Lost in Translation!

I have a funny story for y'all, and a little about my weekend. Saturday my mom and sister were not home, so it was just me and Renato. I needed to wash clothes, so he showed me how because their washer is a little different than back home. Unfortunately my family doesn't have a dryer, so everything has to be hung out to dry. Such a pain, but so much electricity is saved!! Saturday afternoon I took a cab to meet Karla at church since she was going there straight from work. Renato called the cab and wrote down the address for me since my Spanish is still not very good. When I got in the cab he said something to me and I just said "habla un poco español" and he said it again and i just shook my head and said "si". I was worried I was not going to make it there, but when we got closer I saw the big, new Mc Donald's and knew I could walk from there if I needed to!haha  When I finally met up with Karla I told her what he said and apparently he was asking me if I had a specific route I wanted to take or if anyway was fine. Point to that story is that not knowing their language is very scary because I had no idea where I would end up!

Sunday was another big language barrier day, but this story makes me laugh every time I think about it. Sunday I had nothing to do, so I decided to go to the mall. When I got to the bus stop there was not a bus, so I figured that they didn't run on Sundays, so I decided to just get the exercise and walk to the mall. I'm not sure how far, but I would guess it's about 2 hours away. When I got there I pulled out my handy dandy translator and remembered two important phrases: "solo estoy mirando, gracias" and "Estoy buscando..." Employees at stores here surround you like hawks trying to get you to buy things (at least this has been my experience) so I was prepared to tell them "I'm just looking thanks."  Every store I would go into they would ask me if I needed help and I would say "Estoy buscando, gracias" I would get so annoyed when they would follow me around showing me different things, so I would end up leaving and going to the next store. After this continuously happened, I was frustrated and just ate lunch and left the mall. When I got back home I looked at my translator again and it turns out that  I got my phrases confused! The whole time I was trying to tell them "I'm just looking, thanks" but I was actually saying "I'm looking for…" That's why they kept following me around showing me different things! Every time I think about it I laugh because I was getting so mad at them following me around, when really I was the one telling them I needed help looking for something!!


If you plan to go to another country that doesn't speak English, i urge you to learn their language first! It has been so hard, but luckily I am surviving :) 

My clothes in the laundry room. It is crazy how different everyday things are here! 

The best chips ever! If we had these in Texas, I'd be in trouble!