Upon living in Mérida just over a week, my Spanish has improved tenfold. I find myself saying, “Lo siento, no entiendo…” (I’m sorry, I don’t understand) about half as often as I was mere days ago. I am able to confidently tell people good morning, good afternoon and good night without wondering if I said something wrong, and even when I’m on the phone with friends and family in the States I find myself accidentally saying, “sí” instead of “yes,” and “porque” instead of “because.”
I’m able to get from point A to point B with relative assurance using the bus system, I know how to ask someone for help if I get lost, and I know how many pesos a Corona costs on Thursday nights at El Cumbanchero, the local salsa bar.
I know that when you’re hot, you always want to say you’re calor, not caliente, (unless you are in fact caliente, which probably isn’t something you want to advertise on the street). I know that the Yucatecan culinary special, “Pollo Pibil,” is a sure bet at most restaurants, and that if you are an easily-offended young American female who doesn’t take well to being ceaselessly ogled by the locals, this probably isn’t the place for you.
On the list of quagmires I have yet to solve is figuring out a polite way to tell my host mother that there is no hot water in my bathroom, that there is a colony of possibly carnivorous ants living in my bedroom, or that I would like a little more than rice and lettuce for dinner sometimes. (Dinners are quite small here across the board; lunch is the main event in most of Latin America and Spain).
Speaking of my host mother–her name is Maria Lucia, and she is the nicest, most helpful Mexican woman that I have met thus far in Mérida. She is patient with me as we attempt to converse in Spanish over breakfast at 6:30 a.m., she gives me directions everywhere I need to go, and-channeling the spirit of my real mother-she will not let me leave the house if my shorts are too corto (Take a guess at that one).
Maria Lucia has three grown children who live here with her-Pricilla, Patricio, and Paulina. In this culture, it is customary to live at home until you marry. Pricilla works for a company based in Boston that sells travel packages to American and Canadian universities sending students abroad. I see her the most out of all my host siblings, and she speaks fluent English because of her work.
Patricio recently graduated from a local university, where he studied marketing. He is currently tirelessly looking for work, yet he always enough free time to tell me where all the best discotecas are (and appears to frequent them nightly).
I see Paulina the least out of the three-she leaves for work before I wake in the mornings, and retreats upstairs before I have time to talk with her any other time of the day. It seems that Maria Lucia, as my primary caretaker, is the only one who takes much notice of me. I can hardly blame the kids for their lack of interest in attempting to speak Spanish with me-the family has been hosting students from the U.S. and Canada for over fifteen years.
As my second week in Mérida draws to a close, I can already tell that the most difficult task facing me on this trip will not be learning the language or writing ten-page papers for my classes, but rather, deciding which of the hundreds of exciting activities offered to visitors of the Yucatan I can squeeze into ten short weeks.