My Life as a Second Language Learner

Personal Journal: Week 6


Probably the most significant aspect of my experience here is my life as a second language learner. While I consider myself a fairly intelligent fellow, it is a deeply humbling experience (to say the least) to learn Spanish. Everyday in class the professors are constantly adding new and challenging elements while correcting skills I have not quite yet mastered. Normally I am an active learner. However, here I feel liken my mind and tongue are a lump of clay which is constantly being molded by those around me. Para mi, Español es una montana grande a aprender.

Like expedition climbers in the Himalayas, my journey up this mountain is slow, arduous, and continually challenging. There are times when the language cascades down on me like an avalanche nearly suffocating in its complexity. At other times the language looks like a huge, impregnable, black and polished face of granite seemingly impossible to scale. But there is an expression here, “Poco a Poco” (Little by Little) which keeps the mind burning.

As is the case with the best climbers in the world I need the gear and companionship of excellent guides to scale la montaña. In the photo are some of the tools essential in my journey to learn Spanish. In addition to the class text, I find having both print and electronic dictionaries helpful in finding unknown words. As a gift from my daughter, my Franklin Translator has proven itself time and again as invaluable in quickly unlocking the meaning of unknown words. The paper dictionary is my backup when the electronic translator fails. I believe we should purchase more of these tools for our students. (Side note: Look closely at what I typed in my translator and you will learn one of my favorite words in Spanish).

Other essential tools include my MP3 player where I can listen to Spanish music and possibly audio books in Spanish. The Lonely Planet guidebook and binoculars help ensure that I am constantly being immersed in rich learning environments where I have to play close attention. The Spanish edition Newsweek (I also enjoy reading National Geographic in Spanish) gives me opportunities to read authentic literature. Although I do not understand everything I am reading and the process is much slower, the articles are muchos mas interesando to read than the text. My Rotary pen allows me to record my thoughts and experiences here in Costa Rica.

Finally, like the climbers in the Himilayas, I have many excellent guides here. In addition to my professors, I have learned a great deal from other students, taxi drivers, tour guides, ambassadors, Rotarians, waiters, and other random encounters with kind souls. While I know the journey I began five years ago to climb this montaña grande will not be over when I return to Colorado, it is becoming apparent with each step that the view only gets better.


¡Pura Vida!

Taxis, an Ambassador, and Los Caballos de Calle

(Note: Before getting into my post I want to acknowledge the passing of my wife´s grandmother Solweig Hammond recently. During the time I knew her she exerted a powerfully loving influence within our family and I will greatly miss the woman who many of us knew as Farmor. I offer my sincere condolences to her family and apologize for not being able to be there. My thoughts are with the family.)

Personal Journal Week #5:

I mentioned in my post last week, my camera is off in a Costa Rican taxi doing work for the good Nuestra Senora de Las Angeles (see the post for more specific details). As a result, my post this week might be a bit skimpy on visual details (like photos), but it was interesting none the less. The story of how I lost it involves the US ambassador to Costa Rica who spoke at a Rotary event I was invited to earlier this week.

You see on Thursday all the Rotary scholars at Conversa were invited to attend an event in downtown San Jose. The location for the event was Club Reunion right across from the beautifully ornate federal post office (at this time we were running late so I did not get a picture-which you will never see- until after the lunch). Five scholars (all fascinating folks with interesting bios) and I sat down to enjoy lunch after being warmly welcomed to the event by Thomas Ghormley. He asked each of us to briefly introduce ourselves and I presented the banner from the Grand Junction Rotary to the San Jose group and they presented me with one of their own.

After our introductions and a fabulous lunch, the Chief of Mission from the US Embassy, Peter Brennen (second from the left in this US embassy photo I did not take but you can imagine me somewhere in the country if you would like) discussed many interesting facets of US – Costa Rican relations. I particularly enjoyed listening to the wide range of questions, concerns and comments the audience directed towards him after he finished. Because the Costa Rican Colone is linked to the US dollar, many participants were worried about the deteriorating value of the dollar. Brennen was concerned as well and said the present and future administrations are or will make strengthening the dollar a priority.

Afterwards Brennen met with the scholars and congratulated us on our work. I discussed Obama´s recent comments about having students learn a second language like Spanish. Always the ambassador, he said that the press probably took Obama´s comments out of context and that he to felt that knowing a second or third language was important in today´s geo-political and world economy. I was impressed at his willingness to discuss current and future administrations and I got the sense that both he and many of the participants in the room are looking forward to a future where US attention is not solely focused in other parts of the world. We took some photos (imagine them here) and skid addled. I clicked a few photos none of us would see again. We hopped into the taxi and returned home.

The shock of losing my camera passed quickly as I needed another pronto for Santa Ana´s largest festival of the year. After a quick consult with the spouse in her Queen´s country, I purchased another and arrived at the fiesta de Santa Ana with a new camera in hand. The festival was fantastic and quite a bit like Turrialba except that they ride motorcycles and horses around while launching huge (did I say Huuuuuuuggge?) firecrackers. It was beautiful. Most of the horses are trained to march (similar to Tennessee walking horses. At one time more than 2,000 prancing equines were dancing in the streets ridden by some of the happiest souls I have met so far. About midday our municipality lost water but there were no worries as we have plenty of Imperial (that is the local Costa Rican beer).


¡Pura Vida!


Next week: My Life as a Second Language Learner

Personal Journal Week #4: My Week is In Ruins

Personal Journal Week #4:

While many of my fellow students are returning I am continuing to plow on in my Spanish courses. Next week my classes are switching from super intensive to regular classes in order to give me time to work on community projects and go out and practice using the language. Given all that I have learned over the past four weeks I am looking forward to having time to master some of these new concepts.

Well, as I stated in the title, this week my life is in ruins. Exploring ruins that is and I have three quick stories. Over the weekend I traveled to Turriabla. Turrialba is a small town located in the central mountains located near (can you guess it?) a volcano by the same name. While a major train hub that connected both the Caribbean ports to San Jose in the past, only the remnants of this history can be found in a few exposed tracks here and there. An earthquake much worse than the little tremble I felt a day earlier put an end to Costa Rica´s railroad network about eighty years ago. It was replaced by highways.

Today this quaint little town is know for sweet cheese (they feed the cattle bananas people don’t eat), white water rafting and canoeing (more on this in the coming weeks), and professional baseball bats. According to my guidebook Barry Bond’s record winning homer was hit with a bat (enhanced?) from this very town. As I wrote to my daughter, it can be a bit crazy at night. The locals enjoy large fire crackers that randomly go off and trigger car alarms. Sleeping here was an interesting experience, but I digress…

Anyway, the next day I hired a local guide Raul Garcia to take me out to Costa Rica’s largest and most significant ruins. As we headed out he told me that archeologists have only explored about four percent of the site. While nowhere near as extensive as larger cities in other parts of the Americas, archeologists estimate that Guayabo housed approximately 20,000 people. The site is interesting in that it:

• Was built in a lower area. Many of Mayan and Aztec cities were built high in order to survey the surrounding landscape and provide better defense. Apparently !Pura Vida! was not an entirely Spanish concept.
  
  
• No large temples or other religious structures have yet been discovered though archeologists believe a large rock near the market was used as either a sacrificial stone or form of capital punishment.
  





• The freshwater cisterns, which are more than two thousand years old (when cleaned out of sand) still work perfectly. Pretty cool.
• Was mysteriously abandoned around six hundred years ago. There are many theories but no concrete ones. My own twenty colones (two cents) would guess that the city collapsed as European diseases spread throughout the indegenous world shortly after contact.

While petroglyphs exist, archeologists have yet to crack the code. I headed back to San Jose with more questions than answers about this place. One follow up to this is that we saw quite a few bird including a group of toucans. One reason scientists are hesitant to dig up more of this area is because of the numerous species of rare tropical plants and animals supported here.



The Third Story Later on This Week: My Visit With the Lucky Lady La Negrita (Basilica de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles) in Cartago.



Okay, I am going to finish this story despite the fact I lost my camera (see the post for week 5). The Lucky Lady La Negrita (more formally known as Nuestra Senora de Las Angeles) is a small, beautiful, and quite mysterious artifact located in the main Basilica in Cartago. According to local sources Cartago is the oldest Spanish settlement in Costa Rica and was once the capital city. Unfortunately this city was located in an unstable area and many parts of it (including the origional basilica) have been repeatedly destroyed by volcanos and earthquakes. However, the Lucky Lady La Negrita has surrvived it all to inspire and heal in this region. In fact, there is a story that she even returned to the exact location after being stolen by a local writer. I took several pictures of her and of local pilgrims profering to her on their knees but those photos mysteriously disappeard in a local taxi (actually I probably forgot to get my camera - but why did I forget? Hmmm....). Anyway I am content to believe that my images of the Lucky Lady La Negrita were returned along with my camera to do important work here in Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

Week #3: Bob Marley and the History of Spanish

Personal Journal Week #3:

In addition to a full week of classes, a classmate and I decided to head out to the coast to see how Costa Rican ferries compare with their Pacific Northwest counterparts. After staying in the seaside community of Puntoarenas we boarded the Tambor (possibly an old ferry from New York?). As the bustling and overloaded boat lugged out of port we were treated to several Bob Marley prayers (Don’t Rock this Boat and Don’t Worry About a Thing), which seemed appropriate to the nature of our short but slow journey across the bay. The boat mostly had Tico passengers but there were a few hippy passengers sojourning to the port town of Montezuma where they could enjoy the laidback bohemian lifestyle of the coast.

Once on the other side, we stopped in the very small community of Paqetera (sp?) that was strategically located near the National Refuge we wanted to visit the next day. The evening was spent relaxing and conversing with the locals who walked or rode their bikes up and down the only street in town. On the next day we went to Curo where we saw all kinds of monkeys (the animal kind) and other animals. The park is reintroducing the spider monkey, which has been extinct in this area for the past three decades (most were either killed or captured as pets). After spending some time relaxing on the beach (no turtles but lots of interesting crabs). We hitchhiked back into town and slowly made our way back home via the same route.

Question for Those Interested in Spanish: How old is it as a language?

Given that human beings are roughly 500,000 years old as species, one would think (incorrectly) that most languages are quite ancient. However, in the case of Spanish (and English for that matter) the language is quite young. According to a site I listed below, Spanish emerged from the break up of the Roman Empire where its Latin root was the official language. Prior to the 14th century when Spanish finally dominated the area we now know as Spain, many different languages were spoken including: Arabic, Portuguese, Basque, etc... As Spain became a world power Spanish would become the official language of 21 countries and spoken by approximately 330 million people worldwide. For more information check out this website:

http://www.todaytranslations.com/index.asp-Q-Page-E-Spanish-Language-History--13053095