g-pass

i'm loving cuenca. it's a colonial town in the southern highlands of ecuador with well preserved architecture, a gorgeous national park at its doorstep, running streams, great bars, cool people, and a distinct feeling of safety. when i see chicks sitting casually on benches in dark parks at midnight chatting on their mobile phones (something that to me screams 'please rob me'), i know i've come to the right place.

what am i doing here? i'm studying spanish. but not with a teacher - if my abortive german lessons in berlin taught me anything, it's that adults can learn, but they cannot be taught. the education system is more about social conditioning than learning in any case. throw in the fact that i am a passionate super-nerd autodidact, and there was never even a question of taking lessons from someone else. mark twain was correct when he advised 'don't let school interfere with your education'. spot on mr twain.

if you're interested, i'll tell you what i do (if you're not, skip this paragraph, because it might get (even more) boring for you). studies show that acquisition of languages is all related to comprehensible input. not talking, not writing, and certainly not learning grammar. it's all about reading and listening to things that you can actually understand. basically i use a program on the internet called lingq.com (which i love), translate things that are interesting and written for natives and not for students, and then read and listen to them over and over again until my brain somehow integrates all of the vocabulary and grammar by itself. the end result is that when i try to speak, all that information has somehow consolidated itself and sentences with vaguely correct vocabulary and grammar simply pop out of no-where, like athena leaping fully formed from zeus' head. after a few months feeling my way into spanish in paris and now three weeks in ecuador, i'm certainly not fluent and i make heaps of mistakes every time i open my mouth, but i can go out with my ecuadorian friends and chat all night over dinner or a beer or seven, and there are virtually no uncomfortable moments of incomprehension. this is the sort of success i'm looking for. it took me four years to get where i am in french and i've still got a long way to go in that language. i know that i'm never going to be perfect in any language other than english, and i don't want to be. the end point of speaking is wonderful, but the process - this whole slow, incremental, lifelong process of gradually acquiring the ability to communicate in another language with people from another culture - is quite possibly my life's number one turn-on, and something that has never, ever left me feeling bored. i love it. i love it with such a passion that i cannot express it. it burns in me. it has burned in me for over half a decade now and with time this fire only burns brighter.

a lot of people like travelling around south america, meeting other tourists and having wonderful experiences with them. this is fine, and i've met some cool gringos so far and had fun with them too. but i am a gringo from australia, and my country has over 20 million gringos in it, so if i had wanted to hang out with gringos, i would have just stayed at home. i want to meet ecuadorians. i want to know what they think. i want to know how they see the world. i want to know what they eat and eat it with them, i want to know where they go and go there with them. i want to immerse myself not only in a language, but in a culture. it may seem easier said than done, but that's where i use my secret weapon: the g-pass.

which minority group is represented in every single culture, language group, ethnicity, nationality or other minority group on the planet? gays! that's right: they're everywhere. without discrimination, straight couples around the world just keep pumping out gay babies. bless them! and what's the advantage to all of this? the g-pass.

the international friendly family of faggots is so open, that as soon as you turn up in a new place, before you can say 'spit-roasted guinea-pig', you find yourself with a whole bunch of acquaintances that are as keen to share their lives with you as you are with them. i'm not saying that you've suddenly got friends - making friends takes time and is the same for everyone. but the g-pass gives you an incredible access point into local culture that i don't think exists in mainstream society. and this access point is a rapid-entry springboard into a whole load of amazing experiences.

some of you might say that hanging with gays is not experiencing real culture. i have two responses to this. the first is that if you think gays are not part of any country's real culture then you need to go and fuck yourself. the second is that things are not as easy for our rainbow brothers and sisters over here, and many are so far back in the closet that they're practically in narnia. when you turn up at gatherings of family and friends, you're just the friend - there's nothing gay about it - it's just a bunch of people from ecuador with the gringo that can't wait to meet everybody. this is one of the most rewarding aspects of travelling. after two weeks in cuenca, i've been going out to lunch and dinner with groups of young ecuadorians practically on a daily basis, partying with them, heading out to the mountains or to festivals, and just being alive in an ecuadorian way. the only gringo in sight is yours truly, and there aren't many gays involved either. but we are each others' access point, and this is a privilege. homosexuality is a gift from the gods. thank you gods.

you might say that this is not sexuality-specific, and you're right. but i think that a straight traveller turning up in a town and immediately moving in with locals and spending the next few weeks travelling, eating and living with them would be the exception rather than the rule. it happens - sure - but it just takes much more time. the g-pass speeds the whole process up. and if sexuality does play a role, then things can get messy, because let's face it: hetero relationships are complicated. i admit that it's got a lot to do with social conditioning, but let me be brazenly honest: i can't imagine a gringo boy turning up in an ecuadorian town, meeting a local girl and fucking her, then both of them admitting that it was fun but not amazing, and going out for dinner to have a laugh about it, before heading out to a club to flirt with other boys and girls together. this is not necessarily my personal experience, but i can easily imagine two gay-boys doing exactly this, and remaining good friends. but hey, boys can be complicated too. i met dude for a friendly dinner last week, in which i was pretty clear that i wasn't interested in anything but being friends. he wasn't either - and said so with pathos-laden sincerity - before attacking me in a nightclub a few days later in a jealous rage and biting my face. oh well, you win some and you lose some.

so that's what i've been up to. i'm living in an apartment at the back of my friend ivan's house, only a short walk from the centre of town and near a beautiful river. the apartment's cool, though the shower has only two settings - hypothermia and third degree burns, and the damn thing alternates at the slightest provocation. if a butterfly flaps its wings in fitzroy gardens, ondrej will be scalded in his shower in cuenca. i am trying to spend my days studying spanish as much as possible, because in one week i'm leaving cuenca and won't be able to study again for over a month. nonetheless, there are many adventures to be had and it's difficult to stop myself from just jumping right in (shout out to n). life is a real pleasure. i love studying, i love having new experiences, and quite frankly i love ecuador. the cuenca festival has just started - it will climax next week - and there are parties, lectures, traditional dances, cooking, concerts and all sorts of things happening every day. i'll be posting a few low-quality videos to my youtube channel if you're interested. it's a great time to be in this lovely city. it's a great time to be alive!

before i go, let me tell you about one of my little pleasures here in ecuador. the buses. in general, transport is wonderful. the roads are great, the buses are reliable and super-frequent, and all of the long distance buses have really comfortable reclining seats that you can practically lie down in. but it's the local buses that i love. and what i love about them is that they don't stop...they just slow down. of course this is not the case for little old ladies, but from time to time when i'm the only one at the bus stop the driver makes me leap onto a slowly moving bus, and i feel like james bond, or perhaps a mini-version: james bondy. but my favourite situation is when i'm already on the bus and it's slowing down at the bus stop that i want to get off at, and the doors swing open while the bus is still at full speed. the first time i waited until the bus was going super slow, but each time i get off, i leap out a little earlier. the last time i had to hit the ground at a full trot to avoid falling over. it was totally james bondy. it may not seem like much, but it's one of life's great pleasures. i leap out, trot on for a few metres, and then walk away with my head high, a great big grin on my face, and i can't deny it: i feel like the coolest person in the whole world ;) peace to you all!