Libby_or_Bust

Before I begin my story, I want to give a bit of context.
First, many Costa Ricans speak English. At times it feels like everyone speaks English. Men will approach you and start talking to you simply to practice their English with a native speaker. On a few occasions I`ve had men follow me to put themselves in a position of ”accidentally” running into me in order to talk to me in English. This type of situation has definite creepy potential, but I`ve never felt threatened. I enjoy talking with people, and these men have an enthusiasm I can`t help but appreciate.
On way from San Jose to Paso Canoas, the border crossing town between Costa Rica and Panama, an eager pupil was lucky enough to sit by a solo English speaker: me. José overheard me talking in English with the couple behind me and as soon as their was a break in our conversation, he started in. ”I ingles so so.” Okay, he was interested in speaking English with me, but he didn`t speak very well. That`s fine — everyone has to start somewhere. Little did I know that he was interested in conversing with me for the entire 8 hour trip. I have never met anyone who was so intent on speaking a language he knew so little of. He interviewed me like Barbara Walters with his 50 heavily accented English words. He wanted to tell me all about where he was from and what it had to offer. ”I snow beers. Puerto Jimenez.” Nieve? Cerveza? In Puerto Jimenez? No, no. He meant that he ”knew” — Spanish uses the verb ”to know” to describe having been somewhere or seen something — lots of birds in Puerto Jimenez. I was able to ascertain — I started using all Spanish so that we could understand each other, though he was adamant about English — that he works in the Osa Peninsula with chemicals: ”Dangers! Dangers quimicas!” Also, at one time in his life he encountered a 2-meter-long fer de lance on the shore of a river which may have bitten him or perhaps he fed his pet rabbit ”Titi” to it. Or both: I wasn`t sure and he wasn`t either. After a while the conversation slowed, but every once in a while when I was trying to read or sleep or not be bus sick, he would pipe up with a gem. My favorite of which was ”leones marinos tienen mustatches,” which in all English means ‘’sea lions have mustaches.” After that observation he laughed to himself for a while, stopping only to say ”crazy!” mid-chuckle. He found many things to be crazy, and was very interested in the animals of Michigan. Are there penguins? Ardillas? Dolphins? Bears? What do bears eat? Do people keep them as pets? Crazy!
José got off the bus in Ciudad Neily, thirty minutes before the border to Panama. He shook my hand, thanked me for our conversation, and I told him good luck with English.
But I realized that when it comes to language, luck has nothing to do with it — it`s all about practice — except when it comes to your seatmate.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.