Wednesday September 9, 2009
Vocabulary
barrieron: they swept (in a sports context--I don't remember which team swept which team)
saldo: balance (as in the money left on a cell phone)
Photos
Since I'm leaving in two days, it definitely feels like the trip is winding down. I'm making sure I give away the last of the New York tee shirts I brought as gifts and buying the souvenirs I want. Today we went to Usulutan one last time for that purpose. It's not a big tourist center, and I didn't want to buy a lot of souvenirs, but I did get a few things.
One of those things was a map of El Salvador so I could have an idea of where I've been while I'm here. Today we went to at least five stationary/book stores and none of them had maps. Finally we ended up at the same place where I bought my little notebook at the very beginning, and they found a map, after at least 10 minutes of looking through stacks and stacks of posters. Success!
I also got photos of a last few things I've seen a lot but not gotten photos of. The "funny signs" album has a few of those. My favorite signs are the ones for funeral parlors. I thought it was a little funny that they all advertised 24-hour services, but then I saw the one for the "Prevention" funeral parlor. That takes the cake.
Another sign I was sure to get a photo of was of a "parqueo" ("parking lot"). My dad claims this is a Spanglishism (it can also be called "estacionamiento"), so I took pictures of two different "parqueo" signs to prove to him it's not just Hispanics in the US who use the word. And yes, that's 50 American cents an hour. What a deal.
Speaking of Spanglishisms, I've realized there are several English words that are used all the time in New York Spanish, the most common being "okay" and "wow." My theory is that the Spanish equivalents differ by country so much that it's just easier for everyone to use the English words. But they are deeply entrenched in my own Spanish and I have made little progress in trying to replace them with Salvadoran equivalents while I've been here. I realized just how foreign the words are here when today one of the little girls asked Ester and Luis what "okay" meant and Luis answered that it means "adios" ("goodbye"). So when I've been saying "okay" to mean, well, "okay," all this time, Luis thinks I've been saying "goodbye." Great.
In addition to the lack of Spanglish, there is an almost complete ignorance of the geography of the United States. Many different people have demonstrated that they have no concept of the difference between LA and New York, for example. It's all just "alla" ("over there").
My bad sunburn has gone from painful to itchy to peeling like crazy. It provides endless entertainment that my skin is falling off for the little girls, since sunburn is a new thing for them.
I packed my bags as much as possible to see how much space will be left for tamales. I'm going to transport tamales for us and all of Manuel's siblings. Tomorrow will be spent making them, but we wanted to get an idea how much extra space I have. I'll be able to fit plenty of tamales.
Tonight we watched the national team play Costa Rica. It was nice to cheer for the same team as Luis, and I must be good luck or something, because our team won! It was an amazing game (and I don't even like sports!). There was a "phantom goal" that was obviously a true goal (the ball had crossed the line before the goalie blocked it mid-air) in the slow-motion replay, but was called as not a goal by the referee and so didn't count. The commentators kept going on and on about their "phantom goal" and how they really should be winning and had been robbed by the sports' refusal to use technology. With about 10 minutes left and the score tied, they had already written it off as a loss, but in the last two minutes there was an amazing goal and we won! Very exciting.
I haven't watched a ton of TV here, but every once in a while we do watch something, mostly the news and Desperate Housewives (inexplicably, Luis is a fan), and once a whole movie (The Fugitive). It's interesting to watch local news and try to get an idea of what's going on in politics and such. Instead of national weather (which I imagine would be fairly homogenous, since it's a small country), they report on the weather of all of Mexico and Central America. "World news" also pretty much means Latin American news.
Watching a sports report, I saw a word, "barrieron," that I didn't recognize. The ending looked like a past tense ending on a verb, so I reconstructed that the verb would have to be either "barrir" or "barrer." "Barrer" is a word I know, and it means "to sweep." Ah ha! Just like in English! "They swept."
One of those things was a map of El Salvador so I could have an idea of where I've been while I'm here. Today we went to at least five stationary/book stores and none of them had maps. Finally we ended up at the same place where I bought my little notebook at the very beginning, and they found a map, after at least 10 minutes of looking through stacks and stacks of posters. Success!
Speaking of Spanglishisms, I've realized there are several English words that are used all the time in New York Spanish, the most common being "okay" and "wow." My theory is that the Spanish equivalents differ by country so much that it's just easier for everyone to use the English words. But they are deeply entrenched in my own Spanish and I have made little progress in trying to replace them with Salvadoran equivalents while I've been here. I realized just how foreign the words are here when today one of the little girls asked Ester and Luis what "okay" meant and Luis answered that it means "adios" ("goodbye"). So when I've been saying "okay" to mean, well, "okay," all this time, Luis thinks I've been saying "goodbye." Great.
In addition to the lack of Spanglish, there is an almost complete ignorance of the geography of the United States. Many different people have demonstrated that they have no concept of the difference between LA and New York, for example. It's all just "alla" ("over there").
My bad sunburn has gone from painful to itchy to peeling like crazy. It provides endless entertainment that my skin is falling off for the little girls, since sunburn is a new thing for them.
I packed my bags as much as possible to see how much space will be left for tamales. I'm going to transport tamales for us and all of Manuel's siblings. Tomorrow will be spent making them, but we wanted to get an idea how much extra space I have. I'll be able to fit plenty of tamales.
Tonight we watched the national team play Costa Rica. It was nice to cheer for the same team as Luis, and I must be good luck or something, because our team won! It was an amazing game (and I don't even like sports!). There was a "phantom goal" that was obviously a true goal (the ball had crossed the line before the goalie blocked it mid-air) in the slow-motion replay, but was called as not a goal by the referee and so didn't count. The commentators kept going on and on about their "phantom goal" and how they really should be winning and had been robbed by the sports' refusal to use technology. With about 10 minutes left and the score tied, they had already written it off as a loss, but in the last two minutes there was an amazing goal and we won! Very exciting.
Watching a sports report, I saw a word, "barrieron," that I didn't recognize. The ending looked like a past tense ending on a verb, so I reconstructed that the verb would have to be either "barrir" or "barrer." "Barrer" is a word I know, and it means "to sweep." Ah ha! Just like in English! "They swept."
So are the tamales different than the ones from Mexico?
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