Ethnography

Ethnography

October 5, 2014

Coffee Crazed pt 5

This is the second straight week that red wasn’t at the coffee shop but the employees weren’t as happy as last week, They weren’t sad by any means, they just seemed to be doing their jobs attentively. There was an older lady with short hair and lots of make up pacing around the coffee shop. She was going back and forth between merchandise and picking up each mug or glass and examined each one very carefully.  The employees just ignored her as she paced around the shop for a long amount of time, meanwhile at the counter a couple, two tall males were asking about each drink on the menu, the man taking their order was very patient with them and explained all the ingredients of each drink and recommended multiple coffees until finally, they both decided on purchasing some of the ready to drink name brand juices available to buy.
          
  A group of 4 women walked in all wearing long skirts down to their ankles, each carrying very expensive, and quality purses.  One of them was obviously the mother as she was the oldest of the group and the other three resembled her . They spoke very quietly and didn’t make eye contact with anyone except each other. It took me a while to realize that they were speaking Spanish. I was able to pick out some words from their conversation and pieced together that they were all part of a Mormon church in Juarez, I didn’t know why they were here in las cruces and wasn’t able to find out because after they each ordered their drinks they left very quickly.
           
An older man was sitting on the couch and was slipping in and out of sleep.
He sat there forever, barely moving, simply looking around and seemingly admiring the coffee shop.  Two students one male and one female, sat next to me. The girl was doing some homework while the boy was obviously easily distracted and constantly looked at his cell phone and would try and strike up conversation with his friend, the girl. She would respond to him but wouldn’t look up from her work, getting visually more frustrated with her friend with every question he would ask. Eventually she began giving him short one word answers and he finally got the hint.  He stopped talking to her and spent the rest of the time looking at his phone instead of doing his work.
         
   Another student sat at a table and had papers scattered across his table and his lap. Biting his nails nervously as he stared blankly into his calculator. He would constantly look around, as if he was seeking help. He had a frustrated look, as he would flip back and forth between pages in his book and the countless sheets of paper in front of him. Finally he gave up and walked out, carrying the cluster of papers and books in his hand.
     
        I had to leave early this week due to personal reasons but the coffee shop seemed almost dead as I was leaving.

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