Advertisement
Published: March 2nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
You're receiving this because we've taken the liberty of entering your e-mail address as a potential recipient of our travel blog. We hope that you'll follow along with our adventures (and misadventures) in Argentina. Since we entered the addresses AFTER we published the first blog, you are most likely receiving the first two entries at the same time. We hope that you'll click on the previous entry to check it out as well. Thank you for joining us in this magical place!
As of the first of March, we have spent a couple of days in Buenos Aires and two weeks in Bariloche, a stunning mountain town on the northern edge of Patagonia. Bariloche is in the lake district and just a stone's throw from huge shimmering lakes and Chile. It's definitely a resort area, but a large proportion of the tourists are from Latin America or Europe.
Until a few days ago, we've had the pleasure and comfort of hanging out and exploring with Catherine and Dale, our good friends from Seattle, who were staying in a nearby homestay and also studying at the same Spanish language school. But, alas, they have moved on to spend some days
Lago Nahuel Huapi in Bariloche
Bariloche is set in the midst of lakes and mountains on a beach some distance away. We bade them goodbye on Feb. 27 with a sumptuous supper prepared by Julia, our homestay "madre." Catherine and Dale's vivacious personalities and fluent Spanish definitely charmed our hosts, who speak NO English and pronounced Catherine and Dale (many times) "muy lindos"--then they caught themselves and added that, of course, we are "lindos" (cute, pretty) also!
For us, the most consuming focus of our time in Bariloche has been our daily arduous effort to improve our primitive Spanish. Most days after breakfast we study or 2 or 3 hours on the sunny patio behind our house. Our work is supervised by a number of birds who live in our yard permanently as a reward for the food they receive from an indulgent neighbor. We are especially fond of the family of bandurrias, which are huge, long-legged pajaros (birds) with long, curved, needle-like beaks. While the other birds spy on us from the trees, the bandurrias come quite close and seem amused by our diligence.
We'll spare you our blow-by-blow invectives about the irregular verbs and reflexive pronouns that torment us daily, but trust us, this work is formidable! Perhaps a couple of
Farewell Dinner
Our homestay hosts (at either end of the table)prepared a wonderful cena (dinner) for our Seattle friends, Catherine and Dale. brief tales will give you an an idea of our linguistic misadventures. Carol finds that her most satisfying conversations with native speakers are with Argentines under the age of 6. One day on the huge, spectacular ranch where most of our group went horseback riding, Carol was watching a small boy of about three harassing some grazing sheep by shouting at them and throwing pine cones. Thinking that she could distract him from bothering them and practice her Spanish at the same time, she pointed at the sheep and said to the 3-year-old (in Spanish that was, of course, flawless), "Excuse me. I'm learning Spanish. Can you tell me please the word for those animals?"
The little boy walked over to her and said, "Sure, senora, they're cats".
"Cats? Are you sure?" Carol asked.
"Sure!" he said. "I have two of them at my house."
"And what color are your cats?" Carol asked.
"One is blue and the other is green," said the little boy. And he ran off to resume harassing the "cats." Catherine reminds us that this is evidence of the need to consider the qualifications of our informants!
In another adventure
A Guard Bird (As opposed to a Guard Dog)
This is one of the bandurrias who supervise our Spanish homework on the patio. These birds are about 16 inches tall. in language acquisition, our teachers have designed a special 40-minute conversational period that comes in the middle of our three-hour private lessons. We gather with our respective teachers during this "pausa"(break) for spontaneous discussions on topics that range from the eating habits of children in various countries to the causes of recent wildfires in Argentina. Of course, the purpose is to get us to speak about real topics that interest us. Last Thursday, Bill's teacher, the charming and intrepid Javier, was asking Bill about the sport of handball, which Javier did not know. But Bill's enthusiasm was stronger than his Spanish. Suddenly, there was Bill: leaping around the "salon de pausa" pantomiming the actions of a handball player and punctuating his Spanish phrases with words like "whoosh!" and "smack!" Javier was shaking with laughter at Bill's antics and shouting (in Spanish naturally) " Bueno, Bill--but with verbs!...Where are the verbs, Bill?"
Thus, our linguistic endeavors continue...exhausting, a bit humiliating, and almost always fun! Asi es la vida in Spanish language kindergarten...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0498s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jo
non-member comment
Cats?
Great to hear from you two! I love the blue and green cat story--do you think that is just a symptom of impish kids everywhere or a reflection on "gringos"? We'll have fun comparing stories when you get home. Thanks for sharing, Jo