Have you ever played the game Mad Gab? It can be very frustrating at times when you think you are saying the right thing but your team just looks at you like your speaking gibberish! Imagine Madgab on an international level where you are playing with a whole country staring back at you blankly, clearly not understanding anything you are saying. If you’ve ever been to a foreign country then you know what I’m talking about!
Maybe that isn’t the best description, but you get the point. The little spanish we knew or learned in school or by Rosetta Stone coming into Guatemala has been a little off or irrelevant to daily life. I mean how many times do you get the opportunity to say, “Ten blue eggs”? (Zero so far) Now I’m not blaming the Rosetta Stone or our High school spanish teachers but, WOW, do we have a lot to learn. For this reason we decided to take spanish lessons while we are here in Esquipulas in addition to our Rosetta Stone learning. We met a woman who lived in the US for 20 years and is now back in Guatemala. She has graciously taken us as students and will be our Maestra (teacher) while we are here in Esquipulas.
(Us and our teacher, Christina)
We actually just finished up our first week as students. We have been going to school from 10am to 12pm, Monday through Friday. We are starting on about a kindergarten level and moving on from there. I don’t remember kindergarten being this hard though! It’ll get better….hopefully. Tiffany has had a few breakdowns throughout the process but she is pushing through. There are only so many times you can be told to remember to roll your “R’s” before you breakdown. Honestly we are both progressing quite well considering we have only been here two weeks!
Sometimes it’s hard to be so far out of our element and learn something completely foreign from all we know. It can be easy to get frustrated, but we know we’re right where we’re supposed to be and have an amazing opportunity to build meaningful relationships despite the barriers. Still, needless to say, we look forward to the day we can actually understand what people are saying to us instead of just nodding our head, smiling, and saying, “Si”.
