How's your Spanish?

After living here for 8 years, one would think our command of Spanish should be pretty good.  And, for the most part, it is.  We can meet new people, discuss the weather, enquire as to the state of someones health all in Spanish.  We can order our food in Espanol, after having made full enquiries as to how it is prepared and how it will be served, in our second language.  We can also manage blood donations and our own doctor and dental appointments, all in Spanish.

Casa Madera, your home away from home

Why, then do we have such difficulty when it comes to dealing with contractors????  Perhaps it is their redneck mentality,  (I know!  Being a proud Alberta girl myself,  I was shocked to learn that we are not the only people on the planet to have perfected this attitude). but I prefer to believe that the twists and tricks of the Spanish language are more to blame.

We were having some work done  last week, and the contractor needed a couple of last minute things to finish the job.  Would Kevin be able to go get them?  Sure, no problem.   Our conversation was going very well, so well, that the contractor forgot who he was talking to and began using words we were not familiar with.  Language barrier, resurrected.    You know how English speaking people speak LOUDER when someone doesn't understand them...Spanish speaking people speak FASTER!!  Any hope of understanding what he needed had now been lost.

Wet cement.  A sure sign that a contractor is in the house.

Surgencia - means suggestion, but when the contractor is holding a roll of electrical wire in one hand  and gesturing wildly at the ceiling with the other, suggestion is the last word that comes to mind.

Finally, we realized he had come up with a different way to wire the outside lights than we had originally discussed.  That only took 10 minutes, and way more charades than most people are comfortable with.

Registra - From the verb Registrar, which means to inspect, to frisk, to register, or to record.

Registro - There is no verb, this is the word.  It means inspection, registration, recording or registry office.

Given that he was pointing to a light fixture, I am pretty sure that none of the above translations applied.

As Kevin and I were standing there with blank looks on our faces, trying hard to understand the impossible, the contractor sighed.

It finally occurred to me to have him write it down!!  Then we would only have to show the magic word to our friendly hardware store guy and the mystery would be solved.  Except that by the time I thought of this, the contractor had already decided that getting a "registro" was no longer worth the effort and he would figure things out himself.  So, off Kevin went to get the item we did understand and the contractor went back to work and finished the job, without our "help".

As it happens, our neighbour is looking for a contractor and stopped by last night to ask if we were happy with our guy.  Yes, despite the communication difficulty, we got on quite well, and we are happy with the finished project.

Our neighbour is an engineer.  It took him less than 5 seconds to notice that they had installed an indoor light switch on our outdoor post.    Kevin and I looked at each other "OH, REGISTRO!".  We may call the contractor to come back to fix it, but probably this afternoons project will be just doing it ourselves.

Yes, our rooms are nice.