Friday, April 13, 2007

My Face was Raining

Selenia and I have been hanging out a lot lately. She works in the office with me and while Sara and Kevin are away in Tegucigalpa we drive home together and make very small talk. Selenia and I are close to the same level in understanding each other's language, so we have some pretty insightful conversations on the 15 min. drive home.

A few days ago I was trying with a lot of difficulty to tell her a story in which I was crying because I was frustrated. I am not a big crier, generally, but it seems a lot easier to cry about insignificant things here.

The story was going well except that I couldn’t remember the pivotal verb, so I made it up and told her with my very best and confident Spanish that my face was raining. She looked at me and then leaned into the steering wheel and laughed. It was not exactly the reaction I wanted. I thought I was being incredibly clever and inventive. I imagined my expressions working their way into the dialect of the Intibuca region, trickling down into their poetry, literature, and spoken words. Influencing generations of Spanish speakers who would utter my beautiful descriptions and not realize they had originated hundreds of years before from the mouth of a Canadian girl riding down a long dusty road.

At least that’s what I daydreamed about and I thought it was a little more poetic than when I didn’t know the word for rooster and asked Nadia where the man-chicken was.

But this was sadly all a daydream and I realized then and there that I would most likely never influence anyone except into uproarious laughter at my expense.

This brings me to my very first Spanish lesson.

I met Jose Fausto at the office a few weeks ago. He was working as Adam’s translator, a student who stayed and worked in La Esperanza doing research for his PhD. Jose gave me his contact info and told me to get in touch with him if I wanted to practice my Spanish. Based on recent reactions to my grasp of the language, I thought it was high time I sent him an email.

He responded the next day. He used 14 exclamation marks. I thought that this must mean it was going to be a very exciting lesson. We decided to meet in the centre of town and then go get something to eat from there.

I got home from work yesterday and was struggling to pull my bike through the front door, about to leave to meet Jose, when Luis pulled up in our front yard to drop off one of the company trucks.

Luis is one of my favorite people. He drove Curtis and I back to Tegucigalpa so Curtis could catch his flight back to Canada. He waited on the first level of the airport while we said our good-byes on the second level. After Curtis had gone through the security check I made my way back down to the first level to find Luis. I sort of just stood there in a sad stupor...with a rainy face... letting people bump into me. I didn’t find Luis. He found me. He put his hand on my shoulder and led me out the big glass doors.

On the drive home, while I sniffled, he told me how sad he thought it was that Curtis had to leave. Then he told me about his wife and fifteen year old daughter that live in California. That put things into perspective a bit, but the nice thing was he didn’t act like my situation was any less as sad and said that it was ok that I was upset. Then he offered me one of the Dunkin’Donuts that he was bringing back to La Eza for the rest of his family. Dunkin’Donuts are worth their weight in gold in our little town. So I felt golden.

Luis asked me where I was going. I tried to tell him I was meeting someone for Spanish lessons. He told me to have fun at the gym and to grow my muscles, and then he laughed and lifted his arm and made a muscle. Oh god, I really need to get to that lesson.

I was about 5 pedal pushes out of my driveway when the rainy season started early. When it rains here, it doesn’t come on gradually. Someone turns a hose on over your head. I made it to the park in the centre of town completely drenched and saw Jose hunkered against the side of an enclosed gazebo. It turned out that the gazebo wasn’t just a useful place to hide from rain, it also housed 3 ladies who sold baleadas and coffee.

We went inside and Jose ordered me 2 baleadas. I guess I looked a little hungry and road weary. There was a small staircase leading upstairs. Jose suggested we sit up there so I could keep an eye on my bike. Good idea. I like my bike. I started up the stairs and turned back to Jose to thank him again for the food, at the same time I stepped up and hit my head very hard on the beam running along the roof. I swore like a coalminer. The bustling baleada establishment came to a standstill. The people eating on the bottom floor all looked up at us. Jose stared at me. Then he gracefully broke the silence with a smile on his face.

“haha....Marion you are too big”

Thanks Jose.