Right now, outside of my window, there is a Cuban guy trimming the bushes in my yard. He came by on Monday and left a flyer, indicating that he could do landscaping. When I called about his services, he answered, speaking extremely poor and broken English. I was in a hurry and didn't feel like trotting out my extremely poor and broken Spanish, so he told me he would have his wife call me later.
When his wife called later, she left a message in poor, but not extremely so, English. On that same day, another guy came by the house wanting to do yard work. I was getting ready to go with him, mostly because he was in my front yard and the other guy was a phone call away when he started trying a hard sell to get me to tear down the dying tree in my front yard. I don't want to tear down my tree and got irritated with him for not backing off when I indicated so.
So I went with the Cuban guy. He came by the next day to give me an estimate of the cost of the yard work and we spoke broken English and Spanish to eachother at the same level of fluency. It was so nice and cool and I was so proud of myself and him for our efforts at communicating. He was quite relieved for me to try to meet him half way on the communication bridge and we started discussing how he ended up here. Basically he makes more money here and doesn't make enough in Cuba. So here he is.
He's doing a great job on my yard and we are both doing a good job of trying to communicate with eachother. I will happily pay him to help me out with my yard all summer long.
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4 comments:
I'm glad you are practicing your Spanish. I think you speak really well, you just need more practice. I remember your vocabulary being really impressive.
i do need lots more practice. and it's so much easier to practice with someone when it's imperative that you try, you know? Like if me and Romilio are going to communicate we really have to learn how to speak a different language. very nice.
thanks for the props.
Like you, I can not abide the hard sell.
My heart goes out to those who struggle to make a living in a country whose language they do not speak with much fluency.
Hmm, just got back from Mexico and didn't speak with anyone in English except one person. That was not the person with the sawed off shotgun in my face. I too abhore the hard sale, one day driving off with street urchins who had been on the hood of my truck washing the windshield with dirty water, even though the windshield washers were on, they were sliding off everywhere and I didn't care if the trailer ran over them or not. If I say no, that means the same in Spanish. Broken windshield, broken windshield washer water director, dents in hood and all the time a dozen stalled cars behind honking for me to get on across the intersection. If they ask politely then they can wash, if they hard sale they are out of luck. I gave one a peso one day because that was all I had, he looked at it, threw it as far as he could and spit on my truck. Good and bad everywhere. Desperate people do desperate things, so Ruth says.
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