Before stepping foot in Guatemala, I thought my 27 months here would make me fluent in three languages. I’ve got English down; my Korean’s not terrible; and my Spanish would definitely improve from SPAN110 Elementary Spanish I.
However, after 11 months of communicating and interacting with Guatemalans and my family and friends back in the States, I’ve come to a terrifying realization:
I am now extremely inarticulate in all three languages, even my mother tongue.
How can that happen?
Maybe that’s why I haven’t written a blog in the longest time. It now takes effort to form proper, complete sentences in English. I do not even want to think about what my Verbal GRE score may be. (Shudder)
As inevitable as it is for any expat, I have a growing list of Spanish mistakes, which always makes my host family laugh. Definitely something to bring up and tease me about when guests are over, right?
- CUCHARA vs. CUCHILLO
To all you folks who passed Elementary Spanish know the difference between CUCHARA (spoon) and CUCHILLO (knife). Indeed because I knew the difference too, until I came here and my brain started mixing both existent and nonexistent languages with each other. (In addition to mixing up words, I am very good at making up new ones too.)
When I am in my house I spend a lot of time in the kitchen with my host grandmother and the little six year old. There are always lots and lots of cucharas, but I always seem to have trouble finding the cuchillos because they’re never in the one same place. So, I always say I need the cuchara. Where is the cuchara? And my little sister looks at me like I’m crazy because I have one in my hand and I actually really need a cuchillo.
- OCOTE vs. AYOTE
So I made this mistake not too long ago. The majority of Guatemalans have a “plancha” or an iron stove that they use to cook their food. To heat the plancha, they need leña, which is firewood. The best type of wood to use to start a fire is OCOTE, which is part of a pine tree. It burns really well and stays aflame. Now, AYOTE is a type of squash that is very common, at least in my town, and we eat it a lot.
One day, I visited a family in the town center and we were talking. The grandmother there offered me some ayote so I accepted and ate it. Yum. Later, back at home, I told my host grandparents that Doña Carmen gave me ocote to eat. And they said, “No, no… you didn’t eat ocote.” Of course, I replied, “Yes, I had ocote.” And my grandpa started laughing his buttons off and my grandma asked if I were sure. Was it ocote or ayote? Ah…. Yes. Ayote. Now, my grandpa still comments that i have tough enough teeth to chew on wood.
- CERVEZA vs. CEREZA
The popular CERVEZA here is Gallo. Now, I used to a little beer and alcohol in the States but here I’ve really turned it down to the bare minimum. I don’t go out and get drunk. I haven’t gone out and gotten drunk since being here. It actually saves a lot of money when you’re on a short budget, but I also have not found it fun here. Maybe it’s the lack of bathrooms. Or the fact that I feel unsafe here at night, especially with drunks. But, I don’t even drink during the family reunions where people take shots of guaro with their lunches.
So, why did I ask for two cervezas instead of CEREZAs (cherry, but “cereza” is also the name of cherry gummies) to buy for two little kids? I have no idea. But the kids thought it was hilarious.
- PELAR vs. PELEAR
You know, there are plenty of Spanish words that are so similar! Like these two! Is English like that too? Well, PELAR means to peel while PELEAR means to fight. This mistake happened in the kitchen as well. My host grandma had steamed guisquil (a green type of spikey squash) that grows out behind the house and asked if I wanted to eat some. Of course I did! Guisquil is awesome and even more awesome just steamed with a bit of salt, kind of like how you would eat a boiled egg with salt. However, you need to peel it because it’s really spikey.
So, I proudly told my host grandma and sister that I was going to pelear my guisquil. No, I should have said I needed to pelar my guisquil. But, maybe, it makes sense to pelear with my guisquil because it does have armor, the spikes, while I had my bare hands. Right, right? I guess I can’t use that same excuse when I said I was going to pelear my manzana…
- ARENA vs. HARINA
As much as I am in the kitchen, I haven’t used the word HARINA (flour) much. However, with our eco-ladrillos wall project coming up, I have used the word ARENA (sand) a lot because we will be doing construction and had to solicit funds for the project. I have, however, been baking a lot with boxed cake mix and pancake mix. It may be cheating to some people but when I’m almost in the middle of nowhere I would rather buy a box of mix than all the ingredients I would need to bake a cake from scratch. And btw, I never thought it was possible to screw up cakes from cake mix, but apparently, it is possible.
So, one day, after we were done baking a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and savoring the work, I told my host uncle that we will make cake from scratch one of these days. Probably during the English camp I’m giving in December. And I said we would need to buy arena to make the cake. He asked, “Arena?” Nod nod. He said, “Do you mean harina?” And like the many other times the wrong word came out of my mouth, my reaction was to just smile and nod.
As much as I am losing my ability to speak coherently, I did my usual QT yesterday and came across Philippians 2: 1-18 and was shocked at how much I felt this passage, if that’s possible. Previously, when I read Bible passages, I would just read—and like my loss of speech—my loss of reading comprehension played a toll as I numbly went through the words, not knowing what I had read once I was done. Maybe it’s because the passage is so relevant to what I’m feeling as a volunteer in a different country, open to arrogance at my own ways of doing things and complaints. Hey, but getting sick with different strands of the cold and flu six times in the past six months does suck and rehydration salts taste horrible. Still, I should do my work and interact with people with love, with God’s love. And maybe talking in love will help untwist my tongue.
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