Have I mentioned that I'm on a work trip to Peru and Argentina, doing my best to survive on five words of Spanish?
The hardest part of the trip — by far — has been trying to keep myself from speaking Dutch to the many Spanish speakers I encounter.
It's totally horrifying to have the word "nee" come out of my mouth, for example, when the Spanish word for "no" is exactly the same as the English word for "no".
And yet there's a little part of my brain that divides the world — quite involuntarily — into English and Not English.
Whenever I find myself in the Not English version, I have the vocabulary of a Dutch 7-year-old on the tip of my tongue, just waiting to burst out.
Fortunately for me, any Spanish skills beyond ordering ridiculously large portions of Argentinian food are not in very high demand: after six very long days of staffing an international conference for leaders from values-based banks, my only goal from my current position in Malargüe is to sit in the sun by the pool and drink some nice Malbec.
Until next week, when we return to our regularly scheduled program, here are some of the people we met and sights we saw on a lovely walk through the local markets of Lima:
It is strange that you mention this. One of our upstairs neighbors is a very old, very stooped, very slow woman we only know as "Ma," and she speaks mostly Greek. And during *every one* of my very limited interactions with her, I have to bite my tongue and make a concerted effort not to gallantly address her in French. Not English indeed.
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