Spanish and Alaska - Article 10

After four months in Costa Rica, I’ve got to give myself credit – my Spanish has gotten pretty good. Sure, there’s still a huge chunk of the language I don’t know, but people no longer speak to me in the tone you use to order movie tickets over the phone. Now when I say, “What?” (in Spanish of course), it’s because I misheard someone, instead of a just a way to stall for time as I get out my pocket translator. It’s hard to notice improvement though, with everyone around me laughing at jokes that I don’t understand until five minutes later, after I’ve run them through my head a few times.
The past two weeks, however, have been different. Suddenly my Spanish feels vastly improved, as if it blossomed overnight. Why? Now I have something to compare it to – ten foreign exchange students from Alaska.
The Alaskans arrived a couple of weeks ago, staying here for about a month to see some Costa Rican culture. For me, the entire dynamic of school has changed, and not just because they walk around in street clothes while the rest of us remain in our purple and grey uniforms.
First of all, compared to the Alaskans, I’m the darkest white guy around. I’ve found this phenomenon to be the healthiest tanning strategy to date – just surround yourself with people paler than you. Of course, their presence has made some things more difficult. Now when someone calls, “Gringo!” five heads turn, not just mine. No longer am I the best basketball player, or the tallest kid at the lunch table. My claim-to-fame of knowing the secret peanut-butter and jelly sandwich recipe (literally, I have yet to see a single Costa Rican eating one) is gone. But when it comes to languages, I’m unique.
The first day of school with the Alaskans began awkwardly, them huddling in a corner while the Costa Ricans nonchalantly tried to look them over, making the whole scene feel very similar to my first middle school dance. As the groups slowly began to mingle, however, a strange thing happened. The Alaskans have about the same knowledge of Spanish as I had when I arrived in February (basically consisting of the colors, the months and, “Can you repeat that?”). On the flip side, the Costa Ricans, despite knowing the lyrics to every Lady Gaga song, aren’t much better at English. Upon discovering this, everyone slowly looked at me, waiting for me to translate. And suddenly, I realized I could. I spent the rest of the day translating jokes and stories, feeling like some type of all-knowing magical creature. A unicorn, if you will. Conversations that do get by without the need for translation are always interesting though. As we stood under the school balcony and watched the torrential rain, one Alaskan pulled at his collar, muttering, “I’m hot.” A Costa Rican guy looked at him in confusion, saying “I’m cold.” They both looked at me as I started laughing, because I had just been thinking how nice the temperature was.
Of course, after a few days of restaurants and tourist shops, the foreign exchange students figured out how to cheat – almost everyone in Costa Rica speaks a minimal amount of working English. Now, instead of struggling through their food orders in Spanish, they tend to just stare intently at the cashier and use bad English (“I…has…milkshake!”).
As for me, my mind is still soaked in Spanish. I took the SAT Spanish subject test the other day, just so I could have something to send to colleges beyond a binder full of these articles. It felt like a scene from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” where the kid knows all the answers to the game show questions because of his life experiences. The word for “credit card,” for example, which I never would have known otherwise, was easy to recall, remembering the time that I helped two guys from Mississippi pay for their ice cream. Cantante (singer), from when I accidentally signed up for Karaoke night, and ended up singing an Enrique Iglesias song to a bar full of drunk Costa Ricans. Easiest of all to recognize was the verb colgar (to tie up), forever lodged in my mind after realizing that the common toothpaste brand here, Colgate, translates to “Go hang yourself.”
You know, they say you’re fluent in a language once you have a dream in it. I had that dream the other night – all I remember is standing in line, and guy behind me saying in Spanish, “C’mon people, let’s move it!” I wouldn’t say I’m fluent yet, though. The girls in my class still make fun of my accent, and I still occasionally get out of breath as I try to say particularly complicated sentences, especially if that sentence is something along the lines of “Stop making fun of my accent!” But, you know, for right now I’m okay with only being semi-fluent. Because really all you need to get by is the knowledge to ask what’s for dinner, what time it is, and where you are. And of course my personal favorite: “Are we there yet?”