So apparently, I am actually one of the volunteers with the best Spanish skills.  Which, considering my Spanish skills, is kind of surprising.  Some of the volunteers know almost no Spanish... and that I can barely fathom, because I was scared to death of my inadequacy already.

For instance, on Thursday, as we were going to go play soccer, we met up at the office, and then a few people left through a taxi.  Then 8 of us were left, and we were trying to fit into a taxi, and we got 7 (5 in the back, 2 in the front... I was the last one to get in the back and was basically half-sitting on someone's leg and half-standing.  Pretty proud that I was somewhat able to squeeze in though, lol, with a bunch of people that I had met that day), but there was still one guy in his 20s (who happens to have the same birthday as me!  haha.  As you can tell, I like those kinds of things) that wasn't ready to squeeze 3 in the front (not sure if that would've been possible anyway).  So he offered to go on another taxi, but the staff member with us, Mariel, was like, "You don't know where you're going though." I got out and offered to help, and we eventually decided that we had to take another taxi, and that they would wait for us to flag down a taxi and make sure the second taxi knew where to go.

We flagged down a taxi and I went to go tell the taxi driver where we were going, and he knew where that was, so we piled in and then left.  The guy and I talked for a while, just the normal small talk, but about halfway through the ride, I got a call from Freddy, saying that we were actually going to a different soccer field, and to tell the driver to go there.  There was a slight mess as the call kind of got dropped, and the name of the field that the driver was repeating back to me was different than what Freddy was saying, so we parked by a park where we saw the other car turn into.  The other guy called Freddy since I didn't have a signal, and then passed the phone to me, and then we made sure that this was the right place.

What surprised me about the whole thing was that during the times when the other guy was trying to talk to the taxi driver, he spoke almost completely in English, and I was just like, Wait... what?  You were about to get onto a taxi by yourself without knowing hardly any Spanish?  Good thing I came along.  >_<  Had I been in his shoes, I would've probably been petrified with fear and maybe would've asked someone to come with me in the new taxi.

We then went off to play soccer, during which my team won, yay!  And people complimented me on my soccer skills despite wearing sandals (I didn't have enough time to change.  haha.  I did get out of breath really quickly though, and was heavily breathing pretty much the whole game due to the high altitude.  I sometimes still find it hard to breath when I'm just sitting down... it's kinda strange).  We did have the kid who was here at Projects Abroad doing the Sports program and specifically doing soccer, so that was kind of an unfair advantage... xD  Although we were losing to begin with, so perhaps our teams were actually fairly evenly matched.  Afterwards, we went out to drink and have some snacks, during which I drank some of the Bolivian beer (pretty sweet and tasty), but failed at pouring because I didn't know to tip my glass and then it just foamed all over the place... so embarrassing.  By the end of the night, I was a pro at pouring, though, haha, and one volunteer was like, You learned fast!  haha.  After about three or so glasses, though, I don't know if I felt buzzed at any point.  I mostly just felt dizzy and tired--surely partly due to the soccer game, but still.  Did I need to drink more?  Did I drink too much?  I didn't feel like I was drunk... and I didn't know drinking would feel that uncomfortable... shattered dreams of constant elatedness and such, I guess.  I just wanted to sleep after that.

Anyway, back to Spanish abilities.  This morning, I was translating for one of the volunteers who's been here at MC for the past couple of weeks, which made her and the staff member, Gastón, really happy, because apparently they've been trying to communicate with each other all this time and couldn't really.  aww.  She has to do this Mother's Day dance (Mother's Day in Bolivia this year is May 27th), and I was explaining to her what the staff members were expecting.  Poor girl... she came to Bolivia from Great Britain with a couple months of on-and-off Spanish classes by a friend of her mom's... and so she's at a pretty basic level.  Unfortunately, I guess she has to get by with a lot of miming, and doesn't get to interact too much with her host family, but she does listen to them speak, I guess.  Today, for instance, I told her what "entonces (then)" meant, after I used it, and she was like, Man, I hear that word a lot... ah, no wonder.  She's starting Spanish classes soon, though, and will be here for another month working with me at MC, so we should have quite a few fun times together, and her Spanish will definitely improve a lot.  And I'm more than happy to be of help translating.

Today, I met a volunteer at this host Mother's Day dinner thing Projects Abroad had, who has basically taken Spanish classes since she was little, and is quite good at Spanish.  She's from the States as well (the second one of the volunteers that I've met, I think. Nearly everyone else (~15 other volunteers) is from a different country, but I think we're getting few more people from the U.S.) During the couple of minutes that we talked before we left the dinner, we both bonded over the fact that people apparently come here with no Spanish skills and that was absolutely mind-boggling to us, and that we were both rather fearful of our own Spanish skills, but that pretty much everyone has told us that our Spanish is really good.  haha.  That's a relief.  But the comparing with other people doesn't make me feel much better, because I still don't feel that adequate in the language.  Oh well--with time, I suppose, things will get better.

I am really cherishing the time I spent in Spanish classes, though, and for the random words that I'm gained over the years.  When I was translating for the girl I work with at MC (her name is Alice), Gastón said "preguntándose (wondering, as in wondering about something)," and I felt like I learned that from this random time in either some random class or some random flipping through the dictionary when I realized that preguntar (to ask, as in a question), had a reflexive form, and it apparently meant "to wonder." I remember thinking, "Oh, that's useful, even though I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it", but I remembered it since it seemed useful to be able to say "to wonder."  And now, it's actually proving to be useful.  =)  Kinda cool how that stuff works out.

Also, I've been learning a few phrases in Quechua, since some of the kids in MC understand Quechua and I think that may have been their first language/they respond to it better.  So I asked Quechua speakers how to say, "Stand up," "Sit down," "I love you (er, the Te quiero version, not the te amo... although I don't know if there's a difference in Quechua, but everyone has responded by translating it as Te quiero)," and "Come here."  One of the staff members at MC also taught me a phrase, which then he told me was a bad word.  I was like, Oh.!  o_O.  Apparently it means "Kiss my a**."
I impressed a host mom at dinner with the Quechua I knew (well, surprised her with that last phrase, lol), and she taught me other phrases, although I only care to learn the ones useful for telling the kids stuff... so I didn't really pay attention when she told me the numbers, or some random phrases.  She then told the volunteers she was hosting how I'd been here for only 8 days and I already knew some Quechua words.  Kind of embarrassing... but the other volunteers seemed interested, which was good, haha.

That makes me reflect on just the usefulness of knowing languages.  I've definitely been grateful for the little bits of Korean that I've memorized or being able to write some of the alphabet when I've met people who were Korean.  They seemed to really enjoy the random Korean I knew, and I can see the same interest I would take if someone knew some phrases in Mandarin Chinese.

I guess these are the times I'm glad I'm a linguistics major, because I can read the articles on these languages and really appreciate/understand what the articles are saying.  And this past year I've been exposed to language grammars, so I have a passing familiarity with what's expected in a language grammar, and I can read them and understand them.  I may not be able to speak the whole language (and the practical side of me stops me from wanting to invest my time in doing so), but knowing such things is nice.

Oh look, this article about Quechua says that "Here's some English words derived from Quechua: coca, condor, guano, gaucho, guanaco, Inca, jerky, lagniappe, lima [bean], llama, pampa, puma, quipu, quinine, quinoa, and vicuña."

Pretty cool.

Also, I just realized that all you blogspoters will know when I'm creeping on your blog because the Bolivia part of your map that says where your visitors are coming from will light up.  lol.