the following entry is dedicated to laura, crystal, kelly, tanya, laura, and mike. you are probably the only people who will even know what i am talking about.

anyone got an adjective other than "rico" for me? anyone?


although i consider my time in chile to be one of the best experiences of my life, it most definitely contributed to my inability to communicate in any other spanish speaking country. sure, it is the place where i perfected (okay, let's not kid anyone, made comprehensible) my spanish, but it wasn't really spanish. it was chileno.

chileno is a language that grows on you. at first, you don't understand a thing that people are saying to you and so you nod your head and say, "si" a lot. then you begin to get it, but you don't feel cool enough to mimic your chilean friends just yet. then, you let go. you start greeting people with "como estai weon?" and throwing "po" out left and right. even more, you embrace the ultra obnoxious cuico within and inturrupt some falite's speech with "obvio po" and "claaaaaaaaaaaaro." you even go as far as calling yourself "la raja." you see, chilean is a language to which you will quickly find yourself attached because it's fun and has that feeling of exclusivity that pig latin had when you were eight. you are finally in with the cool kids.

but it's not just the slang that has you. what you don't realize is that your entire spanish vocabulary has been corrupted. palta, choclo, calabaza, frutilla, durazno, poroto - don't try using them northeast of the andes. i made the huge mistake of calling a squash "calabaza" here in panama and my host family is still laughing about it. oh, and don't compliment anyone on their "polera" unless you want a blank stare in return. and don't ask for a "lapiz." (unless of course you really want a "lapiz," otherwise some snobby argentinian will respond, "ESTO es un BOLIGRAFO." to which you will respond, "pshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.")

so as you can see, converting from chilean to standard spanish can be a difficult and embarrassing transition. and especially when it comes to adjectives.

chilean basically comes down to two words: "super" and "rico." together, they make up thirty to forty percent of all conversations in chile. ( and that is a hard fact if you ever read one.) now here comes the crazy part: no one else uses these words. ever. so as you can see, i am at a huge loss of words here in panama. i can't say, "that dress is rico," "the food is rico," "the hotel is rico," or "with your new haircut you look super rico." so apparently i need to learn the 738 synonyms for rico (including stylish, delicious, comfortable, and attractive). so what to do? apparently hit ya'll up for adjectives online and read the chicago university spanish-english dictionary we have all come to love every night before bed. actually, i need to learn more than just adjectives. in panama you can't just use "wea" for every thing that you don't know the word for in spanish. you see, life here is hard.

i must add though, this sabatoge of my spanish on the part of chileno has helped me out some. the accent makes me sound legit. luckily for me, panamanians are like chileans in that they like to drop s's, d's, and as many other consonants as they can. so you can imagine the street cred i gain when i say things like "ma' o me'o" or "hay pesca'o?" and what makes me the most happy is that i can still say "vamo' a comer hela'o!!!" in a throaty and indistinct way that cracks me up but makes others mistake me for a native. only, once we're eating it, i better not say it's rico.


(oh, and by the way, they add "pues" to everything here. but if you say it quickly and drop your s, i swear, it sounds just like po.)