Oops! Moments

After 30+ years of living in the U.S. (mostly Massachusetts), I arrived in Costa Rica with my family to learn the language and culture of Latin America. 2+ years in, we feel like we have learned a good bit of each. Of course, 2 things remain undeniably true:

1. We have made and still make mistakes culturally and linguistically in Costa Rica; and
2. Latin American countries are not exactly the same, neither in language nor culture.

With truth #2 in mind, we expected some cultural and linguistic differences when we visited Bolivia last week to check out the place where we feel the Lord is calling us.

Costa Rica Oops Moments

Before we look at a couple of those oops moments in Bolivia let's go back to truth #1 above and relive my 3 worst oops moments (so far) in Costa Rica.

1. Hole punch

Shortly after our arrival in Costa Rica, I went to a local store looking for a 3-hole punch.  The problem: I didn't know the word for it. I found a dictionary in the store, but it didn't have the word. So I found a word for "hole" and a word for "punch."

Armed with "hoyo poncho," hand motions and "uno, dos, tres," I gave it my best shot. I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't know what else to do. The worker looked at me and in perfect English asked, "You need a 3-hole punch?" In hindsight, I should have asked if he spoke English first.

2. Walk of shame

You know...that time I was the only man walking down to the front of a church with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of women.

3. False cognate

I was talking with 2 tica friends (though we were in Panama at the time) once about the health concerns of foods with preservatives. Well that's what I wanted to be talking with them about anyway. I quickly found out the word was not "preservativos" as I had suspected...it was "preservantes." "Preservativos" happens to be another word for prophylactics. Oops.

4. Deaf or Left-handed?

I once told a tica friend that Polly knows sign language because her parents are deaf. Actually, that's what I meant to say. What I did say was that her parents are left-handed. Why the confusion? Surdo = left-handed; Sordo = deaf. My dad, for the record, is a lefty...as may be Jonah.

Bolivia Oops Moments

Okay, back to Bolivia. While we didn't have many oops moments there, two do stand out. One was cultural and the other linguistic.

1. A Bolivian greeting

During our first day in Bolivia, I met a local pastor who oversees an LACC school. At one point he shook my hand and came in for a hug. Well, it seemed to me he was coming in for a hug anyway. I'm a hugger and many ticos are huggers so it seemed right. As I hugged him he put his hand on my shoulder, pushed me away and said, "Okay, okay." It was awkward but no biggie.

It wasn't until the next day that I found myself in a similar situation. I finally figured out what was going on. My missionary friend in Bolivia had forgotten to give me the heads up on the proper Bolivian greeting between two men: They shake hands, with the same hand pat the back of the left shoulder of the other man twice and then shake hands a second time. That pastor must have thought I was crazy.

2. Tico

Having learned Spanish in Costa Rica, it should come as no surprise that I use a number of words that are common here but nowhere else. I used them a few times and got blank stares but I generally did well to avoid them. Only one provided a funny moment.

I used the word "tico" when I referred to people or things from Costa Rica. That's the word I always use in Costa Rica and throughout Central America. Well, apparently this term for Costa Rican has not made its way to Bolivia. To make matters worse, they do use the word, just differently.

So when I told a group of pastors, "My son was born in Costa Rica so he's a tico," they laughed. Only later did I find out that they use it to mean "little people." While my son is in fact little he is not a "little person" and that's not what I meant to tell that particular group of pastors.

Laughing is Cross-Cultural

I have heard many funny stories over the years of things people have said and done when learning a new language and culture. Polly and I knew that we would be creating a number of our own while in Costa Rica, especially while at language school. I want to share these stories with you so you can laugh along with us.

How do you say three-hole punch?

Polly, Genevieve and I had to go shopping yesterday for some necessities. We asked "the girls" (the simple term for the three single girls that live in the apartment right next to ours at the language school) if they needed anything. They asked if we could keep an eye out for a three-hole punch. No problem, right?

Well, you would think I would have at least done the work of determining the spanish word for three-hole punch before I left the house, but I did not. Neither did I have access to the internet where I was. I hoped beyond all hope that I would just find it without having to ask a single question. You know as well as I did that there was no chance it would be that easy.

What was I to do? I didn't even know enough words to throw something together. Then, the lightbulb went on. I found a spanish-english dictionary on one of the shelves. I picked out two easy-to-pronounce words, one for hole and one for punch. I knew that it wouldn't be the right word but I hoped it would get my idea across.

I went up to the first employee I saw and began...

Perdon. Yo no hablo bien el español. (With full hand-motions going) Tiene un hoyo poncho para papel...uno, dos, tres.

The employee looked right at me and said,

Do you need one-hole, two-hole or three-hole punch?

Yep, he spoke english (not all that common here). I couldn't help but laugh. In case you ever need to know, it's called a "perforadora" in spanish.

Why would you like to return this?

Genevieve received two of the same gifts for her birthday. One of our friends gave us the receipt so we could return it. I had already successfully returned some stuff to one store here but forgot the word I used and it took 20-30 minutes. We went to the service desk and received the question we weren't prepared for, "Porque."

What do we tell them when we don't speak the language. In Polly's mind, she thought about the fact that Genevieve got two of them for her birthday. How could she say that though? She simply replied, "dos." The women looked at us like saying "two" by itself simply would not suffice.

I finally came up with the best I had, (pointing at Genevieve) Ella tiene la mismo (yes, I know that's not grammatically correct, but it's what came to mind). That apparently worked well enough because we were able to exchange it after all.