Last Snapshots of Matagalpa
Extraño... that was the word of the day yesterday in Spanish class as I tried to explain to Lussi, my teacher, how wierd it feels to be here in Matagalpa for two weeks of Spanish lessons with no friends; no family; no comfort of the known; no sweet, sweet, English in my ears; and no great task, opportunity, or work waiting to fill my time outside of classes. Strange.
Of course I haven´t been doing nothing here. I have found much to occupy my time over the last week and a half. For example, I´ve read two and a half books. I´ve watched two Driscoll sermon series. I´ve enjoyed some amazing spanish kids´ television shows. I´ve wandered the streets exploring to the point of stressing my knee, gotten lost once, e-mailed some friends and family and compared the internet speed quality in nearly every internet cafe around. (Heck, it´s super cheap. Usually my usage needs for the day max out at an hour and a half, for a cost of just under a dollar.) Oh yeah, and I´ve studied some spanish, too.
But there comes a point where your brain gets overtaxed by the conjugating of the past perfect and the imperfect, and the gerundio, too. Yesterday in class I thought my brain would explode when Lussi revealed to me that the entire population of Nicaragua doesn´t use the regular "tú" form as all of Spanish-dom uses it, but instead has their own slang word for the singular "you" subject, known as "vos", and is not to be confused with the spanish plural "you" subject, "vosotros," which the Nicaraguans don´t use.
The thing with the whole "vos" form, is that it subtly changes the conjugations regularly used for basically every verb in the Spanish language, somewhat following the "tú" rules but changing the emphasis from the second-last to the last syllable. Now folks, I know what you´re thinking. You´re thinking, "so then they use an accent to emphasize the last syllable, as is generally the rule in all of wide, wide, Spanish-dom?"
There, my quick-thinking, surprisingly language-perceptive friend, you would be wrong. Nope, you´re just supposed to know. Hello, it´s SLANG. Let´s not make this too easy for those extranjeros!
I spent the rest of the day trying to wrap my mind around the usage of "vos", and shaming Lussi for all the guilt I could extract for not telling me about the whole "vos" thing earlier.
After classes like that, my brain just needs a nap.
The other thing that I´ve been doing here in Matagalpa to fill my time is seeing various points of interest in the Matagalpa area, which is a part of the package offered to Spanish students of Matagalpa Tours. There´s kind of an interesting dynamic to going out on regularly scheduled one-on-one outings with a 24-year-old latino guy, though. Not that Hector is at all unprofessional, it´s just that his job at present is to take this chela out to places like the local chocolate factory, and of course, he pays.
My new latin-american television guilty pleasure is the amazing Mexican tourism show, GEM: Gringo En Mexico, a show hosted by an American guy with an interesting grasp on the Spanish language... he knows all the words, but not how to speak it. There´s nothing more for me to say about than that to me, it is pee-your-pants hilarious, and to refer you to this youtube clip for reference.
Okay... maybe I´ll add just this one thing. The episode I saw the other day included him creeping out an indigenous family far up in the mountains of Mexico, trying to interview them on-camera and shake their hands, as the children ran away timidly to hide, and the mother turned her face away. Eventually a Mexican man came along and explained to him that these indigenous people:
a) don´t speak spanish, and
b) are very unused to seeing strangers (probably much less so white people), and thus are very distrusting of outsiders.
Way to do your homework, GEM.
Today was the parade for the Virgin Mercedes, and the third holiday we´ve had since I came to Matagalpa. For some reason, each town chooses their own Virgin to honour in the Catholic Cathedral... to me it comes off like the "patron saint" or the "local god" of the town... it´s a very strange Catholicism you find in Central America, a fine blend of paganism and Catholic tradition.
Tomorrow I have eight hours of spanish classes, and if my brain makes it through intact, by tomorrow night I´ll be at the orphanage in Jinotega, meeting the kids I´ll be caring for for the next three months.
Of course I haven´t been doing nothing here. I have found much to occupy my time over the last week and a half. For example, I´ve read two and a half books. I´ve watched two Driscoll sermon series. I´ve enjoyed some amazing spanish kids´ television shows. I´ve wandered the streets exploring to the point of stressing my knee, gotten lost once, e-mailed some friends and family and compared the internet speed quality in nearly every internet cafe around. (Heck, it´s super cheap. Usually my usage needs for the day max out at an hour and a half, for a cost of just under a dollar.) Oh yeah, and I´ve studied some spanish, too.
But there comes a point where your brain gets overtaxed by the conjugating of the past perfect and the imperfect, and the gerundio, too. Yesterday in class I thought my brain would explode when Lussi revealed to me that the entire population of Nicaragua doesn´t use the regular "tú" form as all of Spanish-dom uses it, but instead has their own slang word for the singular "you" subject, known as "vos", and is not to be confused with the spanish plural "you" subject, "vosotros," which the Nicaraguans don´t use.
The thing with the whole "vos" form, is that it subtly changes the conjugations regularly used for basically every verb in the Spanish language, somewhat following the "tú" rules but changing the emphasis from the second-last to the last syllable. Now folks, I know what you´re thinking. You´re thinking, "so then they use an accent to emphasize the last syllable, as is generally the rule in all of wide, wide, Spanish-dom?"
There, my quick-thinking, surprisingly language-perceptive friend, you would be wrong. Nope, you´re just supposed to know. Hello, it´s SLANG. Let´s not make this too easy for those extranjeros!
I spent the rest of the day trying to wrap my mind around the usage of "vos", and shaming Lussi for all the guilt I could extract for not telling me about the whole "vos" thing earlier.
After classes like that, my brain just needs a nap.
The other thing that I´ve been doing here in Matagalpa to fill my time is seeing various points of interest in the Matagalpa area, which is a part of the package offered to Spanish students of Matagalpa Tours. There´s kind of an interesting dynamic to going out on regularly scheduled one-on-one outings with a 24-year-old latino guy, though. Not that Hector is at all unprofessional, it´s just that his job at present is to take this chela out to places like the local chocolate factory, and of course, he pays.
My new latin-american television guilty pleasure is the amazing Mexican tourism show, GEM: Gringo En Mexico, a show hosted by an American guy with an interesting grasp on the Spanish language... he knows all the words, but not how to speak it. There´s nothing more for me to say about than that to me, it is pee-your-pants hilarious, and to refer you to this youtube clip for reference.
Okay... maybe I´ll add just this one thing. The episode I saw the other day included him creeping out an indigenous family far up in the mountains of Mexico, trying to interview them on-camera and shake their hands, as the children ran away timidly to hide, and the mother turned her face away. Eventually a Mexican man came along and explained to him that these indigenous people:
a) don´t speak spanish, and
b) are very unused to seeing strangers (probably much less so white people), and thus are very distrusting of outsiders.
Way to do your homework, GEM.
Today was the parade for the Virgin Mercedes, and the third holiday we´ve had since I came to Matagalpa. For some reason, each town chooses their own Virgin to honour in the Catholic Cathedral... to me it comes off like the "patron saint" or the "local god" of the town... it´s a very strange Catholicism you find in Central America, a fine blend of paganism and Catholic tradition.
Tomorrow I have eight hours of spanish classes, and if my brain makes it through intact, by tomorrow night I´ll be at the orphanage in Jinotega, meeting the kids I´ll be caring for for the next three months.
8:34 PM
I hope you can handle 8 hrs of Spanish. One hour would be to much for me. How was the chocolate at the chocolate factory?? I am looking forward to hearing of your next stage of this adventure. God Bless top