Along the way of language learning, you run into language issues, many of which are embarrassing, humiliating, offensive, and if you’re really lucky, all three at once. I (Marissa) recently was one of the lucky ones. Upon moving into our house on December 19th, the lady who lived next door informed us that she was sorry but that workers would be coming to work on the house on Monday and she apologized for the noise. We happily shrugged her courtesy warning off like nice neighbors and said it was very nice to meet her. Little did we know the workers would come at 6am that following Monday and would stay…and stay…and they are still here as I write this post. She failed to let us know that she was completely gutting her house down to ripping out every last bit of concrete and renovating (that word doesn’t do the process justice…). Therefore, we have had a tremendous amount of noise from 6am-6pm. This has been quite a mental and emotional trial for us as we have battled headaches from the noise, destruction of our yard with concrete, paint and cement, and dust covering every inch of our home since the day we moved in. Our first face to face run in with the construction workers were when I asked them if they would mind putting up a plastic tarp between our homes to minimize the amount of dust in our house. I explained that we had a preschooler and a newborn (she was one day old at the time) and it was likely that they would develop asthma due to the extensive amount of concrete dust accumulating in their growing lungs. As you can imagine, this was a huge concern of ours. My pleas were to no avail until I came up with the brilliant plan of offering to bake the men cookies when there was plastic up…it was there the next day. Sheer genius. I happily made the men cookies and they happily devoured them…Sheer genius, I have to admit. Our most recent run in with the men has been that in order to tear down the house, they have had to jackhammer in the wall that makes up the entire right side of our house. If you can try to imagine our daily pain for months on end…terrible, isn’t it? About a month and a half ago, the straw that broke the camels back was when the jackhammering was so intense that it knocked the clock off of my wall and it promptly shattered once it hit our terra cotta floor, breaking a branch of my beautiful orchid that was a gift from my husband. I, being at the end of my rope, went out my front door and explained to the man that the jackhammer had shaken my wall so much that it fell off of the wall and smashed (I had the clock pieces in hand, as well as my newly severed orchid branch). We could not afford purchasing a new one as they cost around $65 and it was the only clock we had in order to get to places on time. He calmly looked at me and listened to my story and then informed me that the clock broke itself. At this point, my eyes bugged out and I, thinking my Spanish explanation was more lacking than I had realized, retold him the story. He again repeated, several times I might add, that the clock simply broke itself. He said he would talk to his boss and explain to him that my clock had broken itself. I was flabbergasted at his inability to take blame and went in quite frustrated with the exchange. Life went on, as usual, and about a week later, my teacher was explaining different Spanish phrases that reflect their culture and told me about “No tengo la culpa” or “I don’t have fault/blame”. I sat completely amazed as she explained that in Spanish (or at least Costa Rican Spanish) they do not take blame for anything. How blame is expressed is by saying that it happened to itself (the plate broke itself, the clock broke itself, etc.) I sat with my mouth wide open with amazement and embarrassment, realizing that the poor construction worker was admitting guilt and had understood my story (3 times) quite well…it was I who had missed the language and cultural phrase! Here the poor man had assured me several times in the only way that Spanish allows, that he would inform his boss that my clock had broken itself, and I, the crazy gringo lady, had not been satisfied! About 4 days ago, his boss did indeed show up with a shiny new clock and battery, although sadly without an orchid, and a sweet smile and said that he was sorry that my clock had broken itself. I sheepishly smiled and said that I, too, was sorry that my clock had broken itself.

My beautiful new clock with a folded tablecloth padding its anticipated fall from the constant jackhammering.