Lost in translation

"He says I have different personalities: that my Lingala is sweet and maternal, but in English I'm sarcastic. I told him, 'That's nothing--in French I'm a mine sweeper. Which personality annoys you the most?'"  The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver, p. 433


I read this passage this morning while outside basking in the ever glorious sunshine.  I've always wondered this myself; how different is the English-speaking me from the Spanish-speaking one?  Q'eqchi'-speaking me is still just a hot mess, so there's no real question there (just yesterday as I was walking home with a woman from the women's group I'm pretty sure I said something along the lines of "Much rocks there is in the road and to come out the sun does right now I will wash the, uh, the huipil...many the huipil.")  I do wonder how differently people here perceive me though--people that only know the Spanish-speaking me.  Sure body language and actions have a lot to do with that, but rhetoric is undeniably important.  I find that in Spanish, especially in Guatemalan Spanish (which is actually quite different from the Spanish I spoke in Barcelona), I'm more direct, to the point, perhaps even forward.  At the tienda I hardly give a second thought to my "Dame una bolsita de cloro," (lit. "Give me a little bag of bleach.") when only months ago I still tried to find other ways to say it.  I'd never walk into a store in America and demand the clerk to "give me" anything--but here that's just what you say...that's what everybody says.  In America it's all "Can I have" this and "Could you please" that.  In America I'm sarcastic.  Here, I'm more literal--perhaps that's as far as my imperfect Spanish skills will let me go.  When it comes down to it I'm simply mimicking those around me.  If I literally translated my thoughts from English, nobody would have a clue what I was talking about.  Translations are never direct.  When I ask somebody in Q'eqchi' "Ma sa laach'ool?" (How are you?) I'm literally asking them "Is you heart rich?"  When I ask somebody in Spanish "Con permiso" (May I come in?) I'm actually saying "With permission?"  So how much of me and my English-speaking self gets lost in translation?  It's one of those things we'll never know.  Just like it's impossible to ever know if what I know/see as the color blue is the same as the blue you see, I'll never be able to step over to the other side and see myself through a Guatemalan's eyes.  I'll never know what an American-speaking-Spanish foreign accent sounds like.  It's probably for the best, though--it would probably be just as horribly uncomfortable as hearing my own voice played back over a tape recorder.  I sound so much better in my own head; over recordings (and apparently to everybody else in the world) I sound like a doped-up child with a head cold.  Better to live with the delusion, in this case. 

Classes and exams are officially over as of last Friday, although schools will stay open until the end of the month so that the teachers and directors can turn in their yearly paperwork (which from what they tell me is quite extensive).  That means no classes to teach, no teachers to observe, and a lot more free time for me.  This week I'm focusing on getting the pila eco-drains finished and planning other vacation activities.  And more importantly I'll be working on beating Kevin on our week-long blog-off.  Seriously, though, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, his blog is pretty great, so definitely take the time to check it out: What Dreams May Come.