Misconceptions

So, as the days go by it’s clear that my lack of Spanish is causing a few very obvious misconceptions in my life. One of the biggest is that for some reason I haven’t been able to discern, in my house I’m not allowed to drink plain water.

Now, I’m not talking tap water—my family boils their water as do most families here and puts it in pitchers in the fridge. I mean water without any flavoring. One morning instead of milk with coffee I filled my glass with water. Senora Ana Margarita came in and saw this travesty and after lots of Spanish I didn’t understand, got out a packet of something like instant tea and turned my crystal clear, cold delicious water into a sweetened brown liquid. When I tried to repeat the offense that night, she caught me walking out of the kitchen with the glass (and just for point of reference, my glass, the only one I’m supposed to use and is reserved only for me, is basically a giant glass beer stein) and says to me “No!”, takes it, pours the water back into its pitcher and replaces it with some sort of delicious cherry-like juice.

I could certainly tell her that I just really like water, but her description of why I shouldn’t drink it is way over my Spanish comprehension level, so that battle is one already lost…or one doomed to be won by way of insulting her rather than by comprehension. I look forward to the day maybe a month from now when we can talk about this in my (hopefully) vastly improved Spanish and laugh about the days when I wasn’t allowed to drink water…

Less misconception than misunderstanding happened at a birthday party I went to with my host mother. The “party” was a circle of about 12 women fifty and older sharing in food that was passed around, and laughing at jokes from their lives. I understood maybe 2 percent of what was going on. A few hours in, after an exchange I didn’t quite catch, one of the women asked me something. I’ve been getting by in most conversations by reading facial expressions, and when it seems appropriate, nodding and smiling and saying “Oh, si!”  So I nod and smile and do my routine for this woman, and as soon as I did, the group broke into peals of laughter…in the next minute I realized I’d told this entire group of women that I was quite sure they were very old, twice in a row….oops?!

And then, last one for the night—tonight I asked my abuela if she wanted help folding the hundreds of sheets of tissue paper she was folding one by one to make them easier to sell in her store. She said yes…and then she left! So Emily’s task of the night, now complete, was folding over a hundred sheets of tissue paper. Kinda like origami but not as much fun?

Moral of the story—Emily super needs to learn how to speak better Spanish!