Jive talkin'

School has started again, and Cerro Iglesia has awoken from its dusty summer slumber: the streets are crowded with uniformed kids, the restaurant is open almost every day, and more than a dozen teachers live here during the week. The teachers are my favorite addition; as fish, they’re nearly as out of water as we Peace Corps volunteers. All are college educated and from the city, used to modern convieniences like electricity. Some are just fulfilling a requirement until they can get a job back in civilization, some genuinely enjoy it here, but not a one quite fits in completely. Just like me. It’s facinating how much more I sometimes feel I can communicate with the teachers than with the people from here, even though I’m using the same stilted, stalling Spanish. It’s the difference between a language barrier and a cultural barrier. So sometimes it’s nice to mix it up and hang out with the teachers. And it’s great for my Spanish.

My technical Spanish, that is: vocabulary, speed, and efficiency. But only by passing time with the good folk here can I start to pick up the colloquial textures and nuances of the language. And since I don’t really have anything else to write about this time around, I thought I’d share a few of those (family appropriate) nuances I’ve learned so far.

La manta me pegó – A rhetorical excuse for sleeping in, just meaning that it was hard to get out of bed. Literally, ‘the blanket was stuck to me.’

Si dios quiere – Meaning ‘if God wants,’ this caveat is really telling of the culture. ‘Are you coming to the meeting tomorrow?’ ‘If God wants.’ Complete absolution of responsibilty. What, are you going to argue with God?

Engomado – A hangover is a ‘goma,’ which means glue, so someone hung over is engomado, stuck in glue. Drinking in the morning is therefore to ‘cortar goma,’ to cut the glue.

Embrujarse – Meaning to get drunk, I like this one because ‘brujo’ means witch, so getting drunk is like becoming a witch. Did you guys see me last night? Man, I was witchy.

Mango bajito – It means ‘low manjo,’ so it’s kind of like ‘low-hanging fruit’ in English, but the connotation is completely different. A mango bajito is a person who avoids work, who only does the bare minimum, who only picks the lowest mango, who joins the Peace Corps instead of getting a real job, etc.

Ahora, ahorita, ya – These three expressions of time are in dictionary and learned early on in one’s Spanish education, but what they really mean, ah, that’s different.
Ahora – literally means ‘now,’ but really means later on today sometime. Maybe. When someone tells me they are going to do something ‘más ahora,’ that doesn’t mean ‘more now,’ as the word for word translation would indicate, but rather some time that hasn’t happened yet.
Ahorita – literally means ‘right now,’ but really means soon. Kinda. It’s more likely that the discussed action will actually happen if ahorita is used instead of ahora.
Ya – literally means ‘already,’ but really means now. If you ask someone when they are leaving and they say ya, that does not mean they’ve already left, they couldn’t be talking to you if that were the case. They are probably planning on leaving soon. Maybe within the hour.