5 posts tagged “mexico”
Number of scorpions seen : 3
Number of scorpions seen which were not preserved in alcohol : 0
Number of beers drank in six weeks in Mexico : 17 (approx.)
Number of pounds lost due to unacceptably low beer intake : 20 (approx.)
Number of students on program with confirmed cases of The Deng : 2 (of 9)
Number of times I thought that I was the third student with The Deng, due to excessive hypochondria : 7 (approx.)
Number of times I may actually be third case of The Deng : 1 (and let me tell you, OUCH)
Here, to be precise.
That is all.
(Excluding what is contained in these parenthesis and in the footnotes, all of my words will be things that I can now say in Nahuatl, after three weeks of intensive language instruction. Hopefully this will not cause as much confusion for you as my language skills seem to for the people here. Note the importance of the exclamation points, as they help overcome (or perhaps create?) awkward but earnest language-learning moments.)
This is where I am staying!
Hello*! I like the looks of it here!
Who** is it?? Roosters!! One is shouting!
One time, we went to a party!
They danced! Old dancing!
Again! They danced!
Married ladies too danced!
Oh no! Coyote runs with goat!
Coyote is eating goat! No one helps goat! Oh no!
It is a very small goat!
Death*** is yellow here! She dances with Death***!
This food was not tasty! It was pig belly!
She serves me tequila by pouring!
I get drunk with free*** tequila! Hello*! Also I am sweating!
8 days later****, I went up this mountain! So big and far*****! Probably we will die! Snakes or scorpions will bite us!!
Donkeys accompany us! I made this donkey angry!! I can’t donkeys!
He can donkeys!
I like the look of these flowers! I shit near them! I used their leaves!
Soon we will arrive to the top! It is close now!
These ants bit me******! They are people-biting ants*******! But no snakes or scorpions bit us!
On the top!! Mountain!!! Where I live is at the water’s edge, there (on the right**)!
The mountain ants made me angry! My leg hurts where they bit me! But I am alive! Now let me go sleep!
* Actually, there is no word for ‘hello’ in the dialect I’m studying. Instead, you just comment on what a person is doing, e.g., ‘Oh, you’re feeding your pigs!’ or ‘Ah, I see you’re coming back from plowing, and on your way to put your twelve donkeys out to pasture!’ This is very hard for a beginning language learner.
** ’Who’ is actually the correct word for animals in this dialect, even when asking about the giant, multi-legged thing you find on your bed—‘Who is that?!?!?’
*** I do not really know how to say this word.
**** This is one word in Nahuatl—go figure.
***** This picture was, in fact, taken after about a two-mile walk to the base of the mountain.
****** This is a lie. In truth, the ants who bit me were very, very dead by the time this picture was taken.
******* This is actually the name of these ants in Nahuatl.
Number of days here : 8
Number of bug bites : 17 (approx)
Number of scorpions seen : 0
Number of scorpions seen by others on the program : 1
Number of people in the family I´m staying with : 7
Number of rooms in the mud hut where I live : 2
Number of pigeons I am sharing a room with : 6 (includes one chick)
Number of cages to house said pigeons : 0
Number of pigeons consumed : 0.5
Number of words I am to have learned by now : 1,000 (approx)
Number of words I have learned : 29 (actual count)
Number of tortillas consumed : 17,456 (near-actual count)
- Portable DVD players are a good way to pass time on the plane. Unless you use them to watch reruns of "I Love the 80's" that you burned off your Tivo, with commercials and all. Then portable DVD players kind of suck. Never do this.
- Having two seats to one's self on two consecutive flights rules, especially when one has never, never, on a plane had an extra seat next to him. Ever.
- Flying through thunderstorms is less turbulent than one might think.
- DAVE EGGERS: If you need a house husband, I am available. I will work for free. I mean, damn, man, could you stop, like, writing totally awesome words?
- Taking unauthorized cabs from the Mexico City airport makes the trip both more expensive, and more exciting! "Is he taking me to the bus station, or to a dark alley to steal my organs?!" Also, cabby offered me a smoke. Totally never taking an authorized cab again.
- It is hard to speak/understand another language after two hours of VERY drunk sleep. Especially when the person talking to you is an old, grizzled cabby with only two visible teeth, and you burned your tongue on airplane coffee to finish it before the 'turbulence'.
- Arriving at a hotel you already pretty much like to find out that they now offer wireless Internet-tube access is an excellent surprise.
- Using that wireless Internet while laying under a ceiling fan, writing a blog post, is the perfect end to a long, long, long day.
