Garbage and the Queen of Sweden

There are a lot of ex-pats here but you can tell the Italians.  They speak Spanish to you right away.  Non-Nicaraguans from almost any other country will usually start off in English but not the Italians. And why should they?  I just discovered I have an Italian neighbor in a mostly Nica neighborhood.  I discovered this because we were both waiting for the garbage truck to come by.  We knew it was nearby-  they come MWF at around 8am and yell, "basura" and everyone runs out with their garbage. In a place where you can't flush your toilet paper and where the ants come marching in (and not two by two) as soon as you set down the mango peel, you don't want to miss a garbage pick-up.  Anyway,,,, even people from Spain will often greet you in English.  The other day I met a Spanish woman (who greeted me in English) and her two sons and I assumed her husband was Spanish until I heard him tell the little kid, "Pojd' sem",  I asked him if he was speaking Czech (he was!) and then attempted to speak Czech with him.  I had managed English, Spanish and Swedish already that day and I have to admit that adding the fourth language turned out to be a little beyond me.  Yes, I could say a few sentences but not without interjecting Spanish.  

If you are not interested in languages you should TUNE OUT NOW.  

Here's what happened: In both Spanish and Czech (but not Swedish) you would use a polite form in asking someone's name (assuming they are not a kid).  In Czech and in the Spanish the Czech guy had learned in Spain you would use a plural you form.  But in Latin America (with a couple of exceptions), Spanish-speaking people use the third person singular as the polite form.  So it ends up sounding a little bit like you're saying "How is s/he?" if you are not used to it.  Having been used to speaking Spanish and using that form I then asked this Czech guy, "What is his/her name?" and he, understandably, thought I was asking his kid's name.  But I wanted to know his name.  I eventually got that out of him but I must have used 4-5 Spanish words in the 2-3 sentences I attempted in Czech,  Incidentally, if not interestingly, I made a similar mistake when I was living in Prague.  I met a Swedish person on the tram and as I was so used to using the polite Czech form (the plural), I was using the 2nd person plural for this woman and she finally stopped me and said, you really don't need to be that polite.  I am not the Queen of Sweden. 

What to do when there is a blackout

1. Find the flashlight that your kids love and have cleverly hidden.
2. Kick yourself for not having downloaded a new book from the library onto your kindle.
3. Do NOT clean.  Scorpions lurk.
4. Go to bed early so that you can wake up before you have to rouse your kids at 6am.
5. Write a blog entry that you won't be able to send until there is power again and by that time you'll dislike what you've written and want to do a rewrite.

This is the best meal you've ever made!

This is how Calhoun described a meal I made the other day.  It was rice and beans, french fries and raw cabbage.  Ari rolled her eyes as she dislikes beans.  I'm pretty sure it was just the french fries he was over the moon for but his enthusiastic accolade made my day.

the Mareks out there

I was visting a Nica friend the other week when her husband came home for the noontime meal.  We’ve spoken before and have had at least mildly interesting conversations. This day he had heard that women were more intelligent than men and we started talking about generalizations and stereotypes.  I made plenty of mistakes and there were lots of pauses while I figured out what I was trying to say but we weren’t exactly talking about the weather.  Then I mentioned trying to improve my Spanish. He took my interest to heart and immediately became the schoolteacher.  But he started by asking me if I knew how to say, “Hola”!  It is, of course, POSSIBLE that I would be able to hold a conversation but not know the very basics but it struck me as so funny that, after a half an hour of conversation, he really thought I might not know how to say “Hi”.  Since then, I’ve noticed that he is just the type of person who really wants to make sure you know exactly what’s going on in a conversation.  He checks in with me and checks to make sure I know each word.  I remember this kind of person from other countries I’ve lived in.  In Kenya it was my host father, in the Czech Republic it was always Marek and in Sweden it was an Anna (not Myrén).  I remember often being annoyed, since most understanding happens in broader terms (i.e. it’s not necessary to understand every word to understand a story) but I have come to appreciate it.  In part, I appreciate it now because I am better at accepting help in general but also because I recognize that understanding every single word is NOT what I’m good at and so I could use the pressure.  So thank you to the Mareks out there.