No Hablo Español
Posted on June 6, 2008 - Filed Under Guatemala |
One of the amusing things about being an expat is what people assume when they see white skin. It used to really bug me that they would assume I had more money or that I was stupid because my skin was a different color. Not everyone thinks this, of course, but it´s common enough to be irritating. But one of the most prevalent misconceptions is that I can´t understand what they say.
I´ve lived in Guatemala for nearly 6 years now. I took very little Spanish, but I certainly managed to pick up a lot over the course of the years, particularly since I live in a small village where no one speaks English. My Spanish is far from perfect and my accent still makes people laugh and I can´t ask for 3 or 6 of anything because no one understands which I mean unless I hold up fingers. . . but I can understand far more than I can speak, and that´s saying something!
There have been many situations where people simply assume I can´t understand them, but when the carpenter and his son were here, installing the counter, they would only talk to Irving. Later, they were discussing options and talking about whether or not I would want the shelves to be loose or not. I piped up that they were fine as is and they both looked very surprised, although I´d been talking with Irving in Spanish the day before.
I guess that´s just one of the “perks” of being an obvious foreigner in Guatemala!
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I wasn’t there ofcourse, but what crosses my mind reading this is: could it not just be a machista thing? You know - guy makes decisions, girl expected to follow guy?
Just a thought.
That´s actually a good point. It could very well be that considering this is a male oriented country.