Water in Bags, Gloves on Hands

Some of the stuff we don't have back at home doesn't really surprise me too much - like the fruit stands and street vendors. Some stuff though, I never would have thought of, like all the things they sell in bags - water, milk, jam, ketchup, mayo, soda. Sometimes it's like - "I'll have a liter of soda/juice in a big plastic bag please!" and they fill up a bag like you'd use at the grocery store for veggies or bulk items, tie a knot in the top and there you go, empty it into a pitcher when you get home!

And then last night, we went to quite possibly the best restaurant EVER. Well, best in terms of my amusement value. We were driving home from visiting some friends of the family and G's mom asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner. I said, as I do at home quite often when asked the same question, "food". She laughed and started listing off different options. I jumped on "potatoes" because they were something I hadn't had in a while, and she said something about "oh wait, darn, we don't have (something something)" and I said, "french fries?" (something I hadn't had since I've been here) and at that moment we were driving by a little fast food chicken place called something like Pikoriko.


G's mom dashed into the grocery store across the street while his dad and nephew VM and I went in. It was very similar to a McD's or any other fast food place, plastic seating, tile floors, white walls with huge pictures of menu items, and a little net covered play place for kids with a bunch of climbing tubes and a ball pit. VM immediately started playing on the play thing, and we sat down and a girl came and brought us menus, which was so weird to me in a fast food place. And then my Father in Law asks what they have that's vegetarian and the girl is like, uhhh, nothing? (Which doesn't surprise me) But we find the french fries and order some of those. It seems like maybe they fry each batch to order, because it takes a while, and they come on a REAL ceramic plate with the little chicken logo, not paper!

Then G's mom comes and they order their chicken and some plantain thing for me, and some juice for me and soda for them. VM, busy "dunking" the plastic balls in the basketball hoop in the playplace says he doesn't want anything. Then the chicken comes and the girl says they don't have any of the plantain things, so they order me another plate of fries, and VM comes and starts eating mine and so they order ANOTHER plate of fries and I have some of his when they come. (Also F-I-L steals some of the fries from the first plate, which I wouldn't mind except it's my ENTIRE DINNER but luckily with the 3 plates, I had plenty so I needn't have worried.)

But anyway when they girl brings out the chicken, it comes with PLASTIC GLOVES that they put on to eat it! (like the kind I'm used to seeing food service people use to make your food) And that cracked me up SO HARD. I only laughed a little on the outside and I told them I'd never seen anything like it but I was silently lauging inside for like 10 minutes at least, every time I saw the ceramic plates and the plastic gloves. Now honestly, as a vegetarian, this could be something that they do all the time in the states and I just don't know, but I DID ask at least one non-veg friend and she said that whenever she goes out for messy chicken they just bring out a bucket of napkins. I guess it's a bit more more efficient in a way, one pair of gloves vs. tons of napkins? But it looks darn silly. :-D

And they do seem to use paper napkins a lot for other things - like to hold their sandwiches or pizza or little fried things. Sort of preventative to getting your hands dirty? I'm used to getting the hands dirty and then using the napkin AFTER to clean them, and having the napkin wrapped around whatever I'm trying to eat seems like an invitation to a mouthful of paper. But maybe that's just cuz I haven't learned how to maneuver it properly.

Going to the beach again today! Although I'm a wee bit confused because I thought they said we were leaving around 8:30 or 9, but it's 9 right now and G's mom just got up and is cooking something, possibly breakfast, possibly my lunch. Everyone else gets fish on the beach, but after my bad experience with probably the beach salad the last time I came here, that doesn't leave me with much to eat, so when we went out on Wednesday she made me pasta and fried up some deditos. (Deditos = "little fingers" =mini croissant type things with cheese inside). I probably woke up around 7:30 and didn't hear anyone out and about so I stayed in bed until I started freaking out because I don't have a clock in my room, and a little after 8 I got up and checked some emails, accepted a few new MySpace friends and started this blog at about 8:30.

Anyway, my beach bag is mostly still packed from Wednesday, so I don't have much to do, but I think I will go take a quick shower so my skin starts off clean before all the sunscreen I'm going to be slathering on it...

YAY BEACH!

Son Diferentes!

(Just realizing a few things might not be clear- Both G's sister and his mom are named Madeline (well I think technically one is Madelina and the other Madeline), but they are both Made for short and in this post I'm referring to his mom. Paola or Pao is his other sister, and Luifer is short for Luis Fernando, her husband)

Last night I packed up all my paper crafting supplies and lugged them up the 5 flights to Paola's apartment. (That makes it sound like she's in the same building... we drove there first!) We made lots of little things for Lucy's baby shower, cutting out these sweet little poem things with my fancy edged scissors and punching out shapes in the scrap paper for confetti. We also made little stand up gift tag sized cards with embossed baby stamps to scatter around the tables for decoration. We also tied pink and purple bows on to diaper pins. We were able to do all this because V's room was open for Made and Manuel to watch Pura Sangre, their favorite telenovella. I learned fairly early on that no matter where we are or who we are visiting, we have to leave at about quarter to nine so we can get back in time for it! Poor Manuel was starting to look fairly miserable at about ten minutes to nine, as I'm sure he didn't want to interrupt but really wanted to see his show, and his daughter had to convince him that no, REALLY, he would NOT be kicking his grandson out of his bedroom, the boys actually DO all sleep in the same room at night because it's the one with the air conditioning. So that bought us a whole hour more to craft. :-)

Luifer made us little personal pizzas for dinner. Made had made me a little personal pizza the night before. So of course Luifer several times tried to get me to tell him: "Which one is better!!???" To which I always tactfully replied, "Son diferentes!" (They're different!) Both had onions, tomato and cheese. His had more tomato sauce, green peppers and it was on white bread, and Made's didn't really have sauce at all I think, and it had zucchini and stuff. Both were tasty! It was also the 4th time in 5 days I'd had pizza! We went out with the kids on Saturday, on Sunday there was a mix-up with our order of vegetable rice that we brought to the beach house - it turned out to be chicken - so I had a granola bar at the moment and then we stopped for pizza on the way home. Monday night wasn't pizza but then Tuesday and Wednesday were. Whoo hoo! Good thing I LOVE pizza!

So crafting and pizza, it was a fun night. Then to top it all off, I had a big breakthrough Skype (instant messenger) conversation about Spanish with G when I got home, which I will share with you below. The lessons he's referring to are is my Rocket Spanish grammar book that I finally printed out, after years of only ever listening to the mp3's.

G: have you studied from the lessons?

h: yep I did a few today

G: oh nice

h: it's really helpful

G: cool
G: learning a lot?

h: I told my mom that I recommended she read it around the same time as doing the lessons
h: because I think it would have helped me more

G: ah

h: it's ok, I wouldn't have known

G: yeah

h: and now it's kind of just re-enforcing things that I've learned here in the past weeks

G: that's true

h: that now when I read "this is a word they use all the time in Spanish"

G: ohh right

h: I am able to say "oh yeah, that's right, I DO hear it all the time"

G: recognize words

h: whereas if I'd done it before coming here, I would think "what? I've never heard that word before! You must be joking!"

G: oooff

h: and it's also repeating a few times how one shouldn't expect that there would be a word for word translation of everything.

G: oh yeah

h: which I'm finally starting to understand that concept on more than just an intellectual level
h: it was a pretty hard one for me to accept!!!

G: somethings cant be translated
G: oooff

h: although I think I knew it intuitively a little somehow
h: that there was something "different" about Spanish besides just the words
h: more about the way the ideas are used

G: huh

h: I'm still kind of figuring it out...

G: yeah, by being there

h: but now that I know it's true I think I can accept and absorb it better

G: helps to understand that

h: rather than resist it and keep searching for the exact translation'

G: por fin!! (finally)

h: because I think before I thought that the reason i didn't understand was because I didn't have the vocabulary

G: haha

h: but now I'm seeing that I was resisting the "meaning", or trying to understand why the literal translation was so "strange"

G: yeah

h: like, hrmm... trying to think of an example...
h: like, everything here is "que lindo!!"

G: yeah

h: which is like, "how pretty" literally, right?

G: yup

h: but it's used for EVERYTHING

G: yeap

h: and I wouldn't use that in English all the time

G: in a sarcastic way too

h: sure
h: or like, here, it's seems that people use "suavecito" when food is really tasty.
h: which is like "smooth" right?

G: yup

h: and I would NEVER say in English "man, this pizza crust is soooo smooth!"
h: that would sound so strange!

G: hahaha

h: so anyway that concept of learning the meaning, rather than the translation is a really good one to comprehend

G: yeah, and you gain that in full immersion

h: right
h: and I've been beating myself up because I understand the meanings of things, but I can't translate, and I can't USE the words myself. but now I'm thinking that understanding the meaning is just an important first step

G: yup
G: very good
G: like "me voy" (I go/I'm going, but no necessarily right at this moment)

h: big breakthrough (whew)

G: (applause)


I also had a conversation with G's mom, while doing the above mentioned lessons, about how words are different in different countries or even regions of the same country. I was saying how my mom and I have the same problem, where we listened to the mp3 lessons and thought, "ok, I've GOT THIS! I'm so ready to go to a Spanish speaking country!" But then, right away in the first conversations you have, they say (in Spanish of course) "What's up?" or "What's been happening?" or any other of 5 or more greetings I don't understand, instead of the "How are you?" that we learned from the lesson. I've learned that smiling and saying "Bien" is pretty much always an appropriate response. :-D Made told me that there's a different word for "boy" in lots of countries, I explained to her about the whole "pop/soda/coke" thing, and how if I tell the cashier I don't want a "bag" they put my groceries in a plastic bag, but if I tell them I don't want a "sack" they give my one box of cereal to me un-bagged. And the British/US differences: boot/trunk, jumper/sweater.

It's a lot to take in, but I think it's going to make the learning a little easier!

Rent-A-Lap

In this country with plenty of tropical fruits, I haven't eaten many so far on this trip. So the other day I went to the new sit-down-with-waiters-cafe at the U and ordered a fruit salad - Ensalada de fruta.

The cafe is in the same building as the internet cafe and other multimedia fun stuff to do. While I was waiting for my fruit salad I looked up to see this sign:



The next message that flashed across made it clear that there was a new service to rent laptops from the internet cafe, and not that you'd be able to have your way with a human lap for a few hours. Whew!

So then I got my fruit salad. It consisted mostly of apples, strawberries, cantaloupe and a few bits of mango.

I have an apple tree in my backyard at home...

Sigh.

Anyways, it also came with a super tasty yogurt/honey dressing. And it WAS really nice to have some fruit. And I WAS really proud that I did the whole thing by myself, from ordering to paying the check. Which was honestly all of 3 or 4 sentences, but hey I got it!

The next day I bought myself a highlighter marker from the bookstore. Also by myself. And this was even harder, because I didn't know the word for highlighter, so I had to try and explain it.

First of all I was just looking at all the pens in the cases, so he probably knew I was looking for some kind of pen, and when he asked if he could help me I said "no se la palabra en espanol pero es un marquiador(?) para (and then I made the gesture of using it) un parto de texto"

"Marcador?" he corrected me.

"Si" I said, repeating my highlighting gesture.

He brought me to the place where they were (the one display case I hadn't looked in yet) and took one out and showed how it worked and I said "Eso!" and then "Cuanto cuesta?" (That! How much?).

"En este color?" I don't know if the other colors were different prices, but the yellow one was something like $1.50. I bought it. I didn't even give him a ridiculously large bill just to make sure it was enough, because I understood how many pesos he said.

I actually can't remember if I said parto or parte or parta for "part of the text". G informs me that if I said parto that means birth, whoops! Whatever I said, the clerk figured it out anyway, and the point is I was really proud of myself to go all alone to a store where they don't speak english and get something I want, even in my stumbling way. In classes our professors know English and can help out if we get really stuck, but in the stores it's different.

It sounds a little silly, but stuff like that makes me feel a little more comfortable, knowing that I could probably stumble my way through a lot of situations. Which is good. Because in the past G (or someone, or my CD lessons) would give me some little script for going through a common situation. But the problem is, if the other person "goes off the script" I would be totally, utterly lost. And why would they stay on the script in real life, especially if they didn't even know there was one? Now that I know enough Spanish to improvise a little, it's a lot less scary to think about wandering out into the world, or what might happen if I ever got lost. Not that I'd really have much desire or chance to go wandering, but now I don't have to be so terrified of it.

Grammar classes are still kicking my ass. I can't remember if I wrote earlier that I had a mini breakdown in class the first week where I ended up crying because the teacher asked me to provide an example of a sentence in the imperfect subjunctive form, and I had no idea, not one clue of how to start. Hearing that pretty much all my in-laws and some of the professors at the U don't know much about the subjunctive either made me feel less stupid. With all this grammar stuff, I never learned it in English, so learning at totally new concept in a second language is pretty hard. And I didn't need to learn much grammar in English to write and speak well, so I'm letting myself off the hook a little, which, no surprise, actually makes some of the Spanish grammar easier to learn, because I'm not stressing about it as much. And while it would be nice to speak without sounding like a 6 year old, even at my level, I CAN communicate quite a lot, which is what I'm most interested in - communicating.

And then there's stuff like "Rent-A-Lap", and I just know that everything is going to be fine.

My New Favorite Word: Rompecabezas

So, just like in English when you learn a new vocabulary word and suddenly start seeing it everywhere, I've been running into words over and over here in Barranquilla as well. Some of them are pretty common and I'm still trying to get the meaning properly fixed in my head - like vuelta, which literally means to turn; circuit; bend; curve; reverse, but they usually use the phrase "hacer unas vueltas" which the closest concept I can figure in English is to "do errands", but it's a little more all inclusive than just practical stuff, because during the vuelta you could also have lunch or visit friends for example, and I wouldn't categorize that under errands...

The other word that I'm finally starting to get is bastante. It means enough or a lot, and they use it A LOT. Seems fairly easy, but the problem is I got it stuck in my head that it means "already", based on the contexts I heard it in. Now I when I hear it I have to stop and think "it means a lot" and then re-hear the sentence in my mind and that way it's slowly getting re-trained.

One thing we couldn't find in my little dictionary at all was the word for basil. It came up because they brought me to a a vegetarian restaurant that had a pesto-like sauce on some gluten but it didn't have any basil in it. Cilantro, and parsley I think... but by the time you get the garlic and olive oil and some green leaves, it tastes pretty similar. Since it wasn't in the dictionary I tried explaining it, small green leaves, an herb, you can use it dry or fresh, and I must have gotten much of the point across because we went through we went through oregano, parsley, spinach, cilantro, etc. Finally when we got to a computer G's sister looked up basil on Google images, and we asked G over instant messenger and he said he'd had to look it up when he got to the states: Albahaca. Whew!

The other time Google images saved the day was with the food "yama". Which they described as a hard, orange vegetable. It was chopped up in rice, and I thought it was a yam, because it was the same color. So I was asking them if it was like a potato, and they said no no. That WAS in the dictionary - pumpkin, and they also finally they showed me a piece of it raw, and it really was like a pumpkin!!! But I still wanted to show them MY yam, so they'd know I wasn't crazy. So google images to the rescue!

Ah, but we still haven't gotten to my new favorite word - Rompecabezas! It means "puzzle". I saw it first on a book of puzzle games, and then on G's sister's facebook, she has a photo of her family that is broken up into little puzzle pieces you can put back together. And finally, I was researching female Colombian pop and folk singers for my radio show, and remembered there had been a Colombian girl named Melany Moloney who befriended me on MySpace a few months back. (Well, I remembered her name started with M, and then I looked her up. ;-) ) Guess what the name of her CD is? Rompecabezas! She explains: "I named the CD ROMPECABEZAS, because in Spanish the name constitutes the two words ROMPIENDO CABEZAS (translation - breaking heads) and I feel that this is the statement I am making with this multicultural CD". And that is part of why the word delights me, because I knew "cabeza" meant head, and the "rompe" part makes it sound like it's having a romp through your head. So it's a fun word to say and it gives me a visual that makes me giggle.

Melany has an Australian father and a Colombian mother, and her album (It's listed simply as Melany Moloney #1 on iTunes) has a diverse blend of rhythms and instruments - from rock to traditional Colombian instruments, and some of her songs on it have a few words in English. It definitely is a mix of cultures, and that concept echos to my experiences here so far.

It's interesting to think about communication in general. Another thing I hear A LOT is "entendiste?" - "do you understand?". And honestly that is a hard question to answer. Sometimes I DO completely and fully understand. Sometimes I don't catch any of the words at all, but more of the time, I get the essence of what is being said - I know we're going to have dinner when Made's boyfriend gets back, I know we're going to the school to find out why my classes have been postponed till next week, etc. But I couldn't repeat it back to you, or know what each and every word actually means - yet...