First of all, you may be as happy as I am to know that I have finally started to speak in the preterit. That’s the past tense to you and me. To give the grammatically ignorant amongst us some idea of what that means I am going to write the next paragraph in the present; my preferred mode of communication for almost two months now.
Last weekend we are going to go to Cayos Cachinos, but again it is raining. Therefore we cannot go. We are staying in the house and we are watching movies most of the weekend. I am bored. We go next week instead. I am happy about this.
So you will see I have in fact been speaking like an idiot since January. Therefore I am quite relived to finally be learning progressive tenses. Add that to the past and present participles and the preterit and I am already sounding at least three years older. Meaning I now sound like a nine year old instead of a six year old. All we need is a bit of the future and there may be some hope for me.
I am a bit happier with it all as now I am thinking in English and Spanish at the same time a lot more, meaning I can usually piece together how to communicate most things I am thinking albeit with a few bits of vocabulary missing. Now all I need to do is learn to put it all together with enough ease that people don’t fall asleep when I am speaking to them. At the moment I speak at the pace of someone who took too much acid in the 60s and never quite remembered which field they left their brain in. So, for the most part my afternoons are taken up with memorizing bits od vocabulary written on small cue cards. These little pieces of paper inevitably get everywhere and I do wonder if people are starting to fear for my mental health every time the find a little piece of paper with to die, to be lost, knife, or rope written on them.
I have to say I am developing a bit of love for grammar and in turn a small loathing for my own language. The more you learn in Spanish…irregular verbs aside, the more you realize that there is hardly any rhyme or reason to the English langauge. There appears to be more exceptions to the rules than there are rules. In this way I am starting to wonder a) how anyone manages to learn the bloody thing and b) why anyone would want to and c) if our lnguage is so damn hard how come we don´t speak manymore like the Dutch or the Germans?! This is partly inspired by my ew friends Anna and Steph (dutch and swedise repectively) who have no problem being amusing in any one of three langauges simultaneously…bloody show offs. But enough of grammar and my own feelings of incomptence. Despite my current fascination with it it’s still in the most part spectacularly dull. Back to the other stuff…oh wait, there is no other stuff. Just bits of paper and grammar! Balls.
No seriously though, I think I am at that stage where I feel, language aside, I have adjusted to life here. The tell tale signs are when you stop wondering how like you are ever going to make this bus journey alone and survive, or whether this time you will be able to successfully ask the nice lady for a banana. This time and you start thinking that maybe you are not getting enough exercise, or maybe you would to rearrange the furniture in your room a little. I’ve almost stopped gawping at all the amazing scenery with awe, I jump in the back of pickups without a care in the world and I have stopped worrying about the fact that I am almost constantly sweating profusely. I think all of these are probably signs you feel settled. Do not think though that that is it. One thing I have discussed at great frequency in the worst Spanish imaginable is that just when you start to feel good something inevitably happens to slap you round the face and warn you not to relax just yet. For example, my memory card in my camera has a virus, meaning I have lost a couple of weeks of photos. Also meaning some additional vocab is necessary, namely, can you please help me, my camera appears to be fucked. Strangely, I still can’t swear in Spanish. However, for the time being, I am embracing the opportunity to become a little more ladylike. Its a strange rollercoaster I find myself on.
I have been doing a bit of work for the organization recently on updating their communications and their membership services and I have enjoyed that a lot. It´s nice to work in a currency I understand for once. The teaching plans are almost done and next week I start the laborious task of looking up all the vocabulary I could possibly need to teach kids how to turn on computers and other such things. Next week is also Semana Santa, Easter week and a big holiday in Honduras…for everyone but me! However I am hoping to hike up a massive waterfall in the cuenca and all being well I might be able to blag a memory card to take some photos and share the results. Until then, take care.
Nos Vemos pronto