Conversacciones

May 25, 2010

It’s been an interesting last two days. As it turns out, my conversational Spanish skills are FAR worse than I had anticipated. I guess everyone has just been really nice to me up to this point, saying that they’re really good (thanks, Chris! J). But it’s ok, I’ll learn. I met my host parents last night. I will be staying with an older couple, maybe 55 or so, with no children. My host father, Jaime, is a Pentecostal pastor, and preaches at several churches over the course of a week, depending on when the congregants can come to church, since many of them work on Sunday. My host mother, Victoria, teaches several subjects at a school for children of all ages (K-12, I gather), and also goes to school. I think so, anyway. I don’t understand what she does quite as well. Conversation with them is interesting. We’ve taken to keeping a dictionary or two on the table, and whenever one of the other of us doesn’t understand (usually me), we both dive for our dictionaries. There are also obvious problems with my thinking that I know which word to use, when in reality, it means something totally different. Case in point – yesterday I was telling them about our trip to Costa Rica, and to describe the ecological reserves that we had visited, I used “preservativos ecologicos.” For all of you non-Spanish speakers out there, “preservativo” means “condom.”

I went to bed REALLY early that first night. Speaking Spanish makes me tired, I was super stressed, and at that point, it was either go to sleep or burst into tears. Hysterical weeping really isn’t my thing, so I chose the former. This morning, I rode the bus to CASAS with Victoria. She made me repeat back the name of the park near the gated community where we live, the street that passes the community, and most importantly, the name of the bus stop (which I cannot remember. A bit of a sticking point, I think). She also cautioned me against all of the creepy Guatemalan guys out there. Evidently Guatemala is chock full of them, and I should talk to none of them. Sage advice, I’m sure. Once we reached the CASAS bus stop, I met up with Patrick, one of the CASAS boys. And to be honest, I have never been so happy to see someone in my entire life. A bit of hyperbolic perhaps… but not really.

We had another 3 hour Spanish class this morning. Roxanne, Ruthi, and I are all in the same class with Marta, the teacher. It’s just like our Spanish class at Bethel, except without Jenae! L Marta actually knows Martha, and has been to Bethel and knows Barry and Rosa Barrera, which is cool. We’ve been placed in the literature class, meaning that we’ve advanced sufficiently in our understanding of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary to be able to understand Latin American literature. Haha. Yeah, right. It’s taken me four hours to read the second chapter of our assigned reading (it’s about 12 pages), and I have no idea what’s going on. It’s about a dead guy, and his story is told piecemeal by those who knew him. Reading a book in Spanish is kind of like this:

1. 1. Read two or three words and string them together in a logical order

2. 2. Meet an unfamiliar word

3. 3. Look up said unfamiliar word

4. 4. Forget what the first two or three words said

5. 5. Re-read the first two or three words and incorporate the new word

6. 6. Read the first phrase, and then progress to the next unfamiliar word

7. 7. Repeat from Step 1

8. 8. Attempt to divine the meaning behind the whole shebang

9. 9. Fail

10. 10. Curse violently

It’s a long, slow, agonizing process. But it must be an effective way to learn a language, because otherwise, people wouldn’t do it.

When I returned to the house this afternoon, I did some homework and Victoria painted a picture. She has quite a few hanging up all over the house. We were listening to some Spanish opera, when I mentioned that Bethel has a really great choir and men’s group. So we listened to “Hold on,” and “Praise God from Whom.” She was pretty impressed with Kelsey’s solo bit, and thought the Doxology was really pretty. Shout out to the BC singers. Thanks for a conversation starter!

Should you feel inclined to send me a letter (which would make.my.day), my address is:

Claire Unruh
c/o CASAS
Apartado 11, Periferico
Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA