Day 35 Spanish Eloquence

Friday 12 Sep 2008: Spanish Eloquence

I work all day rewriting day two and day three entries; so much was new those first few days that I just jotted down the day’s events, run on sentence after run on sentence. After today, my plan of attack may have to change; I now have 17 pages of manuscript for the first three days—at this rate this journal will be 2068 pages in length (365 x 5.67). I think maybe I’ll have to be a bit more perspicacious on what I write about each day. In that vein . . .

On my 35th day in country, I reach a milestone. I sit beside the swimming pool under an umbrella at the Costa Del Sol Hotel waiting for Teri to finish an after-school Pearson Longman seminar: “Lines of Communication: Connecting Teachers, Parents and Students in English.” I finish one beer and ask for another. The waiter serves me the second beer and he stands there expectantly, as waiters do when wanting payment, so I say, “¿Diez soles?” He nods and, as I pull a ten from my wallet, he rattles off some Spanish that I don’t catch much of except the word ‘boleta’ so I say, “No, una boleta no es necesario, gracias.” Eureka! I responded spontaneously in Spanish; I didn’t think about what to say for even a fraction of a second; the words, the music, the poetry—no the eloquence, spewed from my lips as if I were goosed by Calliope herself!

The triumph is tarnished somewhat by the waiter returning in about 15 minutes with a boleta. The shine soon returns for me though, as this boleta de venta is another milestone for me; it is the largest I have received by far, almost a full 8.5x11 hand-written sheet of paper with an official stamp and signature at the bottom, all this for two beers, and stapled to it is the coup de gras—a machine receipt—fantastico!