Today was the first day that I could actually see my Spanish improving. I feel as though my Spanish is like a growing baby. As a parent, with the baby every day, you never see or notice him or her growing. Then one day you see a picture of the precious child from months (or even weeks) before and you can’t believe how much your sweetie-pie has grown! I hope that’s how my Spanish is progressing. It’s hard to see the progress day by day. Along the way, I’ve had little successes that were truly exciting. For example, I’ll never forget the first joke that I made in Spanish! I was with Celsy and her daughter and they actually laughed, and not just a little chuckle, but a deep-belly laughter! One of my favorite moments of each day is dinnertime. Celsy, Willy, and I eat together every night at 6:30. The conversations that we have are so rich. This time every night may just be the most advantageous time of the day for my Spanish and for my relationship with them. I learn so much from talking to my Tico parents. The first week I understood them fairly well and we were able to communicate, but I felt very limited. Each night I desperately want to understand every word they say. And slowly, I think that is happening! Our conversations vary from night to night. They tell me a lot about their lives and the Costa Rican culture. And I, in turn tell them about my life and the U.S. Last night we talked about how in Costa Rica it is no big deal to have a nickname like “fatty”. I tried to explain to them why this would be such an offense in the U.S. They were able to see my point and we just laughed about it together. They have never heard of homeschooling, and a family of six children is very rare in their world – so those are both topics that we often return to.
What I love about learning Spanish in Costa Rica is that every thing that I learn in class can be immediately applied to my life. This week in my conversation class we are learning the parts of the body (this feels like anatomy all over again! Except instead of learning words to the complexity of every individual bone of the pelvis, I’m learning words like: finger, big toe, and liver. haha). Today as we were discussing the words used to talk about giving birth and pregnancy, my teacher taught us the word for pregnancy cravings. They are called: los antojos. This word implies something much stronger than what we say in English. In Spanish, a woman has antojos such as craving tacos at two in the morning. So she will ask her husband to go get her some. And if he doesn’t meet every one of her antojos, then they say that the baby will be born with its mouth open!! Well, my Tico parents are much older and no longer of the childbearing age, but whenever Celsy asks Willy to do something for her, Willy always does it, but I can hear him mumble under his breath: “¡los antojos!” Until today, I never knew what we meant, but now it makes so much sense and is actually really funny!
Today after school, I taught Celsy how to make No-Bake cookies (galletas sin hornear). It was so fun! She went shopping this morning to get the ingredients that we needed. Mom sent me our famous recipe and I translated it into Spanish for her. I also had my copy in English. So the two of us each followed our own translations to make sure we both were in agreement. We first measured everything out and got everything prepared. Then we began the process and I tried my best to explain each step to her. Unfortunately, the cookies came out in a liquid consistency instead of a nice firm cookie – I hate it when that happens! I was very disappointed by this, because I really wanted them to come out right so that she would truly get to experience them at their best – especially after all the work we did! And the flavor was not as rich as it is when I make them at home. I credit this to the weird peanut butter that we used (nothing compares to Jiff). None of this fazed her or Willy. They both loved them! We put them on plates and ate them with spoons… haha! Caty, Celsy’s daughter, came over and she also loved them and even copied the recipe! The rest of the cookies are now being stored in the freezer to try to both harden them up, and save them from the ants (or rather save us from the ants!). I translated four different cookie recipes for Celsy. Next week we are going to make chocolate-chip cookies! Yumm!
At the end of the day, I started thinking about the things I’m now able to communicate in Spanish, the confidence that I’m gaining, and the little successes that I have had. As I said earlier, it was the first time that I was able to see my little "baby", my Spanish, growing and improving. It’s truly exciting!Thank you to everyone for your prayers! This is truly the work of God! Last year, I began my first semester of Spanish at Western. It was terrible!! I had to drop back a level and repeat Spanish 202 because I just couldn't handle the level that I was "supposed" to be at. I remember telling my good friend Hannah about this (she is also majoring in Spanish and Nursing and therefore we had almost every class together!) and she said that she and I just needed to always speak in Spanish together to practice. So we tried doing this and after about two failed sentences I would switch to English because I honestly couldn't do it. And now to think that I'm in Costa Rica living with a family that speaks no English at all?! Only by the grace of God! He is so good and truly our provider!
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