10 Times Bolder

"What would you do if you were 10 times bolder?" This is a question posed in the book The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. At the time I read it, I had agreed to do the choreography for Randy's rock opera, My Green Eyes, which was being performed in February of 2006. As I was not really qualified to be a choreographer, my answer to this question was "I already AM 10 times bolder!" The project turned out to be a lot of fun and the choreography was just fine. I thought to myself "There, okay, I was really bold and now I can go back to being comfortable."

En Vía is housed on the Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca campus.

Many of the women in our program are weavers.

But the question keeps popping up, like a bad penny. A big part of coming to Mexico for 6 months was to get uncomfortable, try new things, be brave. And at first, just moving to Mexico fulfilled all those goals, but now that we are immersed in it, like so many things, being here has become "normal." Yes, figuring out which bus to take can be a challenge, knowing exactly what you're eating can remain elusive, and understanding that in this culture sometimes "yes" really means "no" can be really confusing, but for the most part we are navigating things just fine.

I've had to expand my vocabulary to include
words related to dying and weaving wool.

I can also now talk about things like parasitic growth on cacti...

I'm currently working with a microfinance organization, En Vía www.envia.org as a tour guide. I was thinking I would teach English while I was here but when they asked me to take on this role instead I felt, let's say, 5 times bolder saying yes (and I didn't mean "no"). On my first tour I watched the interpreter, who took questions in English from the tourists and translated into Spanish for the local women in the lending program; then she turned the answers from Spanish to English. Because one of my goals is to improve my Spanish, I thought to myself "If I were 10 times bolder, I would become an interpreter." And today, I am 10 times bolder because I am now an interpreter. Although on my first tour last Saturday it crossed my mind that maybe I was just 10 times stupider, as two of my nightmare scenarios came true - there were several people on the tour who spoke Spanish much better than I and  I had the experience of completely not understanding something one of the Mexican women said. (I felt slightly vindicated when no one else had understood her, either.) Well, if it takes some time for me to feel confident in this role, at least I won't have to take on anything new for a while, right?

So, what would you do if you were 10 times bolder?

This little guy was plenty bold - as long as
he was right next to Mom!