Tuesday, February 2, 2010

an orange, a pizza, and a nap

Christie thought it would be fun to send me on a little adventure this week. There’s a 13 year old girl at church who says she knows some English. We didn’t realize that the “some” English she’s knows is sort of like the “some” Spanish I know. I know a lot of words but none of them go together or help you to have any sort of conversation. I get discouraged with it a lot and feel like I’m not trying hard enough. But I know I’m trying as hard as I can. I’m able to recognize a lot of words and their meanings when I listen to conversations. I just can’t figure out how to put it all together.

At church Sunday night, Christie asked this family if I could come over one day this week. I thought maybe the end of the week. No, they wanted me there on Monday. So I went with my Spanish notebook and my Spanish-English dictionary. I thought it would help a lot and thought maybe I’d leave there speaking Spanish. Haha….my dreams are always MUCH larger than reality.

When I first got there, they took me through the house, telling me the names of all the rooms. Then we sat on the porch as they taught me hair, head, eyes, nose, mouth….and so on. Because you know that is all so important. Of course, 10 minutes later I didn’t remember any of that. Apparently I’m too old for that teaching style to be effective for me.

Right before lunchtime, they were trying to ask me what I wanted to eat for lunch. I was completely clueless as to what they wanted. A few minutes earlier, they were teaching me to say orange in Spanish and apparently I asked for an orange because one of the girls brought me one. Then she took it away and brought a bigger one. I guess they thought I was saying that one wasn’t big enough for me. So funny! So I ate an orange that I didn’t really ask for. They called Christie and told her what they were trying to ask me. She said, “They want to know what kind of foods you like. They want to make you anything you want for lunch. I’ll just tell them what kinds of things you normally eat here.” So they decided I must want pizza for lunch.

The family has a small store in the front of their house, as do a lot of the people here. So they just gathered all of the ingredients for the store and took to the kitchen. Very convenient. As they made the pizza, they would tell me what things were in Spanish. Five minutes later, they’d point to it and ask me what it was. I had no idea. On a positive note, the homemade pizzas I’ve had here are the best I’ve ever had.

After we ate lunch, they asked me if I needed a nap. I think it’s so funny. I know, I know, it’s the way they do things here. I’m not making fun of it. I love naps. I just don’t have to take one every afternoon. They put on a movie for me to watch and I thought it was strange that they wanted to play it in English. I felt bad because they wouldn’t understand it. Then I looked around and realized they were all laying on the floor sleeping.

The whole time I was there, I didn’t know what time it was or how long I’d been there. I didn’t know if there was a certain time Ken was planning to come back and get me or what. I asked to call Christie several times and they never did let me. That worried me a little. I thought I was stuck there forever. I was so happy to see Ken drive up on the moto. When I got home, I found out that Christie had talked to the mom several times (who was not even at the same house I was at). She just kept telling her that I was fine and that they’d bring me home later. When Christie would ask to talk to me, she’d just tell her I was fine and I was in the other room playing ??? So she told Ken to go get me and I’m so glad she did! I had been there for over 7 hours.

I really did want to come back and be able to say I had so much fun and learned so much. Instead, I left there feeling like my head was about to explode and all I wanted was a nap.

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