Familia Tica

Last Sunday I went to visit Neha's host family that she stayed with last summer while she was here in Costa Rica for 5 weeks. They live a bus ride away but on Sundays I guess the buses aren't frequent so I ended up taking a taxi.

They're so cute! I met Disney (mama tica) and her husband, 2 sons (one of which goes to UCR) and a daughter (that is my age). Just like in India, the kids live at home for a while after college. Disney wouldn't let me speak in English and they put up with me speaking very slowly and thinking very hard about conjugating verbs in spanish . . it's a humbling experience having people look at you while you're trying to form a coherent sentence, esp when it would just be easier to speak in English! But that's how I'm going to learn. I have a hard time understanding Spanish when its the younger adults/kids speaking, b/c of slang, accents etc. (Now I get exactly why my grandparents had a hard time understanding my English.) The family was really nice and Disney invited me to visit or call if I ever need anything. . and to bring my parents over when they visit.

I have been told multiple times that my Spanish is good! Maybe b/c I'm American they expect me to have a gringo accent . . but the fact that my first language was Marathi helps with the Spanish phonetics . . the consonants are softer . . and I think my accent makes it seem like I know more Spanish than I actually do (ie grammer and vocab wise). Some people speak really fast and I don't catch everything. It might be too easy to get away with not speaking any spanish while I'm on campus, so I have to make an effort to thinking in Spanish or speaking spanish with my office-mate.

Another professor also commented that my English is easier to understand than that of other visiting professors from America . . good to know . . I can turn off my cali-girl accent when I need to!