Dec 15, 2006

Times Up!

Today is three months that we have been in Hueyapan. It was my goal before we left that in three months time I would be at a conversational level in Spanish. How am I doing?

Si, puedo hablar en Espanol con la gente que teinen mucho paciencia. Y aci es paciencia mucho para mi; yo estoy graticido. Yo tengo palabras que yo usar mucho, pero falta mucho mas. Mas deficile para mi es del tenses para los verbos. Estas much tiempos con formas differente para yo, tu, el/ella, ellos, ustedes, nosotros… Mi no gusto mucho los cosas gramatico -para memorizada. No, nada. Es aborrido. Mi engozo es entienendo los raizes y structura de los idomas, Espanol y Engles, los dos. Entiendes?

Translation:
Yes, I can speak in Spanish with people who have a lot of patience; and there is much patience here for me: I am grateful. I have words that I use a lot, but there are many more missing. More difficult more for me is the verb tenses. There are many tenses and various forms for each subject: I, you, he/ she/ usted, they, you( plural), we… I don’t like grammatical things much –to be memorized. Not at all. Boring. I enjoy learning and understanding the roots and structures of the languages, Spanish and English both. Do you understand?

I think my goals for learning Spanish in three months were not too optimistic in theory, but very ambitious. In fact, however, I have not been very ambitious. In the last four weeks I have twice sat with someone to intentionally learn Spanish (and teach English pronunciation), but besides that I have not taken much time in the last three months to study or practice. The reason is that I can get along sufficiently, and I have other, more meaningful (I argue), things to do; and, also, I find that rather dull. But I have had some deep struggles as well, related to this language limitation. I will never laugh at the challenge someone faces moving into another culture.

I will not be in all ways the same person to you when you see me next. I have experienced loneliness and confusion in depths that I had not anticipated. I am a teenager learning and establishing my life’s philosophies about how to understand and respond to society all over again. (In this way every person navigating life is truly a philosopher, don’t you think?) How am I doing navigating this particular ship? I have much to say, but, naturally, there is vulnerability and the destination is very uncertain. I do not always appreciate those challenges at all. But I am inclined to the adventure.

Today we had a visit from a family from my church in Canada (Abe, Anna Kauenhofen, and family)! What a treat that is for us! I said something to them questioning whether they could understand what their visit actually does for us, and then I look down fighting off tears. When I looked up again I saw that Dad’s eyes red and his cheeks wet (and my parents have never even met the Kauenhofens before today).
It is not that our life is so hard and sad here, no, we are happy, but we appreciate things like this so much more deeply than we could have done otherwise. In that case, maybe we are much happier here than at home? I don’t know how to answer that better than to say that we will never regret the experiences lived here. We are the richer for it, no doubt.

It is a real treat as well to receive some things from people in Canada. Did I mention peanut butter in one of my e-mails, Anna? How did you know? Little things are big things. And licorice!! Oh, I am a simple man… Thank you!

The towels, cards, letter (Sarah), Christmas chocolate, Snickers, music, as well as the coloring books and crayons and supplies to give to children (thank you Hanson’s)… Candy canes, which we will also distribute, are great fun for kids and adults… Thanks for the pictures and all your work, Anna. What else was there…