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| Aretha Franklin. A pretty sassy lady. |
When speaking English, I'd say I'm pretty sassy. Well, I'm sassy because that's just how my personality is {not afraid of confrontation or saying exactly whats on my mind, calling people out etc} but I can best express that when speaking English because I have a strong command of the language, and can pick my words perfectly with the exact amount of sarcasm or with whatever connotation I want. I know how to emphasize words effectively to get the message I want across perfectly.
In Spanish, this has not been possible for the past few months. I can survive with my Spanish, I can converse with people, talk about pretty profound things {though not as eloquently as I can in English}, I could even make a few jokes, but my sassyness was not able to be expressed. Because of my lack of understanding of words and all their connotations, my accent and inability to fully pronounce or emphasize words perfectly, I could never be sure if what I was saying was blatantly rude, or just didnt make sense. And when you're being sassy you don't have that leeway to mess it up. Because, then you just look like an idiot, frankly.
But the other day in Salamanca I experienced my first Spanish Sass and it happened without me even thinking about it!!! exciting!!!! here's what happened:
Carolina and I had gotten on a bus at 8:30 am in Madrid, and were supposed to arrive to Salamanca at 11:30. The bus was an hour and a half late arriving to Salamanca. Everyone unloaded from the bus very quickly {Spaniards have the most random sense of urgency sometimes, I'll write about that later though} Carolina and I each had a back pack and a purse. I also had my pillow {of course} that I had to roll up and stuff in my bag. Carolina couldn't find one of her gloves, So we were looking under the seats for them and gathering our things {grand total of time we were on the bus after everyone unloaded approx: 1 min 30 sec} when suddenly the bus driver {who had been leisurely smoking a cigarette and chatting with his fellow bus driver friend who had stepped onto the bus} rudely yells at us "CHICAS!!! DALE! MARALABARDALDIANDA {my version of unintelligible spanish mumble-yelling}" this was coming from the man who was 1.5 hours late bringing me to my weekend vacation. "Bale." we politely answered. Carolina found her glove. I slung my back pack over my shoulder and walked down the narrow isle towards the grump at the end. As I passed by him, I nonchalantly said over my shoulder "¿tienes prisa?" and skipped down the stairs exiting the bus. "Tienes prisa?" is Spanish for "are you in a rush?". Naturally, the comment set the driver off and he proceeded to bark back something about actually having a job and needing to work. We didn't catch all of it because we had already begun our vacation at that point.
Carolina and I had a very good laugh over it, about what a jerk he was, how I didnt even think about it, how it just jumped off of my tongue, and how perfect the statement was...
* * * * * *
Tonight after dinner, my friends and I stopped at one of the many Christmas markets in the plazas of Madrid. Kati was buying 3 or 4 things from one {lucky} stall. She asked the guy if he'd give her a discount since she was buying so many things "no puedo, solo soy trabajador, no soy dueño" [ I can't i'm just a worker, I'm not the owner]...fine. after a couple minutes of Kati finalizing her decisions the man says "chicas estamos cerados, vuelven mañana" [girls, we're closed, come back tomorrow]...to which i replied "pero esta lista, quiere pagar!" [but she's ready she wants to pay!] "no, estamos cerado" [no, we're closed]...this is unbelievable, we're standing here, merchandise in hand, money in the other hand, ready to pay and he wants to kick us out??...suddenly it slipped: "QUE TIPO DE TRABAJADOR ERES?!" [what kind of worker are you??]...he looked at us and rung Kati up. We walked away giggling.
I used to get so frustrated at those kinds of things. I never felt like I was exactly expressing how I really am. So basically I just smiled my face off trying to convey that I am friendly and ready to learn about the language. I remember thinking, how am I ever going to get any friends. No one here knows that I am smart, funny, crazy... or educated by the way I was talking, haha. But then something happened. I did get friends. We had great times hanging out. I loved my family and we had/have a great connection, and I got a boyfriend who just seemed to understand the kind of person I am. My Spanish got loads better, where I felt like I could express what I wanted, but some things were communicated without even using words and just through my personality alone.
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