A Gringa in Mexico

A couple weeks ago after work in the evening Claudia came with me to walk through the “mercadito” (little market) in the main street outside the office. In mercaditos people set up little tents and sell merchandise, clothes, toys, trinkets, fruit, etc. They’re quite common here in Mexico, and I like it! Also, SO many people sell food out of their houses, in little stands on the street, or out of cars driving down the street. I love it! You’re never lacking for a snack or dinner, and there’s even a couple people who drive down the streets selling bread and pastries (like an ice cream truck does, complete with music). And they have ice cream trucks too, which I swear are playing a slightly faster-paced Jingle Bells…I wish the US had more street food vendors. At least in Athens (GA) there are hardly any…At the mercadito I bought a bright pink drink that had fresh strawberries and watermelon in the jug. It was eerily pink but it looked yummy because of the fresh fruit in it, but it ended up tasting like bubble gum. Definitely some artificial stuff in there!

 The eerily pink drink that I bought in the

mercadito and that tasted like bubble gum...

When I got home I walked to the supermarket (about an 8-minute walk from my house). There was a cute little store outside it with women’s clothes so I tried some stuff on. It’s hilarious because in Mexico many clothing stores (at least the “cheaper” ones on the street) have “one size fits all” clothing. You either squeeze yourself into the item (which is 90% of the time made with LOTS AND LOTS of Spandex) and like the way you look, or you don’t like the way you look/can’t squeeze into it. There’s not much in between. It sure simplifies the process of clothes shopping! In the supermarket there were a TON of people. When I checked out each line had at least 10 carts waiting, with full loads. It took over 20 minutes to get through, but I was there with all my stuff so figured I might as well wait. One interesting thing about checking out at the grocery store is that it’s customary to tip the bagger. One of the things I don’t like about the stores here is that they DO NOT HAVE REAL JUICE. It’s crazy! I wanted to get orange juice, and the only options are orange-flavored juice drinks that aren’t refrigerated and have like 1% juice. It’s muy loco!

Some updates on my language progression: It’s my fifth week here, and my listening comprehension has been getting better (at least with some people, and especially when I know the topic of conversation), but it seems like my speaking ability has decreased, at least when talking about things other than bats/my project. It’s like my brain can only handle working on one thing at a time…Also, when listening through the recordings of interviews I have done with community members, I’m finding that being somewhat conversant in Spanish but not fluent is a hard place to be. I know enough Spanish to be able to understand the general idea of what the interviewees are saying most of the time, but not enough to get the details and nuances. For that reason I’m using a translator during the interviews. Sometimes during the interviews Ana (my translator) will wait for the speaker to say a few sentences and then translate for me, while other times she’ll translate quietly to me while the speaker is talking. When we do this, it’s hard for me to hear the speaker on the recording later, and it’s hard for me to then go back in the office and translate it myself. Also, some of my interviews have been in locations that are less than ideal for recording interviews (e.g. outside, in a common area with other people talking or listening to music, with the TV on, etc.) so sometimes in the recordings it’s difficult to make out the voice of the speaker (this is especially amplified when you don’t know the language perfectly). It’s definitely been a challenge, but I’m already a heck of a lot better at understanding people than last year!

All in all, I think that learning a second language as an adult is like learning your first language as a kid. I have noticed myself picking up some verbal mannerisms of the people around me, mannerisms that I don’t do in English, and sometimes wonder if it’s really me speaking. It’s quite a strange experience to hear yourself using intonations that you’ve never used before. It’s like feeling like an imposter. I think I read somewhere awhile ago that you can’t ever truly be yourself when you’re speaking a language other than your first language, and I can definitely see why. Most humor/jokes in Spanish are lost on me, since I might know the “face-value” meaning of the word but have yet to master an understanding of double meanings. I often want to join in on the banter and joking around among our group here, and I’ll have something witty to say prepared in my head in English, but the full wittiness of it is often lost upon my feeble translation. My true self is left inside my head, and my outward self is seen as the gringa who is learning Spanish. It’s so frustrating! I know these things take time, and like I said before I’m already better than I was last year, so for now I’ll just have to be content with taking in as much as possible, trying my best to chime in on conversations, and being the gringa who is learning Spanish.