Communication

After a collective 5 and a half years of studying the Spanish language intensively, I thought myself prepared to arrive in a Spanish-speaking country and hit the ground running, linguistically speaking. Let’s be real, it’s harder than I thought. I have discovered that talking as expressively as possible will help my listeners wade through my sticky pronunciation and skewed diction. I figure that if this works, that pictures and diagrams might help further, and am considering carrying around a whiteboard.

I had my first full day of class today in which I tried to pay attention to 6 hours of rapidly spoken foreign language dealing with normal class material (Epistemology, Mexican Society and Culture, Sociology, and Anthropology of Europe). I found several things bothersome in this process. Firstly, it is much easier to daydream when being talked at in Spanish. On top of this, regardless of where my class is located, I have a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains out of any window. This is bothersome as, while I am daydreaming about mountains, important information concerning whether or not I need to run like hell from the class I am in is being doled out.

I have an experiment for you all. Open up a word document that you intend to read that contains some kind of information pertinent to your life. Now delete every tenth word, and replace every fifteenth word with a word you recognize but don’t know the meaning of. Good Luck. That is how long discourses have been received by me thus far. That being said, you know when that guy or that girl in that class with that professor who is that kind of particular about that thing is talking rather loudly while you’re trying so very hard to listen? That annoys me in English and infuriates me in Spanish. If only I knew how to tell someone to be quiet, please…

Similar to the document missing the words, try doing one with a word that is very similar to the original but means something completely different. Tonight I encountered such a situation. Juan Pablo, my Chilean Jimi Hendrix of a roommate (he plays lots of traditional Chilean guitar, as well as any classic rock song that’s ever been on the top 40, from memory, blows my mind) asked if I wanted to head out with him and another friend, Carlo, in 2 minutes. I said yes and asked what we were going to do. He said he didn’t know, and using one of the four english phrases he knows from songs, quipped “just go with the flow man.” I did, and was sitting in Carlo’s apartment with 3 or 4 other guys, still wondering what the plan was. So I asked again, in Spanish. “Carlo, what are we doing tonight huey?” He was one person away from me on a couch in a loud room, so when he answered I gathered this: “Vamos a un bar de chichas.” I had assumed that we were going to a bar and thought it strange that I was in the company of 6 dudes, so when Carlo stated the above which, literally translated, means “We’re going to a bar of tits.” It made sense. I was pissed, however, that I had gotten roped into going to a sketchy Mexican strip club when I have neglected to go in the US for the one year and ten months that I have been able to do so. I also hear that Mexican strip clubs are more or less brothels. Not to mention that I’m too stingy to even like the concept of strip club, but alas, I had an obligation to go as I am still proving my manhood to my new dogs and chose to take the diplomatic route instead of urinating on their property. We called a few taxis and as we were getting into them (I’m in a sour mood under the surface at this point), Jan, one of the German guys asked me in Spanish “So have you smoked Chicha before?” Chicha? Did he leave off the S? What is that? Surely he can’t be asking me if I’ve smoked tits before? So I asked him “Lo siento, una vez más?” This time, he answered me in english. “Have you ever smoked sheesha (hookah) before?” I laughed, said yes, exhaled, and went to the hookah bar.

Monterrey

Hola a todos, I’ve been in Monterrey a few days now and each one of them has been crazy in its own little way. After flying in, I hailed a taxi to take me to the hostel that I had reservations at (turns out I didn’t). This man was perhaps the fastest speaker of the spanish language I have ever met, which made our conversing look something like the scene from Billy Madison in which the gardener tries to teach Billy Spanish and all he is able to say is “slowwww downnnn”. We eventually found the full hostel that I didn’t have a reservation at, but I survived. I woke up in the morning, looked out a window, and saw the mountains for the first time, which provide a pretty awesome vista from almost anywhere. It is much like living in the foreground of a postcard.

Here are a few pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/RJandsomenumbers/20090108FlightFirstDays?authkey=Y0nJfYM_yU8#.

All of the international students are awesome, there’s about fifty of us form all over the world, and in meeting them I have learned a lot. First and perhaps foremost, never tell an australian the the coffee you are drinking is very good, unless it is Australian coffee, which, by the way, was described to me as a latte. After they tell you in the nicest little australian accented way that the great coffee that you are drinking sucks compared to an Australian latte, DO NOT tell them that you know what a latte is and that you drink them from starbucks frequently. If you do, you’re in for a thirty minute coffee lecture.

I’m very partial to the french students because I’m fluent in French. When I say that I’m fluent in french, I mean that Isabelle Bouchard taught be how to say “I don’t know where my hat is” and that I remembered for some strange reason how to say “I am not in the garage.” from 7th and 8th grade french class. I’ve found that all one has to do to start an interesting conversation is approach, say bonjour, and as fluently-sounding as possible, state one of the previous facts. This will result in a confused look followed by an awkward pause, at which point I will state the other. By now, the frenchie with whom I am speaking has figured out that I don’t know french and laughter ensues. I now greet my french friends by reiterating that I am not in the garage.

They speak spanish in Mexico, which I realized as soon as I tried to do anything that wasn’t in the airport. This has been going pretty well. Taxi drivers as universally hard to understand, but I have been hanging in there. I received perhaps the biggest compliment that an American can get in Mexico the other day when Carlos from Chihuahua told me that I am not a gringo. This made me happy. Mexican slang is pretty awesome, I’m starting to pick up on that. My favorite saying is “no mames juey”, literally meaning “don’t suck me dude”, which is the mexican equivalent of “no way”. Unfortunately, the things one learns in spanish 1, a class that I paid no attention in, are extremely important. I’ve had to re-learn how to say the alphabet (I spell my name for someone 4-5 times daily), the days of the week, and numbers. Luckily, I retained “Dónde está el baño”, which I use quite frequently, and “Cerveza, por favor”, which I hope to utilize soon.

The food here is phenomenal. I eat at the café at the university for lunch, where one gets a bowl of soup, a plate of rice, beans, and a beef or chicken dish that changes daily, a dessert and a 16oz fountain drink for 54 pesos, or 5 dollarsish. By far my favorite part about mexican food is that no matter what is on one’s plate, it does not matter if it touches, mixes with, or is consumed at the same time as whatever else is on one’s plate. This fascinates me, and I often draw pictures with my food as beans are very malleable.

They insist in playing the most horrible american music here. So far I’ve heard Celiene Dion, that song from grease, and soldja boy, amongst others. This saddens me profoundly. On another americana note, all taxi drivers in monterrey know who the atlanta falcons are. Everyone else knows atlanta for coke and CNN. One of my roomates, Juan Pablo from Chile listened to my band’s new song last night and loved it, so I’m hoping to fly the boys down for low end honey’s Mexico world tour 2009. A new song from our recording session is up at http://www.lowendhoney.com .

There is much more that has happened and is happening, which is fun and exciting, so I will keep you guys updated with a post later this week.

-Randall