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Friday Funnies - Language As evidenced by intermittent blog visits from the language police we all struggle with language usage no matter what our primary language. It gets more difficult when we use our our second or third language and next to impossible when we speak little or none of the language used around us. This makes for some really humorous situations. Fortunately here in Mexico they enjoy people learning and using their language so struggles are humorous rather than humiliating.. I am sharing one of my earliest and most memorable adventures with the language barrier. When I first came to Puerto Vallarta it was to meet then spend extended periods of time with an ExPat. For the better part of a year I went back and forth between Mexico, CA and MA. I was a wanderer but definitely not as a tourist. One day I tagged along 2 friends, also “mature adults”, when they went to a small near by town to give a presentation at a rehab facility. One was an American, the other Canadian and neither of them spoke Spanish. My Spanish was somewhat rusty and limited. I had 3 years of classroom instruction in high school in Castilian Spanish,and was able to converse easily. later I adapted and used it a bit with some of my Mexican American in SoCal and a couple of neighbors who did not speak English. I could stay out of jail and not starve to death or be cheated out of money but not much more. We had directions – “Take the Xtapa bus. When it stops in town look for the big tree where the old woman cooks chicken. Take the road to the right and the facility is about a block down on the right.” Everything went well until the bus reached the end of the route. We got off and looked around. No big tree with the old woman who cooks chicken. In fact there wasn’t much of anything. There we were, 2 old Americans and a Canadian with limited ability to communicate wandering down a rural dusty dirt road In Mexico completely lost. We came to a small market. The 2 women there didn’t speak English at all and my 2 friends didn’t speak any Spanish. I gave some thought about how to ask for what we needed. I did not know the word for rehab facility and struggled with verb tenses asking where the “hospital for drugs and alcohol” was. They thought I was asking for a medical hospital, which the little town didn’t have, and were concerned that one of us was sick as well as lost. Next I tried to ask for big tree where the old woman cooks chicken. They thought I wanted to buy chickens, live ones I think! I explained that we weren’t, thanked them and left. Back to wandering down the road. Next we came to a couple of men leaning on an old pick up truck kicking back with an after work beer. My Spanish question was more practiced this time and I had given up trying to ask for a rehab facility. They understood my question about the big tree, old woman and chicken. They explained that they did not know because they were not from the area. Then as is the custom here made friendly conversation telling us where they were from, about their families and other bits of personal information. A fun experience of local customs and communicating in Spanish but we were no closer to finding our destination and were still 3 old foreigners lost in some rural area of Mexico. We looked like characters out of a movie. Trudging farther along we came to another small market. By this time my ability explanation of our situation (in Spanish) was more refined but still an effort and I felt very inadequate. I asked and the man who ran the store knew what I was looking for and gave us directions. We just had to go a bit further down the road. I translated the info into English for my friends. I thanked the man and as I was going out the door the man turned to me and said in perfect English “By the way your Spanish is not as bad as you think!” We had to walk a ways further but did find what we were looking for. The "town" was a crossroad with a few non nondescript buildings and a huge tree with the old woman who cooked and sold chicken. Our destination was only a bit farther, kind of hidden in the non-distinctive rustic buildings. When I tell this adventure to people back in the US many immediately see it as frightening and being in danger. For me it was an adventure. I see only humor and still laugh at the image of 2 old men and an old woman, obviously not natives, wandering lost in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure the people we encountered found it even more amusing. Spiritwoman ^i^ |
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A very amusing story, Spirit. The description of the surroundings is great. I loved it! Alfie...
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I would have loved to have see each of you when the man spoke perfect English.  I learned only a bit of Spanish when I lived near San Diego for 8 years. When I say a bit, I mean a tiny bit. I'm not sure if I could even make a sentence, just a word or two but I could make myself understood when we went to Baja California, not just Tijuana.
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A funny adventure, for sure. Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.(Khalil Gibran)
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Adventures are the exciting part of life. Really enjoyed your story..
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2/5/2016 7:54 pm |
The humor comes easy when we try to speak each others languages. I have fun working on my Spanish and many of the people here like practicing their English Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 7:56 pm |
A very amusing story, Spirit. The description of the surroundings is great. I loved it! Alfie... Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 7:59 pm |
I would have loved to have see each of you when the man spoke perfect English. I learned only a bit of Spanish when I lived near San Diego for 8 years. When I say a bit, I mean a tiny bit. I'm not sure if I could even make a sentence, just a word or two but I could make myself understood when we went to Baja California, not just Tijuana. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:02 pm |
A funny adventure, for sure. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:03 pm |
Glad you enjoyed it. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:04 pm |
Great blog Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:05 pm |
You know me - it takes a lot to scare me, pizz me off not somuch but scare me? Not a lot. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:06 pm |
Definitely a challenge. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/5/2016 8:07 pm |
Adventures are the exciting part of life. Really enjoyed your story.. Spiritwoman ^i^
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2/6/2016 9:17 am |
Wow - with that group we could certainly come up with some adventures. I never thought of things here in terms of the Marigold Hotel but there are multiple opportunities here in Mexico what with lots of available space, an economy that allows us to live far better on far less and literally thousands of American and Canadian expats. Spiritwoman ^i^
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