Arroz con Leche

Being at work always makes me wish I knew other languages, at least Spanish. I know such a tiny bit from the children at the orphanage, films, and the pathetic attempts I have made at teaching myself. We always have at least one Spanish speaking family staying here, right now there are several. Most of them know way more English than I know Spanish which makes me feel bad.

There is one woman who has been here for about a month from Peru who speaks no English but the little bit she has picked up since coming here, but she loves to chat so we stumble through conversation until we somewhat understand each other. Today I was upstairs when she called me into the kitchen to give me some homemade arroz con leche (rice pudding). As a little side note, as much as I try to avoid animal products, I cannot refuse food from the wonderfully gracious people who stay here (or really from anyone who is kind enough to offer me food). To me, the experience of sharing food with others is more important than adhering to my dietary preferences, and because of this I don't think I'll ever actually be a vegan. I will and have turned down meat, but that's way easier to explain that than feeling like a douche asking whether there are eggs or butter in something.

Anyway, she taught me how to say rice pudding in Spanish (to my credit I did know leche!) and then we talked about the different ways to say names in English and Spanish. She told me she was a teacher back in Peru and that she taught three, four, and five-year-olds, which explained her tremendous amounts of patience in trying to communicate with me and teach me words and phrases in Spanish!

I think my biggest problem is I know about an equal amount of Spanish and French and since they are similar I always mix them up and speak some crazy hybrid of the two. But I guess that is not as bad as the urge I get to speak to everyone who comes here who doesn't speak English in my "Franish" hybrid language! One of my favorite families here right now is from Iraq and we are only really able to say hi. So many times I have had one of my few Spanish or French phrases on my tongue before I realize what I'm doing. At those times, I feel completely like the ignorant American that I so desperately don't want to be.