Spanish is Fun

Some of you may remember that textbook from 8^th grade Spanish with Senora Taylor, or as we all affectionately to referred to her as “Saggy”. Over these past couple of days I’ve been thinking of different names for that textbook:

            “Spanish is confusing”

“Spanish is hard to comprehend”

“Spanish is frustrating    “

But what I settled on is Spanish is Overwhelming. It’s been two full days now of living a la casa de my wonderful host family, the Lopez family. I’ve never stayed with a host family before, and judging by the looks on the faces of my fellow trainees, they hadn’t either. I had been looking forward to the home stay portion of training for weeks now, but it never really occurred to me what that meant exactly: living with a strange family that doesn’t speak my language. At all. That sort of dawned on everyone on the bus ride from Managua to Niquinohomo (pronounced ni-ki-no-mo), and there was a nervous apprehension in the air as we were dropped off one by one at our homes for the next three months.

The matriarch of the family is Doňa Ivonne Morales Reyes, and she is an absolute sweetheart, full of affection, and she has welcomed me into her house with open arms. It has been Doňa Ivonne that has helped me the most to guide me through my Spanish, the town, and the Niquinohomo way of life. Her family is large one, with three generations living together. I’ve had limited interactions with her husband Don Vidal, but they are very friendly when they occur. He’s always got a smile on his face, teaching me about and offering me different fruits, vegetables, and my first (and probably not my last) Nicaraguan beer, Toňa. They have three daughters whom all live in the house with them. I’ll got bottom-up, and start with the youngest Vidalia, who’s 13, and is the equivalent of freshman of high school. I didn’t think it would be possible to live with my real sister down in Nicaragua, but I find them very similar, and it’s a nice to have that reminder of home. Next up is Maria Jose, who is 22, is fresh out of the university as well, and has a job in Managua, which means I’ll unfortunately see very little of her during the week. Managua is a big commute from Niquinohomo, especially when you need to rely on the bus. The oldest of the tres sisters is Valeria, who is 25 and has two children of her own. The language barrier has prevented me from finding out the real situation with her baby’s daddy, Erik, who is a cool guy and also lives in the house with us. Both Erik and Don Vidal are not in the house much, especially during the week, so more often than not it seems like I’m the man of the house. Unfortunately, no pictures of me and the fam yet, but I’ll be sure to post soon. I’m still trying to figure out how safe the area is, and haven’t flashed out any goodies yet. Don’t want to become a target for crime right off the bat.

Only on the rare occasion that I see my friends around town, there are five of us remember, do I have the opportunity to speak English. My host family is very understanding of my poor language skills and accommodates me by speaking slowly and does a fantastic job of describing new words and verbs in laymen’s terms, but they literally don’t speak any English. So my typical day starts at 8am, when I have to walk across town for language classes for the next 4 hours, where the five of us aspirantes (trainees) get grilled by our teacher dona Gloria. After an hour break for lunch, we’re right back to the classroom, for applied learning. We go on field trips around the town, meeting different people involved in the schools, town government, and law enforcement. During that time, and when Dona Gloria has her back turned, we get to have hurried conversations in English, but they never last too long. As I return home for the day, I’d like nothing more to turn in all off and jump right back into English. (That or crack open a delicous American beer, but those aren't around for miles.) But between my interactions with the family and my tarea, the language is always around me. I’m trying to do my best to describe my day and not to make it sound like I’m not complaining. What I’m going through is exactly what I want and what I expected. I guess though I though I would wade into it, rather than just jump right in and hold my breath. I just keep reminding myself that it is only day 3, that it can only get better, and that within a week or two, I’ll be managing a lot better. It wouldn't be a great accomplishment if it wasn't difficult. Got put in the work, right?

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