Lake Nicaragua and Concepcion.
Hello all, Molly asked me if my Spanish was much better after a week in Language school. Perhaps a few stories will illustrate. Of course, a week of school is not much although intensive, it is only 20 hours of actually class time divided into grammar lessons, conversations and lectures and writing. The day I left San Juan del Sur, after my language school, it was raining hard so my negotiating skills were lost on the taxi drivers as I stood knee deep in mud with a 50 pound back pack strapped on. I finally agreed to a price and was on my way to Ometepe to meet with Jim. This was a 4 bus/taxi and one ferry ride experience and I had to either negotiate the price or figure out which bus and how much and I found that this I could do just fine. As long as I know what we are talking about then I am ok and can understand and respond. Now, the fact that the drivers all either hugged me or patted my back(Jim says, very unusual) may mean that they thought I was adorable or perhaps, they couldn’t imagine how I was going to survive. I don’t know!
On a day trip a couple of days ago to a geothermal underground site, we were met at a hastily set up gate and charged 4 times the price as the Nicas. I hotly protested, calling discrimination and saying it was a stupid rule and when the ticket taker put her finger in my face, I clearly made her back away which shows that now I can cause trouble in two languages. This area, like a lot of Leon has beggars, mostly kids, and when begged I told them the woman at the gate took all our money and we had no money for them. Hopefully, they were able to give her a hard time. Jim and I, in Leon( as Ometepe has no beggars) commonly will give a peso or two to street kids or old or disabled people but the rest of that day, we explained that we were robbed by the woman at the gate in San Jacinto. As Jim says, that woman had no idea what she had unleashed!!
I have been more confidant and that is really what a week of school did more than anything. I am simply talking more. I know my pronunciation is bad but I have to talk to get it worked on and I am doing that now.
We have had some experiences of people being astounded to find out we were from the states and that is a good thing! I always know the Americans. They are the incredibly loud, rude and lacking common sense ones. Not many of them here fortunately but they stand out! We are in Esterli right now for a couple of days, further north and no bugs. I see that our hotel room comes with a blanket!!!!!!
We’ll head back to Leon and then on Tuesday to Costa Rica for a couple of days and then home on Thursday. We are deciding that we don’t want to live in Nicaragua and that we
may be too old for this kind of traveling( I can almost hear my mother’s comments here!!) It is a lot of work!
Love to you all, whatever you are doing with yourselves.
Rory/ Mom
Hello all, Molly asked me if my Spanish was much better after a week in Language school. Perhaps a few stories will illustrate. Of course, a week of school is not much although intensive, it is only 20 hours of actually class time divided into grammar lessons, conversations and lectures and writing. The day I left San Juan del Sur, after my language school, it was raining hard so my negotiating skills were lost on the taxi drivers as I stood knee deep in mud with a 50 pound back pack strapped on. I finally agreed to a price and was on my way to Ometepe to meet with Jim. This was a 4 bus/taxi and one ferry ride experience and I had to either negotiate the price or figure out which bus and how much and I found that this I could do just fine. As long as I know what we are talking about then I am ok and can understand and respond. Now, the fact that the drivers all either hugged me or patted my back(Jim says, very unusual) may mean that they thought I was adorable or perhaps, they couldn’t imagine how I was going to survive. I don’t know!
On a day trip a couple of days ago to a geothermal underground site, we were met at a hastily set up gate and charged 4 times the price as the Nicas. I hotly protested, calling discrimination and saying it was a stupid rule and when the ticket taker put her finger in my face, I clearly made her back away which shows that now I can cause trouble in two languages. This area, like a lot of Leon has beggars, mostly kids, and when begged I told them the woman at the gate took all our money and we had no money for them. Hopefully, they were able to give her a hard time. Jim and I, in Leon( as Ometepe has no beggars) commonly will give a peso or two to street kids or old or disabled people but the rest of that day, we explained that we were robbed by the woman at the gate in San Jacinto. As Jim says, that woman had no idea what she had unleashed!!
I have been more confidant and that is really what a week of school did more than anything. I am simply talking more. I know my pronunciation is bad but I have to talk to get it worked on and I am doing that now.
We have had some experiences of people being astounded to find out we were from the states and that is a good thing! I always know the Americans. They are the incredibly loud, rude and lacking common sense ones. Not many of them here fortunately but they stand out! We are in Esterli right now for a couple of days, further north and no bugs. I see that our hotel room comes with a blanket!!!!!!
We’ll head back to Leon and then on Tuesday to Costa Rica for a couple of days and then home on Thursday. We are deciding that we don’t want to live in Nicaragua and that we
may be too old for this kind of traveling( I can almost hear my mother’s comments here!!) It is a lot of work!
Love to you all, whatever you are doing with yourselves.
Rory/ Mom
posted by rorylyons@gmail.com at 9:33 PM
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