Utila Sunset
Today I took the ferry from the island of Utila to the port of La Ceiba on the mainland of Honduras. From there I caught a cab up to the mountains outside of town to the banks of the rushing Rio Cangrejal, which sounds so much more appealing than its English equivalent, "Crab River".
The 30 minute drive over bumpy, rocky, rutted, pot-hole infested, washboard roads with oncoming traffic careening into our lane was pretty uneventful, except for the bobble-headed dogs on the dashboard popping loose from their duct tape and falling into my lap one by one. My cervical spine felt like it needed some duct tape by the time we arrived.
While the deafening commentary of a soccer match blared from the radio, my fillings rattled in my teeth as my spleen underwent the rigors of a General Motors test dummy and the cab driver deftly dodged livestock and kids on bikes. It's hard to beat a laugh-in-the-face-of-the-Grim-Reaper joy ride on the razor's edge between life and death, and have your internal furniture rearranged, all for just $20.00 including tip.
Meanwhile the following exchange took place:
Cab driver: ¿Americano?
Me: (feeling very cocky having just taken 20 hours of Spanish lessons last week) Si!
Cab driver: Barracubana?
Me: (Thinking he's seen my diving gear and is asking if I've seen a Honduran barracuda)¿Que?
Cab driver: Bar a Cubana!
Me: (Thinking he wants to go to a Cuban bar to celebrate the closing of Guantanamo Bay) ¿Que?
Cab driver: Barack Obama!!
Me: (Feeling like the village idiot) Oh!...Barack Obama! Si ...Es un hombre muy intelegente!
Cab driver: Gracias!....Gracias!
What the .....?
In my feeble attempt to speak like a native, I had very cleverly omitted the pronoun"he", which I thought was obvious from the context, but unfortunately the conjugation of the verb "to be" is the same for "he" as it is for the polite form of "you", so my cab driver assumed that that I was complimenting him on his intelligence in the middle of a conversation about el Presidente de Los Estados Unidos.
Oh well...so much for my career as a translator for the United Nations.
The combination of dialogue + humor + Spanish misunderstanding made my little brain overflow with glee!
ReplyDeleteI am TRANSported with...delight! But heck, I figure I'm just one of your (many, happy, and primed-to-laugh) audiences, so hooray! hooray for a visit to Honduras or Langfordville or wherever. Also like those photos (yours). If you can make that peeling blue paint (a few posts ago)look especialemente guapo, there's no tellin' what you might do with, ahem, a portrait picture I need to post for a USAID job. Gracias para tis palabras y fotos magnificos!
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