘one thousand two hundred’ is preferred. Similarly the Americans often drop ‘and’ when reading numbers – ‘two thousand and three’ might become ‘two thousand three’.

Students often struggle to distinguish these differences in conversation and benefit from exposure to as many variations as possible.

Photo: ronocdh

6. Vocabulary

English speakers have plenty of disagreements over vocabulary, with each country, and often region, renaming common items.

A British duvet is an American comforter, a lift is an elevator, and the boot of a car is a trunk. The list is endless.
With vocabulary, I try to teach as much as possible without baffling the student. The more words they know the better.

When dealing with a special case then I refine my selections – a student moving to the UK will obviously benefit from English phrases and colloquialisms whereas a salesperson who deals with US representatives would need to familiarize themselves with American speech.

Teaching slang is always a popular lesson choice but be careful of words with double meanings. ‘Fanny’ springs to mind, as do ‘fag’, ‘rubber’ and ‘pants’. You have been warned!

Community Connection

Thinking of teaching overseas? Have a look at the insiders guide to teaching in Asia, the top ten places for teaching English abroad and how to get work teaching English as a second language. Still dubious about the impact of English abroad? Check out this article about whether English should be the world’s international language.

Photos: Where There Be Dragons

1. The group split up into two vehicles to attempt the rough track to our home-stay in an Yi village near Lashihai. I was riding shotgun in a beat-up van that skidded and fish-tailed up the mountain. The van door fell off twice and the students got out and pushed about a dozen times before the driver gave up and turned around.

We hiked over the pass and saw the headwaters of the Yangtze River through rising rainclouds in the valley below. Heading down to the village, I got a scratchy call on my cell – the other vehicle, a tractor, had also turned around before the pass, and the group needed help with the bags.

I sent my group of students back up the hill to meet the others. The rain came. I sheltered in a hollow tree. Lightning flashed.

Shivering and alone inside a tree somewhere on a mountain in China, I thought – “So this is my job?”

2. Down in the Yi village we ate roasted potatoes for breakfast, pulled from the cooking fire coals.

3. Sure, this job is stressful. Last week a student went into shock crossing a pass near the Tibetan border. My co-instructor, Stew Motta, brought him down with the help of another student. Stew made the call to go to a hospital in town, so I turned back to meet up with the student who had helped with the evacuation.

By the time I reached the trailhead it is was late in the afternoon. We still had a 5 hour hike up over the pass. Short on time, I bargained with mule drivers for a ride up trail. They wanted 185 kwai. I was sweaty, frustrated, worried – and it wasn’t until halfway up the trail, on the back of a mule, passing prayer flags at 11,000 feet that I started to remember where I was.

4. Check out the view from the lodge we hiked into, looking up the valley to 6,740 meter high Kawa Karpo, a sacred mountain that’s never been summited.

5. And now, back in Kunming, we’re getting set to go south into Laos. You can see more photos and read posts by Mekong Semester students on the Yak Yak Board.

Feature and Above Photo: visbeek

I’m sure there are many excellent dishes on offer at Arun Restaurant. In fact, I have been told as much by fellow diners. But I have eyes (and taste buds) for only one thing on the menu: the fried tofu with tamarind, chile and basil.

I had the good fortune of ordering the dish the first time I dined at Arun, and for almost a year now, I have been incapable of trying anything else. It’s that good—tangy and flavorful, it unlocks some window of pleasure in my brain of which I was previously unaware.

Photo: foodista

I eventually began to have fantasies of recreating the tofu in my own kitchen. In pursuing this goal, I had the enormous advantage of having Oeurn Pav, one of the cooks from Arun, allow me to watch her make the dish one afternoon. “Only the tofu? It is so easy!” Pav had said, boosting my confidence. Then again, she’s been cooking at Arun for twenty years, and when I later studied my scribbled recipe notes at home, there were some definite gaps.

First and foremost, there was the enigma of the tamarind. Pav had already had an enormous jar of thick reddish-brown paste ready to go, but when I asked her how she made it, the details were a little sketchy.

I searched high and low at Psar Chaa to find the right kind of tamarind, and I finally located it near the herbs at one of the vegetable stands—a peeled sticky mass that resembled a petrified human heart and cost 500 riel.

Photo: stuart_spivack/

In accordance with Pav’s instructions, I cooked it in water until it became a bubbling concoction thick with seeds and pulp, but then I needed to strain it and I hadn’t been able to find the kind of netting that Pav uses for the task.

My sous-chef Jason and I experimented with a plastic bag with holes punched in it, but it burst almost immediately. Then he hit upon the idea of using a gray Hanes sock as an improvised cheesecloth, loading tamarind guts into the toe and squeezing until it extruded a smooth paste. It worked, though it gave our kitchen the gruesome look of a medical experiment gone awry, at the center of which was a sodden sock and a bowl of something that looked like canned gravy.

I had no way of properly deep-frying the tofu, but pan-frying produced tofu triangles of a perfect golden-brown that were (dare I say it?) almost prettier than the ones at Arun. From there it was a matter of throwing ingredients like oyster sauce and heaps of basil together in a wok, though this too was a little hazy at times. For instance, there had been an unidentified white powder that Pheak, the restaurant owner’s young daughter, had described as “seasoning.”

“Like…salt?” I had asked.

“Like seasoning,” she had responded.

“Like…MSG?”

“Like seasoning,” Pheak had said, looking at me with pity. I decided to go with salt. Also, despite the name of the dish, I witnessed no chiles used during Pav’s preparation. To compensate, I seasoned the oil with a little chile-marinated garlic, the excellent result of a previous culinary adventure embarked upon by my sous-chef.

Heaping it over rice, I decided that the experiment had been a wild success. My efforts had produced a dish that was nearly identical to my favorite order at Arun, with the added satisfaction of it somehow tasting…well, like me. Plus, there is enough tamarind paste left in the refrigerator for another batch, which I anticipate being far less work-intensive than the first.

As for those readers with less culinary joie de vivre or no socks to spare, you can let Pav do all the work for you for a mere $2.20. But you would miss the satisfaction of unlocking the mysteries of the tamarind.

This article was originally published in the Phnom Penh Post.

Community Connection

You can find Arun and try its signature dish in Siem Reap, Cambodia. If you ‘re not in Southeast Asia but want to live vicariously through the foodies who are, check out these five incredible Asian food blogs. If you love travel and cooking, take a look at essential cookbooks for the culinary traveler.

Photos: author

Normally “routine” – at least in my world – has negative connotations. It invokes a dread of dull, grinding monotony. There is no more depressing expression than “day in, day out:” as if life was just going through the turnstiles, again and again.

But routine has entirely different meanings traveling. It’s a new learning curve, it’s paradoxically novel. I think sometimes you can learn more from establishing a routine than from jumping from here to there on a frenetic traveling binge. And the process of settling into a routine is one of the most gratifying and revealing processes that unfolds after moving to a new place.

In Japan I loved the morning subway ride to work. There were the blank-faced salarymen hanging onto the loops dangling from the ceiling. The perfectly made up girls in sheer pantyhose and heels, fast asleep, lolling ever so slightly side to side in some restless underground dream. The school kids in uniforms staring into space, staring down at their feet.

I never thought I’d work 9-6, and three months was probably the threshold for how long I could stand it without becoming one of those blank-faced types walking in circles in the subway station whispering to herself. But while they lasted, those three months were brilliant – I loved the feeling of being done at six and coming out of the Sakae station into a bustling evening, feeling exhausted and relieved and still somewhat alert since everything, even after months there, was still so new.

Eventually that newness was paired with familiarity – a paradoxical combo that creates, for me, the greatest traveling feeling.

Weekends captured this like nothing else in Japan. After so many strange teaching schedules and a year of freelancing, weekends were unexpected gifts this new routine had coughed up.

Saturdays were precious. In the summer in Japan it gets light around 5, and I always seemed to get up around this time, despite the debauchery of the night before. I suppose this has always been a Sarah curse/blessing. Mornings are my time of day.

The city felt so quiet. I’d to the Circle K to get milk, or roam a bit in the Osu Kannon area, waiting for the supermarket to open. An occasional bike would breeze by, the sun would do its morning thing, coming out and disappearing behind clouds, and I’d get this detached, luxurious feeling of freedom.

There are lots of ways to define the passing of time, and weekdays vs. weekends has never been my preferred method. But I must say that in this routine, weekends were sweeter than a fat persimmon. Than a beer after six straight hours of classes. Than finding black sesame at the 100 yen shop. They were the crème de la crème of luxury.

But now, back in Mexico, weekends have faded into a wider swath of time. It’s not necessarily a bad thing – just another routine that’s petered out and become part of the nostalgia for a particular place from the past.

Transitory routine. A travel paradox. At some point I’ll have to reconcile the love of getting settled with the love of leaving, the love of routine with the love of novelty, the desire for newness with the desire for familiarity. Or not.

Standing atop Cerro Tunari, Cochabamba / Photo: foxtwo

It’s pronounced “Bs.”

We’re talking currency here—the Boliviano—and every English-speaking foreigner you meet is gonna use the term.

Photo: jaytkendall

You might think it sounds pretentious at first. You might even take a silent vow: “There’s no way I’m jumping on that bandwagon.”

So you’ll struggle by with the clunky “Boliviano” for a bit. Or do as many locals and call it a peso.

But before long you’ll come around—they all do—chiming in with the rest: “I just bought a bag of 25 oranges for only 4 Bs!”

Every outlet sparks.

“Yikes!” I said the first time I plugged in my laptop, meeting a loud pop and two very large, very golden sparks.

“Don’t worry,” a roommate returned. “They all do that.” And it’s true.

So, no, you haven’t fried your MacBook. You’re just in Bolivia.

Bus rides can get hairy.

This may go without saying in a country that’s home to the World’s Most Dangerous Road, but for a while I was fooled.

Some major highways are paved, and the buses running them could even be mistaken for luxurious once in a while.

Photo: zaturno

But venture off the primary trucking routes and things get ugly fast.

Before you know it, you’ll be having your own “Bolivian bus experience”—the one where you can’t tell if your teeth are chattering from the crap road or the drafty window, the chola who took up residence in the aisle three hours ago has fallen asleep with her bowler-hatted head on your thigh, and the bus breaks down—right on cue—in the middle of a frigid Altiplano night.

Fun stories afterwards—not so fun while you’re there.

Spanish isn’t just your second language.

In many parts of South America’s most “indigenous” nation, the long arm of castellano has yet to reach—or maybe was amputated due to frostbite.

If you’re heading deep into the jungle or off the beaten path on the Altiplano, your halting Spanish isn’t going to be the biggest language barrier you face.

Aymara and Quechua are two native tongues that, along with Spanish, are recognized as official, but there are about 35 others in varying degrees of use.

Photo: Aya Padron

Prepare to get high.

Even if you don’t stop into the cocaine bar.

La Paz is at 3,660 meters (12,000 feet) above sea level. If you take on the Southwest Circuit, you’ll be even higher.

It’s easy to brush off the potential effects of soroche before you arrive, but it hits the majority of visitors in one way or another.

Remember to follow the local advice: “Camina lentito, come poquito, duerme solito.” (Walk slowly, eat lightly, sleep by your lonesome.)

Sometimes, Internet lines “blow up.”

“Why’s the Internet down?” I asked the director of my volunteer program one day.

“I just called the company,” he replied. “They said a broadband transmission line somewhere in the Amazon blew up.”

“…Oh.”

The story wasn’t confirmed, and probably never happened. But the fact is, in Bolivia, it could have been true.

There are no McDonald’s. No Starbucks.

Photo: RastaChango

If all of the above has transpired and you’re longing for a taste of home—too bad. There are no golden arches, no green…whatevers, to provide the fix. Maybe a Burger King if you’re lucky.

But hey, suck it up. Run down the street to the market, pick up a handful of paltas to make guacamole, some llama steaks for the grill, and a few liters of Taquiña to wash it down. Come on, it’ll run ya like 30 Bs.

Life is good. You’re in Bolivia.

Community Connection

For more news out of Bolivia, check out these Matador titles:

Big Bolivian Sunsets: Interview with Photographer Ron Dubin

Bolivia to Become World Battery Capital?

The Bolivian Referendum: Watershed Moment or Politics as Usual?

Feature Photo: author Photo: gnuckx cc0

For those of us who grow up in a country not completely our own, visiting ‘home’ is a daunting task we set for ourselves.

It is something we want to do (eventually) but there is a certain fear that it won’t live up to our expectations or that we may not be prepared for what it has in store for us. Nevertheless, you get to a certain stage in your life when your curiosity gets the better of you and you just have to visit the country which has formed the basis of so many bedtime stories and family re-union fantasies.

Photos: author

This April, I made the journey back to Israel/Palestine after my Palestinian family left as refugees back in 1948. I was the first family member ever to go back, so there was a certain apprehension over whether I would be allowed in and how I would be received considering the fact that the conflict between the two people rages on.

Putting certain issues aside, such as Israeli security, it was the most positive and life-affirming experience of my 23 years on earth so far. Here, I offer some advice to ensure your heritage-hunting trail doesn’t turn into nightmarish.

Go with an open mind

If your family left under difficult circumstances such as wars, discrimination or economic turmoil, try to remember this is only one part of the story. Be prepared to listen and consider all aspects of the conflict. After all, you are here to learn and are by no means the expert. It doesn’t help anybody to go shooting your mouth off about what your grandmother told you happened and insisting that everyone else is simply wrong.

Try to be understanding and if possible disconnect yourself from the situation as this will stop you from taking people’s opinions personally. It’s also a good idea to find out what the accepted political talk is to avoid getting into serious trouble for indiscreet comments about a party/event/government.

Draw emotional boundaries

Visiting your ‘ancestral home’ can be an emotionally draining experience so learn to draw boundaries between what you actively want to explore and what is off-limits. While many trace back family that still live in the country and meet up, you may want to think carefully about this and whether you can handle the implications that come with it.

If you do decide to do this, make sure that you have some means of venting your emotions safely. Talk to someone you trust and who understands the meaning of your journey, also leave time in your itinerary to just relax and reflect on neutral ground.

Share the journey

Traveling somewhere which has such personal meaning can seriously hit you. Hard. It could be anything from visiting the town your parents are from, a monument or just haggling for strawberries with a women who looks uncannily like your granny. I am not saying that you’ll be an emotional wreck but it’s a pretty life-changing experience.

So share it. Especially with your family who will be keen to hear about every little detail of your travel.

Take pictures and not just of the usual sites but the of the quirky details that you noticed (horrendous English spellings is one I love), the people you met along the way, the things that made you laugh/cry/smile. It may be momentarily cringe-inducing but it will be worth it, trust me.

I think I will always regret not taking a picture of an old lady I met on the bus, who told me her entire life story in the space of 5 minutes and then invited me over for dinner.

Also pick up a small, unique present for everyone, like a native flower, a book, a pebble or even a shell. Try to include them in your journey in different ways such as sending a postcard from each city you visit, addressed to someone different. Ultimately, nothing can prepare for this journey so just take time to savor it and hopefully the first time you visit home will be the first of many journeys into self-discovery.

Feature Photo: Tracy O Photo: sushi ina

The thought of being given a hefty fine and thrown in a dinghy jail cell for passing fake banknotes shouldn’t be on a travelers bucket list.

This goal of this article is to help you identify some common characteristics to help identify counterfeit banknotes in your possession.

1. Does It Feel Right?

Thought you learned nothing when handling cash as a restaurant waiter/waitress or cleaned golf clubs at a country club like myself? You’re wrong. The experience of continuously exercising the sense of touch over and over again has taught us what to expect when handling paper currency. The printed paper should feel crisp due to embedded fibers and shouldn’t be floppy.

Photo: Phil Dokas

2. Watermarks

Ever hold a banknote up to the light and notice a faint design? Most forms of paper currency have a watermark when held to the light that will display a picture or denomination numeral.

3. Micro-text and Magnifying Glass

The micro-text of a counterfeit banknote will show signs of being smudged due to the fact that most printers cannot produce the small font. If you were to take a magnify glass to a genuine 2007 Series $5 United States banknote you will notice the micro-text phrase “five dollars” throughout the border edges. A counterfeit version of this banknote might show the text to be smeared instead of being crisp.

Photo wombatunderground1

4. Print & Ink Quality

This feature might be a bit tougher to spot for the untrained eye. The print quality will be very inferior when compared against a genuine banknote. The ink on most banknotes will appear metallic and shift colors when tilted. There could be the possibility of having a counterfeit banknote if the print and ink appear to be blurred but also could be from normal wear-and-tear.

5. Ultraviolet Light

Ultraviolet lights have a few more uses other than examining sketchy hotel bed linens. Many governments have incorporated this security feature within their paper currency. The passing of an ultraviolet light over a genuine 2007 Series $50 Barbadian banknote will reveal that the security thread glows blue while the text glows yellow. In addition, the waves near the flying fish in the center and the Coat of Arms florescence green and yellow.

6. Raised Notes

This is the common counterfeit method of gluing numerals from higher denominations notes to the corner of actual lower denominations currency. The best ways to spot this illegal practice is to compare the numeral denomination to the written denomination.

Still can’t tell? Compare the details (e.g., borders and portraits) near the numerals of a genuine note of the same value to help verify consistency.

7. Foil Holograms

Photo stitch

There are various other features hidden in paper currency to deter potential counterfeiters. When a 2002 Series $100 Euro banknote is tilted, an architectural image and denomination value will appear on a foil hologram. This security feature is usually found on higher denominations to halt criminals from bleaching low denomination banknotes with the goal of reprinting a higher denomination.

8. Anti-Copying Pantographs

This feature appears to be very plain and unassuming to many. In fact it provides a decent layer of protection. This anti-copying security will be activated depending on the method used to counterfeit the note, such as placing it on a scanner. This causes an obvious disturbance within the once unassuming area by producing patterns or words. It shouldn’t be hard to miss the word “Void” when triggered.

9. Chemical Sensitivity

Banknote paper is sensitized to a myriad of common chemical agents used by forgers. Use of acids, solvents or alcohol will cause noticeable stains to instantly appear. Don’t get these noticeable stains confused with typical wear-and-tear or coffee stains.

The possibility of having a counterfeit banknote is usually low as most government’s do a decent job at removing them from circulation. The United States Secret Service, whom are responsible for anti-counterfeiting investigations, has noted that less than 1% of the United States banknotes are counterfeit. This statistic can vary from country to country based on the security features within a banknote and the effort of the local government to remove illegal tender from circulation.

Feature Photo: decade nullPhoto: jgurbisz

This article was originally published in a different magazine under a different name.

The first thing I noticed about my cell was the stench. It smelled like someone shit in a pan, then pissed in that pan, then cooked that pan on a hot stove. I gagged as the jailer slammed the solid steel door and slid the bolt into place.

“Un momento!” I cried out. “Donde está la luz?” He laughed lightly. “No hay.” Then he was gone.

I found a lighter in my pocket (their search was less than thorough) and examined my cell. I was standing in a quarter-inch of water, overflowing from a hole in the corner. That hole was supposed to be the toilet.

The cell was the size of a standard office cubicle and designed to hold four prisoners, with four concrete slabs protruding from the walls. Rats, big motherfuckers, started to squeeze under the door to investigate. I climbed onto one of the high bunks, away from the rats and the fetid water, praying to God that there would not be any more surprises. There was a small window near the bunk, but no moon.

Never had I imagined that I was going to end up in a third world jail. I’d never even been to a first world jail, and this isn’t the kind of thing a person should plunge into headfirst. You should be able to warm up to it—maybe with a disorderly conduct charge and a night in the drunk-tank back in Seattle, for practice.

But I was a science geek. My time in a research laboratory, staring at bacteria all day, did nothing to prepare me for the isolation and squalor of a Central American prison.

The story began six months earlier, on April 12th, 2007. That morning I received a phone call informing me that I had been awarded a prestigious travel fellowship. A U.S. university was going to pay me to travel for eight months, by myself, in two different regions of the world.

Photos: author

The farthest I had ever traveled before was a quick jaunt over the Mexican border for cheap tequila. All my friends were jealous.

Three months later, I flew into Cancun and hopped on a bus heading for Guatemala. The first few days were filled with apprehension and horror: I had no fucking clue what I was doing. For example: I paid an “exit tax” to a border official when I left Mexico, only to be informed by a fellow traveler some days later that Mexico doesn’t have an exit tax—which made sense, since I had watched the border guard tuck my 200 pesos ($20) into his overstuffed wallet.

I learned as I went, riding buses through Guatemala and hitchhiking across Honduras, studying Spanish and climbing mountains. I whiled away long days lounging in hammocks, reading books about Central American political history. I basked in the sun on white sand beaches, smoked joints, and went diving in the warm waters of the Caribbean.

Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere, an ideal place to study Spanish if you’re trying to stretch your money as far as it will go. I arrived in Granada anxious to start a new round of Spanish classes.

The locals seemed proud of their city: Granada represents a modern Nicaragua, where $200-a-night hotels, Irish pubs, and high-end tourists line the ancient stone streets. To me, Granada represented just another tourist attraction. This was not what I expected.

The euphoric cloud I had been riding during my first two months was evaporating, and I was beginning to feel homesick. I spent the week in a state of melancholy, half-heartedly studying Spanish, anxiously waiting to finish my classes so I could get out of the city.

I was desperate to recapture a bit of the adventure that had fueled my first two months on the road. I was about to get more of it than I wanted.

On the morning of my arrest, I woke up in a funk. (I’d lost one of my three pairs of fancy travel underwear—one-third of my total underwear collection at that point.) Things started to look up when I arrived at school and my Spanish teacher, Omar, asked me if I wanted him to buy some pot for us to smoke that night.

I have been a more than casual smoker since I was 14, and decided before the trip even started that—despite the penalties—I wasn’t going to quit smoking. I enthusiastically handed over 100 Cordobas (about five dollars) and agreed to meet him in Parque Central later that night.

We met as planned and started walking down Granada’s cobbled streets towards my hostel. As we walked, Omar pulled a small plastic baggie containing about two grams of pot from his pocket and handed it to me for inspection. I quickly glanced at the bag and slipped it into my pocket as we continued on.

I was in a better mood than I had been for days when a voice yelled “parese!” (“stop!”). I turned and saw an obese cop precariously perched on the handlebars of a bicycle, peddled by an old Nicaraguan man struggling to keep the bike upright. Awkwardly dismounting from the handlebars, the cop rushed over to us. Omar said “fuck” (in English), and we were up against the wall.

After searching Omar, the cop turned to me. He quickly found the bag and said: “You are in big trouble.” This must have been one of the only English phrases he knew because he kept repeating it over and over again. That and “take it easy” any time I tried to speak to him.

The gentleman on the bicycle had ridden past us a few minutes before. I remembered him staring, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. He had probably seen Omar hand me the bag and, thinking he might extract some money from the situation, found the first policeman he could. I offered to pay a “fine.” The fat cop refused. I offered again. He refused again, handcuffed me, and took me to jail.

We stopped at my guesthouse on the way so I could retrieve my belongings. At the jail, I was ordered to remove all my valuables from my bag so that they could be entered into the evidence log. I had been planning on leaving the next day to hitchhike the east coast of Nicaragua and went to an ATM to take out the cash I would need for two weeks. When all was said and done I had over $900.

Throw in an iPod, a camera, and a watch and there was well over $1,200 in cash and electronics sitting on the counter. It is profoundly uncomfortable to watch someone count out your traveling money, probably over half his annual salary, knowing that he thinks you are a stupid, ignorant, rich American who is about to get exactly what he deserves—which you kind of are.

I lay on my concrete slab for hours, while countless questions raced through my head: When was I going to be released? Would I be able to call my embassy? How long before my parents or my girlfriend started to worry? How long could they keep me here?

I finally willed myself into a fitful sleep. I awoke frequently, once completely confused about where I was. When the reality of the situation hit me, I curled up in a ball on my concrete pad and cried.

Around mid-morning, a female jailer came on duty. She taunted me in Spanish and laughed when I tried to ask questions. She instructed the prisoner in charge of handing out food to give me none, and refused to let me use another cell to go to the bathroom.

That afternoon, I was moved from my soiled cell into a clean(er) one with two other prisoners. My cellmates were very kind to me. When I told them that I had not been given any food, they produced a couple of small bananas and a cup of instant milk.

We spent the afternoon trying to chat. During our halting conversation, I learned that one had tried to kill his wife in a drunken rage, and that the other was an accomplice to the murder of an American woman during a botched robbery three months earlier.

I didn’t really formulate my escape plan—I just started it and realized I would have to keep going no matter what. I began clutching my chest and complaining about the size of the room, then pacing quickly and working myself into a panic. I told my cellmates that I needed medicine for my heart and asked them to call the jailer.

She looked in on us, slammed the door shut, and began walking away when my cellmates came to my rescue. They shouted at her to come back, and soon prisoners in other cells began shouting, too. Five minutes later, she returned with her boss who escorted me down to an office. He screamed furiously at me while I stood, feigning chest pain and asking to see a doctor.

Luckily, they did not want to take the chance that some American kid might actually keel over and die in their jail. Can you imagine the paperwork associated with that sort of fuckup?

Two hours later my travel-angel arrived. Inspector Amaru was one cool guy. He was like the detective you see on TV who drives a car that is way out of his pay grade, sleeps with gorgeous female officers, and busts the really bad motherfuckers without breaking a sweat. He also spoke fluent English.

He led me to the cafeteria and offered me a cigarette and a plate of gallo pinto. After I wolfed down my meal and sucked my cigarette down to its filter, he explained that he was going to take a statement. If he believed me, he would try to help me. If he thought I was lying, that was the end of our time together. Obviously, I spilled my guts.

As he had promised, Amaru went out of his way to help me. He called the police commissioner at home and convinced him to let me out due to my “medical condition.” I was released—my passport and belongings were not—and instructed to return Monday morning, at which time I would sign a formal statement and meet with the commissioner.

On Monday morning, I went to the police station filled with nervous anticipation. I spent the first hour giving a formal statement, with Amaru translating and an officer taking dictation on a decrepit typewriter that looked like it had seen action in the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Then I was led into the commissioner’s office. Again, Amaru translated as the commissioner said he could not waive the charges against me because they were drug-related. “If you had robbed someone or beaten someone up this would not be a problem, but this is out of my hands,” he said. There needs to be a trial.”

I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. Leaving the police station, I felt like I was about to have a complete breakdown. Amaru calmed me down and told me a friend of his was a good lawyer and that we would see her immediately.

I had expected an office building, but we pulled up in front of a bar. My lawyer was sitting at the bar, drinking a beer and chatting with some friends. She came over and talked quickly with Amaru but not with me. I started freaking out again. “Don’t worry,” Amaru assured me casually. “We’ll meet her at the courthouse tomorrow morning and we’ll see the judge then. You want some lunch?”

On Tuesday morning, Amaru picked me up and I rode to court on the back of his motorbike in a complete downpour. We were soaking wet and dripped on the floor throughout the pre-trial hearing. A trial date was set for that Friday and I was released on my own recognizance, meaning I could get my passport and belongings. I paid my lawyer via Amaru and he drove me back to my hostel. When we arrived, he handed me my passport and said solemnly: “I would be out of the country by Friday if I was you.”

We shook hands and I just stood there repeating “gracias” over and over until he pried his hand away. He gave me a small grin and hopped on his bike, never asking for anything in return for all the help he had given me.

The following morning, I slipped out of my hostel before dawn and boarded a southbound bus. Three hours and three buses later, I was at the Costa Rican border. Somehow, I managed to walk through Immigration without freaking out. I was in Costa Rica.

I hitchhiked south. By nightfall, I had arrived on the Pacific coast in a small surf town called Samara Beach. After checking into a guesthouse I took a long walk, basking in the fading sunlight and enjoying the fresh coastal air. I passed a young Costa Rican surfer sitting on the beach lighting a joint. “lo quieres?” (“Want some?”) he asked grinning. “Hay policia aquí?” I asked, smiling slightly.

“Soy un policia!” he laughed. He handed me the joint. We sat chatting amicably and leaning back on the sand, watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. It felt good to be free.

Feature Photo: siddharta Photo : ivanx

It’s the eve of Mexican independence day.

Almost exactly 200 years ago on the 16th of September 1810, priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla gave the famous “grito de dolores” or, as it’s commonly referred to “el grito.” Priest Hidalgo gathered his congregation at his church in Dolores, a small pueblo in Guanajuato, and proceeded to give the sermon credited with kicking off Mexico’s 10-year war for independence.

The sermon culminated with cries of “Death to the illegitimate government! Long live the the glorious pueblo Méxicano!” followed by the emphatic ringing of the church bell.

This grito is replicated each year on the evening of September 15th, in the Zócalo of Mexico City and in plazas, cities, and pueblos around the country. The president and other public figures initiate it with three or more shouts of “Viva México!” followed by a “Viva!” for every Mexican state and for Mexican revolutionary figures. Massive fireworks are set off and the pueblo Méxicano goes nuts in shades of red, white, and green.

In honor of el grito, I give you “Mexico Lindo y Querido,” sung by Mexican singer and actor Javier Solis (1933-1966).

Any mariachi in Mexico will be able to sing this for you. I most recently heard it on a road trip in Ohio, when Jorge gained control of the Ipod and used it to shout, weepy and unabashed, “México lindo y querrrrrido!” out onto the open road.

If you want to follow along, find the lyrics below:

Voz de la guitarra mía,
al despertar la mañana
quiere cantar la alegría
de mi tierra mexicana

Que digan que estoy dormido
y que me traigan aquí
México Lindo y Querido
si muero lejos de ti

Viva México!

Feature Photo: Jen SFO BCN Photo: sethw

Living abroad is the act of cultivating a sense of superiority to “the tourists.”

Travelers (who often consider themselves the cultured half of the supposed traveler/tourist dichotomy) try to pull off this superiority to tourists as well, but at the end of the day they have to admit that they have no idea what the price of tomatoes per kilo is or how to pronounce zempoalxochitl.

It’s those who are quasi-local, who have plants, cook and have managed the general grid layout of the town, who really perfect their scorn for tourists.

Expat treatment of tourists ranges from gentle condescension, as if the tourists were dense, pitiful, overweight children, to outright contempt, as if the tourists were an invasion of parasites sucking all the authenticity out of local culture. But in very rare cases does the expat actually see a reflection of him/herself in a tourist.

Photo: Ed Yourdon

Ah, but the reality is, folks, that at some point in time even the most seasoned expat was standing on some street corner looking dumbly in each direction and being silently condemned by Those Who Got There Earlier. Yet expats seem particularly quick to throw together a hierarchy, and they defend it like dogs defending the pack order.

The eager study abroad student is at the bottom of the ladder. Then come the English teachers, then the newer retired people, then the older retired people, then the newer retired artists, then the older retired artists. You can jump a few rungs in the hierarchy by virtue of participation in revolutionary politics or marriage to a local.

So what’s the purpose of all this if, at the end of the day, the study abroad student, the artist with his eco-hacienda, and the group of straw-hatted retired folks who’ve been here for twenty years are all foreigners?

I think it has something to do with a sense of vulnerability inherent to the experience of living in another country, in another culture. For as much as you may dress in huipiles and explain the subtle differences between mezcales, you’re still an outsider. Even the huarache-wearing down-with-the-people revolutionary living in the barrios outside of town is, at the end of the day, foreign.

Photo: another sergio

And while, in my experience, Mexico’s got nothing on Asia as far as making foreigners feel foreign is concerned, there are still walls—economic, social, cultural. And occasionally, foreigners bristle at the presence of those walls.

Hence, the vulnerability—who knows when that occasion will come, just when you feel that you’re in the intimate little cave of culture, huddled round the campfire with everybody else, when suddenly BOOM a wall goes up and you realize that nope, you’re actually outside looking in.

I don’t want to give the impression here that expats can never truly belong to or be part of a local culture. No, not at all. But belonging is a precarious and fluctuating state of being, not a constant.

And perhaps feeling that, consciously or unconsciously, expats throw up an extra wall between themselves and tourists. So that at least if the wall gets thrown up between them and Mexicans, well, they’re still not outside the moat yet. There’s a big ol’ wall between them and the tourists in white tube socks and sandals.

And an even bigger wall, expats are quick to point out, between them and the big dude in the San Diego T-shirt drinking Negra Modelo out of a can in front of Santo Domingo at 3 p.m. and shouting “Honey! Take me a picture!”

Photo: Garry Knight

All those tourists are reminders, sometimes subtle, sometimes painful, of the essential expat vulnerability.

I’m waxing on about this because yesterday was one of those days when that vulnerability came on sudden and unexpected.

I went roaming around Oaxaca’ s various libraries, searching for inspiration in old atlases and yellowing history books. Didn’t find inspiration, but definitely confronted my outsiderness.

I can’t describe exactly where the feeling comes from, but suddenly it’s there—standing in the weighted silence of a library room with a bunch of school girls giggling and whispering behind their hands, the librarian staring out of the corner of her eye, people shuffling past and casting a sideways glance…and the vulnerability becomes palpable, like a shift in the air.

It’s hard to shake once it’s there, and it throws off one’s sense of balance. The urge is to mentally shout, but no, I live here! Really! I speak Spanish! I’m not….dum da dum dum…a tourist!

But really, isn’t this vulnerability and this outsiderness part of what makes us go abroad in the first place? To see everything, the most minute details, with freshness, with exhilaration?

I ran into a group of tourists later that day on the andador in the center of town, and stood behind them as they took photos of Santo Domingo. For the first time in awhile, I stepped back and craned my neck to admire the cathedral. It was huge and imposing, glowing with late afternoon light, set against one of those impeccably blue Oaxacan skies. How could it have been so long since I’d looked at it?