Dropping Mangos and "C"s (written 6.21.08)

Invited by a volunteer in the next community over to come to her house this morning for a pancake breakfast, including coffee made without a cup of sugar, I gladly awakened earlier than I would have naturally and set off for the hike to her house (the second half of which is straight uphill) and even got a free motorcycle ride for part of the way. After I thanked Billy, or Peely, or something like that for the lift, I set off on foot to find the house. The fact that I didn't know exactly where I was or how to get there didn't really bother me since all you have to do is ask "where does the American live?" and you'll be pointed in the correct general direction.

On a particularly narrow and steep slope, I was enjoying the moment's breeze in the otherwise stifling heat (which arrives despicably early) when mangos started falling in large, loud numbers entirely to close to my head for comfort. The man I had stopped to talk to covered his head with his hands and I followed suite. Before long I found myself running up the hill for fear that I would receive a concussion from falling fruit and wouldn't be found for days! It was worth it in the end: the pancakes were delicious, complete with mango topping!

I haven't had very much trouble with the Cibaeño accent up until now, even though the people that populate this region are notorious for dropping consonants, particularly s's and r's. I started my house-to-house interviews this week, however, the goal of which is to find out which potential projects most suit my community (stoves, latrines, gardens, etc.), and have really had to invest a lot of energy and brainpower into understanding what these people are saying. Case in point: today, I met and interviewed a woman who does not, under any circumstance, pronounce hard c's or q's - for instance, "cat" and "car" would be "at" and "ar" - which would be hard enough to understand in English. In Spanish, it might as well have been Swahili, Mandarin, or any other language of which I have no knowledge. I managed to make out most of what she was saying through context clues, but I left feeling very drained from our 20 minute conversation. Twenty-one interviews down, 79-ish to go…I should be a pro at the regional accent within the next 2 months! Either that or my community will be very confused when I present my findings and nothing I say resembles what they told me.