Thursday, June 2, 2011

Panamanian Spanish and Cultural Quirks

I can't believe how quickly time is passing! I've been in site for two and a half months now. We've finished the first trimester of school. I'm proud of the things that I have accomplished in that short amount of time. The primary job in every Peace Corps Volunteer's first three months in site is to integrate into the community. I feel like I am doing very well on that front. I'm lucky to be working in the school, such a central institution in the community, so that everyone has known me from day one. I'm still trying to learn all my students' names - I have almost 500! - but every time I step out my door I hear a dozen shouts of "Abigail!" or "Teacher!" My community is a lot bigger than it seemed at first. (It's about 2,700 people.) There is one particular family that I spend a lot of time with. I hang out at their house almost every day. They're really great people, very patient with my Spanish, and very social and talkative which rubs off on me and gets me talking a lot. Plus they love to feed me.

I've had good days and bad days with my Spanish. One day I'll be chatting really quickly, throwing out verbs in the past subjunctive without even realizing it, and the next day I won't be able to say really simple sentences in the simple past tense. It was frustrating for awhile but lately I've been having more and more good days and fewer bad ones. I get laughed at sometimes, like when I mix up the word for avocado (aguacate) and downpour (aguacero). "I love downpours! Downpours are my favorite!" Wait... that's not what I meant...

For some reason I also consistently mix up the words for broom (escoba) and scarf (bufanda), which aren't even alike. I get a lot of questions about what the U.S. is like and I've repeatedly told people, "It gets so cold in the winter, we wear heavy jackets and hats and brooms!" I just tell myself, if you're not willing to make a fool of yourself, you don't deserve to learn another language.

Panamanian Spanish is certainly different than what we learn at home, though. For instance, the concept of "now." The word "now" actually means "later" here. And "more now" means "even later." And "very now" means "soon." It's actually equivalent to the South African concept of "now," which is oddly comforting. (Yes, I still miss South Africa.)

But some things about this language really bother me. Like how there are five different words for machete and four different words for glasses, all of which are completely interchangeable, yet there is only one word for both crayon and colored pencil, one word for both butterfly and moth, one word for both waiting and hoping, and, worst of all, only one word for both cookie and cracker. COOKIES AND CRACKERS ARE NOT THE SAME THING.

Panamanian culture is a funny thing. I'm still trying to figure it out. For instance, directions. Never ask a Panamanian where anything is. You'll get a one word answer, "There," with a head bob in a very general direction. Occasionally you'll get "Up" as an answer instead, also with the head bob, which seems slightly more descriptive but could mean anything from "up the hill" (which hill, you'll never know), or "up the street," or it could refer to a neighboring town that's at a slightly higher elevation. Good luck.

Other than exact locations of things, Panamanians have no problem stating the truth, especially when describing people physically. They are just as likely to say "the fat woman" as they are to say "the blonde woman." Physical characteristics are simply facts. It took me awhile to get used to, but now I like it. It's the truth.

Along with this blunt honesty comes a love for stating the obvious. When you walk down the street and run into somebody, the typical greeting is a one-word question: "Walking?" If you're walking up a hill, it's "Going up?" Walking down a hill - "Going down?" If you show up at somebody's house, it's "Visiting?" When I run, I get a lot of "Running?" and "Exercising?" Um, duh.

I was really surprised to learn people's names here. Keeping in mind the pronunciation of hte letter "y," which is something of a cross between a "j" and a "d" and a "z," here are some examples of names of my students: Yorjany, Yuliecer, Yili, Yolanis, Nayelis, Ileyki, Yeiska, Maryeixis, Yanelis, Yarelis, Yanarelis, Eleuteria, Deyanira, Yaremis, Nayari, Yisleidys, Yohanis, and Yamileth. Taking attendance is hilarious, though I'm getting better. No wonder I'm having trouble learning 500 students' names.

If you know me, you probably know that I have a bit of a clumsy streak. Well, here in Panama, I have an excuse. Every time I break a dish or run into the doorway or trip over nothing or find an unexplained bruise on my body, it's not my fault. It's the witches (brujas). The brujas get the blame for everything, which is fine by me. Though I have replaced all of the things that I've broken in my host family's house (mostly dishes and bowls), while they just laugh and say "Abby, Abby, Abby..." while shaking their heads. They really are exceptional people to put up with me for three months.