Mosquitoes

My last post was mostly about my not understanding Spanish and in many cases I still don´t understand, but I´d like to focus on what I do understand this time around. Some Spanish words are starting to have meanings of there own or meanings outside of simply having an English counterpart. For example, “sientese” is what I say when I want a student to sit down. I don´t have to translate it before I say it. I don´t think that any teacher who is reading this is going to be particularly surprised that that is one of the first words that has been truly ingrained into my vocabulary. Likewise, “subame” is what the kindergartners say when they want me to pick them up and put them on the jungle-gym. I think that I am on the verge of “thinking in Spanish”.

Another thing that is changing, when I would hear people talking to other people it used to be just white noise. Sister Brigid warned me about this. I am starting to pick out words, not enough words to understand what they are saying, but enough to occupy my thoughts.  I might get to the point that I can actually eavesdrop before I leave.  

I am still never found without my Spanish/English Dictionary too far out of reach. Speaking of which (or rather, writing or typing of which) it will be donated and replaced with a much more comprehensive dictionary. I have looked for too many words that were not there.

OK, so I know that I mentioned that the sisters that I am living with are originally from Brazil and Spanish is their second language as well. I am going to be barbecuingon Sunday and I wanted to know if the sisters had skewers for sish-kabobs. I didn´t know the Spanish word for “skewers” so I looked it up and asked if they had any. The sisters here also didn´t know the Spanish word for “skewers” so they looked it up in their Spanish/Portuguese dictionary. Anyways, that seemingly simple question took close to fifteen minutes to ask and answer.

On an unrelated note, I hate mosquitoes. I would like to know exactly how many I have killed so that I can compare that number to how many have bitten me. Both numbers are not small numbers.