By God's Grace
Spanish Blunders and Cultural Encounters
Hello to all of you wherever you may be.
In this weeks edition of Leah´s blog we have some fun language stories, so without further ado:
El Encante (a restaurant here), 2 weeks ago (right after I posted my last blog), World Series game:
We were all sitting down when the waitress came to take our orders, I had carefully planned out what I was going to say and what I wanted to order (a milkshake and french fries with a side of mayo, cuz that´s how we roll in Minnesota). I had asked Missy (a girl who speaks just as much Spanish as I do) how to say french fries (this by the way is usually a big mistake). So when it came to my turn I ordered my milkshake and ordered ¨fritas y mayonaisa¨roughly translated I ordered fried mayonnaise. Whoops! Slightly embarrassing, but we worked it out and got my order in...or so I thought. Later the waitress came back with our food and she´s putting all of our orders in front of us and as I´m watching everyone get their food I´m seeing that everyone got what they ordered. Then she puts my plate in front of me and I look at and blink a couple times and look again...it was not what I thought I ordered, instead of french fries with a side of mayonnaise it was 2 pieces of what could be likened to country fried steak, a salad and a small pile of french fries. Missy looks at it too and busts out laughing and even though I know that laughing at this very moment is a bad idea I can´t help it and laugh too. I guess that´s all you can do right? Is laugh? The best part was after she brought it out I had to ask for mayonnaise for my french fries.
Last week, in the park, meeting with my friend Thelma:
I have been meeting with Thelma for a couple weeks now and last Thursday she brought her friend Eduardo. In Mexico when you are friends with someone you do the cheek to cheek air kiss, keeping that in mind Thelma introduces me to Eduardo and he goes in for the friend cheek to cheek air kiss (which is ackward for me first because he is a guy and second because he´s a guy I don´t know) and instead of saying ¨mucho gusto¨or nice to meet you¨. I say ¨me gusta¨ or I like¨ I knew instantly that this wasn´t right and could be construed in all sorts of bad ways so I tried to make up for it by saying that I get the two phrases confused (I don´t) and that they sound a lot alike (they don´t). I laugh about it now and he seemed to take it the right way, but that could have turned out bad.
Cultural Things:
So I mentioned previously that I have been meeting with 3 girls to practice my English and them practice their Spanish, well in Mexican culture it is completely normal for people who you have been meeting with to not show up. This has been my experience with these 3 girls. At first I was very frustrated and discouraged, but now I have come to accept it as a part of being in a different culture. The 2 high school girls haven´t shown up for a couple of weeks so I don´t think I´m meeting with them anymore, but I´m still meeting with Thelma and in fact hung out with her last night.
If you could keep Thelma in your prayers I would really appreciate it, I don´t know much about her yet, but I´m really excited to get to know her better and I hope that we can be good friends. Pray that the Holy Spirit would work in her heart and that he would give me the words to say at the right time.
I love and miss you all. I will hopefully post again sooner than later.
