Me Talk Pretty Espanol One Day

Day four of classes and I am pleasantly surprised at how much information I have been able to absorb in a short time. I have grammar class from 8-10 each morning, followed by conversation from 10-12. Surprisingly, I love the grammar class but am not as fond of conversation. This has nothing to do with my wonderful instructor, Gabriel, but rather with my inability to sufficiently express myself in Spanish. This class is an undeniable reminder of how much I have to learn before I will be able to speak articulately or intelligently in Spanish on any given subject.

For example, in yesterday’s class, Gabriel and I were discussing the various nationalities represented in Nicaragua and in the United States, and he asked me how it came to be that Native peoples in the U.S. were living on reservations. While I like to think I might have formed a somewhat coherent, historically accurate response to this question in English, in Spanish I was reduced to explaining that “the people from Europe grabbed the earth” and “gave special pieces of the earth” to the Native people. Special, indeed.

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a charla, or informal discussion, about some of the current challenges facing Nicaragua, including the lack of affordable, accessible electricity, water, and trash disposal services. Obviously, I missed a lot of what was said, although I am slowly filling in the gaping hole of my knowledge regarding Nicaraguan history and politics with some additional reading. However, one bit of information that I did catch was the fact that because trash removal is expensive and inconvenient, sometimes people here will dispose of trash by simply dropping their trash into the streams of water flowing by their homes during heavy rains, ultimately resulting in piles of trash somewhere downstream. This conversation was fresh in my mind when, hours later, I rode on the back of a motorcycle through La Concepcion and noticed multiple intersections where mounds of garbage lay, creating mini obstacle courses for vehicles of all sorts.

This afternoon and evening, we will visit the village of Masatepe which, in addition to offering terrific views of the Volcan Masaya, also contains a supposedly spectacular artisan market. The focus, however, of these artisans is furniture, so we shall see if I am able to resist the temptation to purchase a giant wooden rocking chair or queen bed to ship back to the States.

Oh, and I ate fresh papaya yesterday for the first time in 12 years – I could get used to this.