The essentials of learning language

So no matter how well you know a language or how long you’ve spoken it, there are always those moments when you find yourself completely in the dark.  Hell, it happens to me in English and I would consider myself mas o menos fluent in that category (although it has definitely gone down in the past 7 months).  Those moments when everyone in the room is laughing and you just sit there with this incredibly red stunned face because you can’t figure out what for the life of you you could’ve said that also could’ve doubled as meaning “I want you in bed.”  This happened with a friend of mine not to long ago when guys started catcalling her on a run and she turned to them and pulled out Ross’s version of the middle finger, only later learning that it actually means something along the lines of “let’s get busy.”  It’s even better when you’re in a room full of 35 teachers, the majority of whom are significantly older than you, and you happen to make sexual references without even darseing cuenta

So this week we started giving workshops to the teachers at our schools.  We’re going to be doing this monthly with a different health theme each month, and this month we’re doing Nutrition.  We’re using them more to help teachers plan out lessons and give them ideas for activities they can do with the kids.  We also wanted to use the opportunity to talk about the severity of the situation in Guatemala, as 44% of kids in Guate are malnourished and I would bet that probably 99% of them (slight exaggeration) suffer from growth stunting as a result.  Did I mention that I feel like a giant here?

Anyways, it was super fun, and at the end we had an activity called “Que  me vende?” (what are you selling?) where the teachers have to come up with a healthy snack stand that they would sell in the school and we choose the healthiest and cheapest.  It was going great until one of the male teachers came up to sell and I said “I’m so excited to see what you have to sell!” and all the teacher’s started dying.  In Guatemala, the word “excitada” has more of a sexual connotation, but even though I used “emocionada” which I was 95% sure had no sexual connotation at all they all started cracking up and making rude comments.  Okay, that’s okay, quick recovery.  So then he says he’s going to sell corn on the cob, and in trying to ask if they would sell the whole ears or half I used my hands to show measurement, which I learned in our class on gestures NOT to do but for some reason se me olvido and my site partner looked at me like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” as all the teachers se pusieron de reir otra vez.  What’s something else you might use hand gestures to show size of?

So that was fun.  But the taller actually went really smoothly for the most part and all the teachers seemed to get a lot out of it and enjoy it.  For me it was most interesting to hear their perspective on the issue.  Sometimes a stereotype of teachers here is that they aren’t very qualified to be so, but in contrast there were a lot of teachers that had genuine interest in the issue and asked a lot of very thought provoking questions.  I got into a whole discussion with one on why Guatemala has the highest rates of malnutrition for children in all of Central America and he started to propose a whole host of theories in relation with the political history here that I hadn’t even thought about.  I feel like I’ve learned a lot from their feedback and opinions on the issues as to why Guatemala faces a lot of the problems it does.

A few weeks ago we also started giving workshops to the kids in middle/high school.  Our first topic was self-esteem, which we thought would mostly be a way to get to know the kids on a not so personal topic.  Even though it’s kind of sencillo and most of them had some concept of what it was, I always feel like it’s one of the things lacking from education (Guatemala or US or wherever) and one of the most important concepts for adolescents.  I definitely could’ve used more of it when I was younger.  It seemed more useful when we went to do it one of our rural communities who have less exposure to that sort of education.  I actually think it helped me as well as all the activities we encouraged them to do to improve their self esteem we did as well in preparation.

Also, two weeks ago we had reconnect which was a week long of workshops and language training.  I got to take Kaqchikel with a fabulous teacher (which I’ve learned makes all the difference in the world) and we did things like learn how to sing songs about skipping to school and learn really important words to communicate with people in town and build confianza.  My favorite, and probably the most important thing I’ve learned in languages thus far, is Yatinkamsa, which means “I will kill you!”  This came about when we were brainstorming methods to stop the patojos from annoying and catcalling me when I go on my morning runs, so I decided from now on machete in hand I will simply turn around and chase them while screaming “YATINKAMSA!” Unfortunately most of the jovenes here probably don’t speak too much Kaqchikel anymore, but I think it’ll get my point across.

And in other news I’ve changed my residence!  This is very exciting for me as I was at my wits end in my old house dealing with small children and 6 (yes, 6) starving dogs hounding me 24/7 for food, although my last day there I went on a rant to the three children about how they never feed their dogs and treat them horribly and it seems as if their trying to torture them just to the brink of starvation to take their frustrations out.  Anyways, Mostly I’m just relieved to have my own space where I can eat at a table and walk around in spandex.  I felt bad when I left as the mother started bawling, mostly because she is now going to be alone again all the time with just the children there.  It’s hard for me here to see so many women who are just stuck in these routines and have no way of getting out of them because they think they need permission from their husbands to do so.  The only time she ever really got out of the house was to deliver milk in the mornings or go to market.  Asi es en Guatemala, I guess, but it still dame pena.

Anyways, the new place is great, although still quite a mess.  I have a terrace on the roof which I’m planning on using for plants and veggie growing.  Some guys were supposed to bring me lemon and avocado trees to the market this week but weren’t there due to rain.  I have visions, we’ll see if I can actually make them pan out for once.  Also, the night before I moved in the family who owns the house invited me over for a dinner party, which I expected to be family sitting around eating and having a good time, but turned out to be a two hour church service blessing the house.  I try not to be too cynical about religion, but when they started blessing the house with oil and salt I got a little cynical, as happens.  They also had several groups of dancers and about an hour of praying and crying, follow by stuffing our faces with turkey tamales and punch.  I really can’t even explain the bizarreness of the whole night…

This whole experience has definitely taught me a lesson in how to find the good qualities in all aspects of other culture, and I have found a lot of people who have found their strength in their faith, for me the problem is that there is no other way and that I feel Christianity has taken away a lot of their traditional culture and values.  But honestly, I am no one to come in and tell them that their traditional culture and values were more important than their current ones.  What’s interesting is that I often complain about certain Guatemalans trying to impose their culture on me – the culture of marrying young, accepting machismo (don’t get me started), accepting God, and yet one of the hardest parts of me in this experience is not imposing my culture and values on them here.  There’s a fine line between sharing and imposing and sometimes I have a hard time not crossing it when people can’t understand my side of the issue.  And then again, my biggest issue with religion in general is when it goes to the point of forcing it on others, and that’s how I feel here most of the time.  There have been very few people who I’ve expressed my faith to (which does not follow the bible at all) and even then only when I’ve known them for nearly 4 months and know they’re a little more open to the ideas I bring.

Regardless, I love the family that is my neighbor.  They’re a very different Guatemala from what I lived with before.  They’re much more health conscious which I like and the kids are closer to my age so I more enjoy hanging out with them.  The youngest son is 10 and accompanied me to find a good tortilleria in the area the other night and always offers to open doors and carry bags for me.  It’s cute.  He may be the most well behaved child I’ve ever met, and definitely an improvement from the frequent tantrums at my old house (although the kids there had some perks too…)

Unfortunately I have been seriously lacking on the taking picture front here, and de todos modos we’re not allowed to show pictures that could give clues to our residency in case people decide to rob or abduct us (just kidding mom, we’re super safe here!)

Until next time!

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