I have two cousins that go to TCU and every Friday, we and a few other friends from home meet up and talk and eat dinner. This Friday, we were going to Fusion, a hookah cafe, then to Fuzzy’s for dinner and I decided to invite Ruben along because we wouldn’t be able to meet the week of Thanksgiving and because my cousin always talked about how she spoke Spanish really well and I wanted to give her the ultimate test. While waiting for my cousin to arrive, I got to learn more about Ruben’s Venezuelan friends, Jane and Lina. Lina is nineteen years old and is in the highest level of English that the ESL program offers, therefore the closest to fluency. I had noticed that whenever Ruben or Jane were explaining something and couldn’t think of the right words to say, they would turn to Lina and say something in Spanish, then Lina would come out with the word they wanted. Jane is twenty-seven years old and was a journalist in Venezuela. However, she explained, Hugo Chavez was not fond of journalists because of the way he was represented in the media and therefore journalism work was hard to find for June in Venezuela. Therefore, she moved to America and is planning to continue journalism here until she finds the right opportunity to return. She has been married for one year (and wears her ring on her right hand, as they do in Venezuela), but does not have any children yet, although she plans to soon. I also found out she is a Spanish conversation partner, helping someone with their Spanish like I help Ruben with his English, and this someone is Mr. David Belpedio, who may or may not ever read this blog.
Once my cousin arrived, the Spanish began. Even though she had been out of practice for a semester, my cousin definitely held her own and Ruben later told me he was extremely impressed with her Spanish. As a side note, however, the three South Americans had to slow down when they talked by at least three times the speed they would normally talk. But talking to my cousin Julia after, it was amazing not only how much the language came back to her talking to native speakers, but also how excited she got about it again, asking me to help her set up a Spanish conversation partner like Mr. Belpedio has.
We then went to Fuzzy’s, which none of the three had been to before. Standing in line, they all asked me what they should get and I suggested the baja tacos or burritos. We had a good five minute conversation about how “chips and queso” was not the restaurant trying to be authentic but that most Americans called the hot, cheesy dip “queso,” even though in Spanish that encompasses all cheese. They also laughed at the appetizer “borrachio” beans, which in Spanish means drunk. We had a delicious meal and then Ruben drove me back home. During the car ride, we got stuck at a light for about four minutes, in which time he explained to me every Columbian would have ran it by then. He said nobody obeys the traffic laws there, and that, for example, if someone got pulled over drunk, but offered the police officer a bribe, he could get off scot-free. After seeing the traffic in Mexico, I was not surprised that this kind of corruption existed in Columbia, but it is still crazy to think how different American culture must be to them compared to a culture in which bribing a police officer is a regular occurrence. After a good four hours with my Columbian conversation partner and his Venezuelan friends, I felt that I had learned an amazing amount more about these people and their cultures and hopefully they were able to come out feeling more confident about their English skills.
No comments:
Post a Comment