Palabras

I am sitting on my bed studying random vocab palabras (words) for an oral test tomorrow, and it occurred to me how incredibly strange it must sound to my host family to hear me practicing.

It would be so weird to be sitting in my kitchen at home hearing a foreign student drilling out loud, "Cabbage. Carrot. Inside. Outside. Amazing. Boiled plantains. Watermelon. Town."

Tambien (also), the four of us roommates speak Spanish all the time with each other and with our host family, which is awesome, but our Spanish, while usually comprehensible, is full of mistakes, incorrectly conjugated verbs, and bizarre words that are either attempts at guessing a new word (though sometimes adding -amente or -ivo does make a Spanish word from an English one) or a poor recollection of one previously learned.

I am so thankful that we are able (and willing!) to speak Spanish so much and that our host family and nearly every person we interact with is willing to endure and kindly correct our broken sentences and wrong conjugations.  I don't know if it's because I've grown up since the last time I traveled to a country with a different language, or because of the friendliness of the Guatemalans, or some other reason entirely (probably a combination of all), but I am completely okay with trying my best to speak in Spanish, no matter how many mistakes I make.

Friends, if you ever decide to learn a new language, here's my advice.  Study it a little on your own or in a class, then go to a country where they speak your language of choice, and speak it.  Don't be embarrassed, just do it!  I am learning SO much!  This is the best.  After my tutoring sessions I sometimes feel like I don't know how to speak any language because my brain is overflowing with new words and conjugations (después mi lección hoy, tuve dolor de cerebro).  But it's great because that also means that Spanish words and phrases are constantly floating about en mi cabeza (head) and they'll stick that much faster.

A couple great things about living with sweet little Guatemalan niños: It is the cutest thing ever when Steven or Kenneth (ages 5 and 8) come into my room and say "Hola, chica!"  I love being called chica.  And yesterday, I learned how to play Hide and Seek en español, aka "Listo o no, allá voy!"  So great.  And I got to practice my counting.

Oh also, I wanted to let you all know that if you wanted to send me a letter or package or anything, I'm sorry but that won't be a possibility (unless you want to pay $45 for one letter.... ahahaha good one, right?).  For real though, apparently mail is pretty unreliable here and the only way to send something with assurance of delivery is very expensive.  So, feel free to comment here (I would love to see who's reading my ramblings!) or shoot me an email or fb message :)