man, it's hot outside

So me being me, I decided when I got back from El Salvador last March that I would use ALL of the Spanish words I learned WHENEVER possible. In May I moved into our new apartment building, and much to my pleasure, the superintendent of our building, Jose, is from Colombia and decided to befriend us. He's great! I was so excited that I finally had someone to practice my Spanish with. So I made a pact with myself that every time I saw Jose I would use some Spanish. Even if it was only one word (you see, I realized that I somehow learned mostly nouns and a few random adjectives, so this makes it quite difficult to string together a sentence - turns out those verb things are pretty important after all). I convinced myself that next year in El Salvador I would be MUCH better at Spanish, since Jose was going to teach me a new word or two every time I saw him.

Well, all was going as planned, and a few months later it was summer. One day I got home from work and it was really hot outside. Like 95 degrees hot. I walked up the front steps to the building and saw Jose mowing the lawn beside me. PERFECT opportunity for me to practice some of that Espanol! (Sorry - I'm not talented enough to make accent signs or those little squiggly lines over the n.) So, proud as can be, I yell (over the buzz of the mower), "Hola Jose! Muy caliente!" (translation: "Hi Jose! Very hot!) And picture me, mid-Spanish sentence, doing that hand motion where you pretend to fan yourself off because it's really hot outside. Well, Jose chuckled and said in stride, "Si. Muy caliente!" Then we proceeded to exchange a few words in English (his English is FAR better than my Spanish, in case you hadn't figured that out yet), and I proceeded upstairs, still very proud. In fact, the first thing I told the husband was, "guess what?! I just practiced my Spanish with Jose!" I then recounted the conversation for husband, who humored me, as is his way, by smiling and nodding and saying something like, "that's nice, honey." You see, he doesn't speak Spanish either. (Side note: isn't there someone somewhere who makes it their business to go around telling students that studying German is not going to be helpful in real life?)

Ok, so fast forward about three months to this past weekend in Camden. Friday night we went to a legitimate Mexican restaurant for dinner. The menu was all in Spanish. Our waitress spoke only Spanish. If this were Jose, I would have been excited to practice my Spanish. But this was an actual situation in which the people around me spoke ONLY Spanish. I wasn't excited (well, I was because I love Mexican food and cultural experiences, but I wasn't because I REALLY wanted to know Spanish at that moment, and the sad truth is that I don't). Anyway, we had a few American Spanish speakers in the group (you know, the kind who learned it in high school and attempt to translate the menu, which really gets only half translated if it's a good day). So, we all finally figure out what we want, or at least decipher one thing on the menu and decide that it sounds relatively edible, so we're ready to order. The waitress comes over, which is quite the scene, as most encounters are when you speak two different languages. Our resident Spanish speaking college student asks the waitress a question, in broken Spanish, and I am excited to recognize a word - none other than the abovementioned "caliente!" So the waitress leaves after our painstaking exchange, and I say to the group, "I know the word caliente! It means hot!" And then someone says, "yes, well it means spicy hot. But you should never use that word when you want to say that you're hot or that it's hot outside." And I say, remembering the mid-summer exchange with Jose, "oh no, why not?" "Well," said my dinner mate, "when you say it in that context it means you're [ready for this?] horny."

So, turns out I told my building's superintendent that I'm horny. Did I mention that Jose's about 60? And that he knows my husband quite well? Or that I left him a note about a month ago about a leaky pipe in our bathroom and it remains leaky?

Yes, that's what I do. I get so excited about something new that I end up embarrassing myself and remaining proud of it for the next three months.

Anyway, today when I'm at work, I tell the story to my Ecuadorean friend. She laughs and tells me that caliente doesn't mean horny in all Spanish-speaking countries. For example, she said, it doesn't mean that in her country, because slang differs from place to place. She asks what country Jose is from. I say Colombia. Her response: "oh yeah, it means horny there!"

Great. Can't a girl get a break?

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I always tell my students that they should never go into another country pretending they know what's best for the people there simply because they are the ones there to "serve" and because they are from the wealthier country. Instead they should seek to learn from these people they meet, ask for help, remain open.

Maybe it's time for me to start practicing what I preach! Next time I think I'll ASK Jose how to say something in Spanish instead of assuming.

To all the Joses in my life, mea culpa.