Visit with the Neighbors
Feb. 25th, 2006 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaI took the information about the house over to my neighbors. Of course, there is no simple visit. They invite me in and I must converse with them for 45 minutes about myself, my life, in Spanish.
This is why I was dreading the task. My Spanish is rudimentary, even as I listened to her and realized that other bits (past tense for example) are still in there rattling around.
But it was actually kind of nice, even if I felt like a grinning idiot the whole time. They are a very nice family, and the mother loves my house. She is selling her house in Mexico, and would like to buy this one. But it depends on a long string of fortunate events.
I still haven't figured out why they came to the States, but she tells me she likes it because it is less polluted and because her children are happy here. She was a teacher in Mexico, and her whole extended family still lives there. Her husband was a taxi driver for 35 years. Her English is decent, much better than my Spanish. I suspect her husband speaks more than he lets onto, but he lets his wife do most the talking.
There house is very tidy, and it makes me embarrassed about mine, which is a wreck. I didn't want to use the word "sucio" meaning dirty, but I don't know the word for "messy" or "cluttered" so I said "distraido" which they thought was very funny, because that's a feeling, as though my house has an emotional state. (Doesn't it?)
She asked if I liked living alone. (Solamente.) I said mas o menos, which is my answer to most questions. Am I happy? More or less. She specified "tranquilo" which I could answer si. Trying to tell my story about living in New York was more difficult than I was able to do, especially as in my direct, present tense, vocabulary, feelings come out sounding like lyrics to bad pop songs.
"I missed Colorado. A hole in my heart for the mountains."
She tells me there are beautiful mountains near her home in Chihuahua.
Trying to explain the situation with Ex is even more difficult. I gave up saying I left someone in New York because it was sour. Do I have a boyfriend? They ask. Do I want a spouse? I'm kind of an aberration in their culture. The entire family has been teasing me about getting boyfriend even before their daughter got married.
And my brother. Why doesn't he help out more? They ask. Where does your mother live? They thought she looked very young. Thankfully they did not ask about fathers. That would have been to much.
Part of me likes a more formal world. The visit we had could have been a social call 100 years ago in this country. But I am so used to curt formality, an assumption that a persons time is so important that I couldn't possibly impose. Not to mention all those excuses we are always coming up with for why we can't do things.
This is why I was dreading the task. My Spanish is rudimentary, even as I listened to her and realized that other bits (past tense for example) are still in there rattling around.
But it was actually kind of nice, even if I felt like a grinning idiot the whole time. They are a very nice family, and the mother loves my house. She is selling her house in Mexico, and would like to buy this one. But it depends on a long string of fortunate events.
I still haven't figured out why they came to the States, but she tells me she likes it because it is less polluted and because her children are happy here. She was a teacher in Mexico, and her whole extended family still lives there. Her husband was a taxi driver for 35 years. Her English is decent, much better than my Spanish. I suspect her husband speaks more than he lets onto, but he lets his wife do most the talking.
There house is very tidy, and it makes me embarrassed about mine, which is a wreck. I didn't want to use the word "sucio" meaning dirty, but I don't know the word for "messy" or "cluttered" so I said "distraido" which they thought was very funny, because that's a feeling, as though my house has an emotional state. (Doesn't it?)
She asked if I liked living alone. (Solamente.) I said mas o menos, which is my answer to most questions. Am I happy? More or less. She specified "tranquilo" which I could answer si. Trying to tell my story about living in New York was more difficult than I was able to do, especially as in my direct, present tense, vocabulary, feelings come out sounding like lyrics to bad pop songs.
"I missed Colorado. A hole in my heart for the mountains."
She tells me there are beautiful mountains near her home in Chihuahua.
Trying to explain the situation with Ex is even more difficult. I gave up saying I left someone in New York because it was sour. Do I have a boyfriend? They ask. Do I want a spouse? I'm kind of an aberration in their culture. The entire family has been teasing me about getting boyfriend even before their daughter got married.
And my brother. Why doesn't he help out more? They ask. Where does your mother live? They thought she looked very young. Thankfully they did not ask about fathers. That would have been to much.
Part of me likes a more formal world. The visit we had could have been a social call 100 years ago in this country. But I am so used to curt formality, an assumption that a persons time is so important that I couldn't possibly impose. Not to mention all those excuses we are always coming up with for why we can't do things.
