Seeing as how I don't speak Spanish fluently, (and by that I mean, my Spanish vocabulary is the equivalent of 1 year old) life in Laredo has had it's interesting moments. For example, I was in Wal-Mart waiting to check out the other day when this lady approached me. In her hands she had two packages of hot dogs. She held these up for me to see as if they were a great prize and proceeded to ask me something in Spanish. I looked at her rather blankly and said sheepishly, "Uh, I don't speak Spanish." This lady then looked at me with great distress, looked around frantically, and then walked away in sort of a huff.
Those hot dogs must've been pretty darn important. I just don't know why. Because I don't speak Spanish.
I have a goal to get back to where I was in college. I could sort of carry on a conversation with people. I gave speeches in Spanish. Now, I can't even understand Plaza Sesamo. Yeah, I really did watch that to try to learn Spanish. My kids didn't even care about it. I'm the one that turned it on.
Seriously, though, I want to be able to communicate with people. There is this lady I keep running into in my neighborhood that is so sweet, and I can tell she wants to be friends, but she doesn't speak a lick of English. And since I've already mentioned that my Spanish sucks, you can guess how that relationship is going. (Psst... It's going poorly.)
My husband speaks Spanish and does every day for his job. Actually, he spoke Portuguese first, and it kinda turned into him being able to speak Spanish. He helps me. He also laughs at me in the process. A lot.
I know I'm probably not alone in this. I guess I better dust off my old school books and hop to it. I have a feeling I'm going to need it.
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