Bogotá: Hablas Español?

"Papa, que lengua esta hablando."

"Juan, ella esta hablando en espanol."

"Entonces, porque no pudo entenderla?"




(Conversation between 7 year old Juan and his father at Los Onces on Sunday)


The good news is the work day ends around here at 5:00 on the dot. We have a shuttle service to take us home and it leaves at 5:10. There are no meetings that drag on, no lingering at your computer checking email, zero expectation that you will be at your desk at 5:01. The bad news is the days start E-A-R-L-Y! Colombians love to have breakfast meetings at 7:30.

And every single meeting, that includes inner office staff meetings and all hands meetings, are conducted in Spanish! Now, you all think I speak Spanish, but I don't. I can almost order a taxi successfully, can draft a blog post in something like Spanish, that I have a colleague edit before I post, and sure, I can chit chat about being "enguayabada por agaurdiente" with colleagues over lunch. But actually functioning professionally in Spanish is something totally different.

And I can just hear all of you, you say, "Spanish is easy, your good with languages, you'll pick this up in no time..." But its not true. None of its true. Lets take them one by one. First of all Spanish may be, a bit easier, than Urdu and Bosnian but its still another language. I can't just add an "o" to the end of everything and get away with it. My Bosnian friends (Elma) and Pakistani friends (Nadeem) will be the first to tell you, that sure, I functioned in their language, but despite spending a collective 10 years in both countries, I never got gender agreement or conjugation down.

Am I really good with languages? No. I am not detail oriented enough to really speak any one language correctly. What I had going for me in B and P, was that I wasn't afraid to speak and make mistakes. This was largely a function of the fact that so few foreigners tried to actually live and work in those languages. This worked for me. I liked being different, throwing inhibitions to the wind, and speaking.

In Bogota, its a totally different socio-linguistic environment. No one asks the question, "Do you speak Spanish?" The meetings just begin and every American, but me, is fluent. The Colombians don't think twice before launching into this beautiful language.

These 7:30 meetings about expanding financial services to the poor through mobile banking services, carbon trading (which I don't understand in English either), and whether or not illicit crops are one the decline in the countryside. Ahhh...I don't know this technical vocabulary.

In Bosnia, every meeting had a translator, the foreigners didn't speak the language. In Pakistan, one of the official languages was English, so I hardly heard Urdu. But here, my God, its all Spanish, all the time. Speaking Spanish is a necessity, not a luxury.

Although its depressing to be the worst Spanish speaker in the mission. Its probably good for me.

Here is the basic plan:

1) Write in Spanish, take notes in Spanish, send emails and texts in Spanish, blog in Spanish...and get it all corrected.

2) Pay attention, listen, listen, listen. Don't tune out in the meetings and keep listening to BBC in Spanish when I work out. I have to admit, my comprehension has slightly improved.

3) And of course, date a Spanish speaker:)