I like adventures. I like looking at a world map and daydreaming about where I want to go next. Like most daydreams, though, most of the imagined adventures never come to pass, but once in a while they do. One of my first big ones was traveling three months with a girlfriend in Central America back in the 70’s. For three of those weeks, we lived with families and studied Spanish at a language school in Antigua, Guatemala. It was my first real trip to the developing world, and it was transformative in so many ways… but that is a different story… or maybe a hundred different stories.
Now, like anyone traveling these days, it is nearly impossible to imagine how we ever managed to do so without the internet and cell phones. I don’t remember, but Cathy and I must have found the school’s name in some travel book, and called them on a landline to book our stay. Then we packed our backpacks and headed south by bus and train. Somehow, we managed to arrive on the right day, at the right school. My ex-husband and I repeated that language experience in the late 80’s. We each lived with separate Costa Rican families and studied Spanish during the mornings. Again, all booked without the internet.
Now, because I really didn’t get beyond the most basic conversational Spanish in the past, I thought I’d try the homestay-immersive thing again. Traveling with Kevin for the last 18 years—often times to Spanish speaking countries—I have found that it is just too easy to latch on to his ability to communicate fluently with native Spanish speakers. I hang back, catch what little I can, smile a lot, and then ask him a thousand questions after. Fortunately, he never seems to be bothered by that.
So after an exhaustive internet search, I am here in a small hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica, having arrived in the middle of last night. Tomorrow, I will take a shuttle to Quepos, on the edge of Manuel Antonio National Park, meet my host family, and attend Spanish school for the next two weeks. Most of the Spanish I know, I learned 30 – 35 years ago. I have no idea if my Spanish will improve at this late stage. I guess I’ll find out. I do remember clearly, after this morning’s breakfast, though, how frustrating it is not to be able to communicate anything but the most basic of information. Moreover, I know that after a week of trying to wrap my head around Spanish, I will most likely forget how to speak English as well. My brain will be mush, and I’ll be reduced to hand signals, pointing, maybe some grunting, and lots and lots of smiling apologetically.
This morning, after only a few hours’ sleep, I ventured out of my room to get much-needed coffee and breakfast. My Spanish was abysmal. There was no Kevin to ensure that I got the right amount of milk in my coffee, to ask about a taxi to the central plaza, and to fill the awkward silence that came when it was plain to my Costas Rican waitress that the conversation needed to end because I was at the limits of my Spanish. I did have a few moments this morning contemplating, “What the hell was I thinking?” Then I tried to think about how I would say that in Spanish, and really went down a rat hole.
