I bet you thought I forgot about making a Part 2, didn't you?
Oh, Ye of little faith!
If you had missed Adventures in Espanol, Part 1, or you just want to enjoy the humorous, clever and witty writing over and over again, click here. If all you have time for is this post currently on you're screen, then let me give you a quick synopsis of what you missed.
(I understand, we're all busy! I'll try not to be offended. Much.)
Basically, I had a bunch of Spanish classes during High School and College that I neglected to put much effort into. Now we are living in Honduras, a country where Spanish is not just the "official language," it is pretty much the ONLY language.
¡Qué lástima!
Now, on with the show....
The idea that I might actually - finally - be able to speak Spanish fluently was one of the reasons I had been looking forward to our overseas move. But once we had existed in this new foreign land for a couple of days, I realized just how handicapped I was. I found that something like reading a menu wasn't too bad. I knew enough words in the description of the item to get the gist of what was entailed. Pictures were an added bonus. But the outside world did not occur in written menu format. I had to speak to people and (worse!) they had to speak to me! The slow, overly-enunciated, perfect Spanish that I had been listening to on my Pimsleur Audio Course was not the way actual Spanish sounded coming out of a live, native speaker's mouth.
I know, I was shocked, too!
Despite my lack of language skills, I was still pretty optimistic that everyday transactions, like ordering at a restaurant or checking-out at a grocery store, would be easy.
After all, how different could it be?
So when our Social Sponsor, JC, offered to bring the girls and me along for a trip to McDonald's a scant two days after we had arrived, I wasn't fazed one bit! First off, the McDonald's here (as with the majority of fast food restaurants, of which there are many) looks almost exactly like a McDonald's you would find in the States. There's a drive-thru. There's a Play Land. There's molded plastic booths and tables. And there's an LCD menu screen posted above the little identical cash registers, shuffling through pictures of featured items.
All I needed were two things - whatever they call a "Happy Meal" and whatever they call "Chicken McNuggets." The rest, I was sure, I could handle.
The screen flashed with the festive red and yellow box and I quickly memorized whatever words were around it. "Cajita Feliz." A moment later, the same screen now showed those preformed, deep-fried, chicken-ish contraptions that all children are so fond of. And the name? "McNuggets." Ha! Easy to remember!
I marched up to the counter, determined to feel as normal as possible in this strange new world, leaving JC startled by my abruptness and over-confidence.
"Quiero dos Cajitas Feliz con McNuggets," I said, my chest puffed up with pride.
"¿Blahblahblah, blah, blah, blah?"
Huh? I wasn't prepared for her to talk back! What was she saying? Oh, it must be about the drinks!
"Leche, por favor."
She looked at me like I had grown an extra nose on my forehead.
"Dos leche blanco," I tried again, asking for the white milk that my kids prefer with their Happy Meals.
She went to get a manager.
Oh Holy Hell, I broke her!
A minute later, the manager strode over, looked in a couple of silver mini-fridges, then turned to me and said, "I'm sorry, we don't have any milk."
"Oh. Alright, botella de agua, por favor." OK, good, we're back on track. You've got this, Jennifer, stay calm! I ordered a fried chicken meal for myself, because the picture looked good and I could pronounce whatever was written under it.
The girl behind the register put a 9x12 inch board imprinted with pictures of plastic Smurf toys on the counter in front of me, then scurried off to fill our tray with ketchups and boxes and bottles of water.
"¿Blahblahblah, blahblah, blah?" she inquired when she returned.
What????
I was totally clueless. "No entiendo," I said, trying to tell her I didn't understand.
She did everything but roll her eyes at me, her irritation written in capital letters across her body language.
Finally, JC had finished up her order and wandered over to check on me.
"You have to pick out their toys," she explained. "Around here, you get to choose your own toy. That's what the board is for."
OOOOOooooohhhhhhhh!!! Well, why didn't she just say so?
The girls picked out their Smurfs, and we were on our way.
After we were seated and had unpacked Happy Meals, um, I mean, Cajitas Feliz, I told JC how they had freaked out over my milk request.
"Oh, yeah, they don't do milk in restaurants," she explained. "Milk is not used as much here as we do in the States."
And that about sums up my whole experience with Español thus far. I will rehearse whatever it is I want to say in my head beforehand, and feel very confident about the interaction about to ensue. Inevitably, however, the other person has some sort of question to ask of me, and I am lost again.
But the oddest thing occurred. After we had been here for a couple of weeks, and I had worked my way through grocery stores and restaurants and hotel housekeeping, I discovered that many of my words were coming back. All that Spanish vocabulary that I had memorized the day before taking all those tests, then quickly forgot, were never, really, entirely lost. They were random - probablamente, escribir, edificio, poder, calle, mirar - all of these words that came rushing back into the forefront of my consciousness, flying and swirling and landing like small fruit flies. My hopes for learning this language were bolstered by this sudden ability to recall so much. But, at the same time, a deep frustration. What I had were many tiny pieces to an enormous puzzle, and not one piece fit together with the rest.
I was inspired and useless at the same time.
But one thing I have learned in this old age of mine (how many times is it appropriate to turn 24?) is that life is full of choices. I can choose to close myself off from this country and its people, stay inside my house, only speak with English-speaking Embassy folks, and basically ignore the rest of the world around me. Or I can choose to try. Despite feeling frustrated, despite feeling completely stupid and looking incredibly foolish, I can continue to learn this language, step out into the world, and try.
And fail.
And then try again.
Thankfully, most of the people here, unlike the young lady inside that first McDonald's, are very understanding, kind and polite.
Don't get me wrong, I still have days where I just want to hideout inside the walls of my compound and watch nothing but my favorite U.S. television shows in English, sans Spanish subtitles. But then my housekeeper, Mary, arrives and I am forced to communicate.
Communication that is never as horrible as my initial fears.
And so concludes Part 2 of Adventures in Español, but my adventure still continues. I look forward to sharing all the ridiculousness of learning, and adapting to, this beautiful language, although I do not plan to enumerate any future escapades.
¡Adiós! ¡Y tenga buen días!
