14 August 2010

Listening to American radio in Spanish

I've been spending many of my free hours this last week in Internet cafes and cafes offering free wifi, filled with foreign travellers. It's a sort of buffer around the reality of being in a strange country attempting to conduct life in a language I barely understand and can speak almost no words in. Forming a complete sentence is nearly impossible. In writing, and with the aid of un dicionario, it is not nearly as messy. I can express precisely, with proper grammar. But this has always been my problem. I have no eloquence in the spoken word. I expect it will continue to be my biggest frustration as the journey progresses. I think I can handle the aloneness, I have much practice in that aspect.

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Still, when I hear these familiar songs it is hard not to miss 'home.' I don't really have a good answer when people ask where I live. Here, wherever that happens to be, I suppose. The turtle carries his house with him. I know where I belong, but somehow it seems more personal than I care to explain to strangers.

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I feel innocuous in Antigua; pale in the reflected light of the rainbow colored culture. Though how much of that is just smoke and mirrors I haven't been able to decipher. It's all just a matter of perception though, in the end, isn't it?

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