Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Deep Thoughts by Carey Cooper

Reflections at three months:

I miss some silly things like bubble baths and girly stuff that’s expensive here (although a team from Utah brought me face soap – wahoo!). I also miss some things that we take for granted in the States like drinking water straight from the tap and yes, flushing toilet paper. Mostly I miss my family and friends from Texas and New Jersey. And Molly.

But there are also a lot of things I don’t miss. Like my cell phone. Or my car. Or those knots in my back from working on a computer all day.

It would take all day to describe all that I’ve learned about myself, others, and our world over the past three months, but I will say one thing. Learning a new language is kicking my butt! One month of school wasn’t even close to being enough, and we’re doing our best to speak Spanish at home, but it’s so frustrating. I’ll leave you with an example of a typical conversation between the two of us (translated into English from Spanish).

Carey: I go to store now. You want go to store?
Jay: No, I no need things from store.
Carey: No, I ask you want to go?
Jay: What?
Carey: (now yelling) You want go to store with me, or no?
Jay: I can hear. I no… What is word?
Carey: What word?
Jay: (in English) deaf
Carey: I don’t know. Look in dictionary.
Jay: Where is dictionary?
Carey: I don’t know, but I need go before light.
Jay: What?
Carey: I make error. I need go before dark. You go?
Jay: Where?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

i have read that conversation about 10x in the past week or so and it cracks me up every time. miss you guys!

Dallas said...

This last bit is hilarious! Carey, I wish I'd had more time with you--you sound like a super-fun friend and deeply caring visionary. Jay--I'd like to think it was that first trip to El Salvador that got you hooked!

Glad to have discovered your blog.