Aguacero

Aguacero—in Spanish that means downpour. I was confused by this word until recently. Let me explain. Agua in Spanish means water, and cero means zero. Therefore the first time I heard this word I figured it meant no water, or that it was not going to rain. So, most days when I would be eating lunch, and the clouds would be getting dark, my host mother would say, “va a tener un aguacero” (there’s going to be a downpour)—which I thought meant it was not going to rain. I would respond saying no, I think it’s going to rain a lot, which it always would. I knew my host mother wasn’t stupid. But I never understood why she always thought it wasn’t going to rain, when it would.  I was getting so confused by this word aguacero that I finally thought to look it up, and sure enough, it meant downpour. The last 50 conversations with my host mother about weather now finally made sense.

Spanish is funny sometimes. There are days when I can understand everything everyone says. And then I have days where I feel like someone is talking Chinese to me. I usually tell my host family after 9 pm I stop speaking Spanish. It can get tiring—communicating in your second language day in and day out. Now that I am doing interviews most days with my women I have found myself improving in my Spanish and learning new words and phrases.

Also, when it rains here no one goes anywhere. At first I thought it was silly. It’s just water; you aren’t going to melt if you walk in it. But then I realized, the majority of people here get around by moto, and if there is a downpour it is very dangerous to drive. Not only that but the drainage system on the streets don’t really do their job. During most downpours that last more than 10 minutes, streets will have at least a few inches of water on them—rain boots would come in handy here. And you also have to cross bridges that are usually covered in water—not really the safest thing in a car or moto. I really just want rainy season to be over—5 more months to go!

I am starting to teach them English each week at our meetings. They are loving it! Although they will not become fluent by any means after this course, they at least will be able to say a few phrases in English. This has also tested my patience a bit—needing to repeat myself multiple times. And then sometimes they say the wrong word or mispronounce it a the whole group of 15 or so women will burst out laughing and continue to do so for the next 15 minutes—sometime they are worse than children! But to be honest I love them so much.

And then there is this thing called a diagnostic that I have been working on. Interviewing the women is the first part. I’m still trying to finish my interviews. Due to the rain, it is hard to get transportation to these women’s houses. I do have to write a paper in Spanish for my boss as well as give a 15 minute presentation to my fellow CED volunteers as well as my boss at the beginning of August. So here’s your warning that my posts will be minimal this next month so that I can focus my attention to my paper and presentation—makes me feel like I’m back in college.

That’s about it around here. It’s almost the 4^th of July which makes me miss Rainy Lake. But not to fear, I will be spending Independence Day with other volunteers on a beautiful beach in Las Galeras, Samana. Here’s a photo:

Time to get to work,

LJ