Hot Flash

I knew no Spanish when I moved my life to Colombia, save for the limited counting vocabulary supplied to me by 1980's Sesame Street programming, pleasantries, and basic "life words" like baño and cerveza.  Now that is all my brain wants to fall back on.

Fortunately, Brazilians understand the gist of spoken Spanish.  Unfortunately, it only gets me so far and the conversation quickly becomes one-sided.

Cambuí neighborhood Starbucks

After two classes of basic Portuguese - grunting an moaning made up a good portion of the first one - I felt I needed to put myself out there and not permit my Spanish to be a crutch.  I went to the Starbucks in my neighborhood to order a coffee and muffin.  (There is a bakery closer to my apartment but it was too crowded and the threat of an audience was too much pressure.)

As I stood awkwardly alone in front of the pastry case, the barista asked if she could help me.  Nope, just looking for some Portuguese sounds in here, thanks!  As I pretended to scan the scone options with unnecessary intensity, I thought about how, right now, Portuguese seems to have a thousand more vowels in play at any given moment than Spanish does; many words sound the same to the ear, but to get them out the mouth requires the tongue to juggle a few more O's and company.

Smile.  Why am I sweating?

"Eu queria um café com leite por favor."*  Breathe.  At least the "por favor" came out right.

Wow, it is hot. in. here!

Oh, wait!  The muffin!  
No time.  
Forget it. 
You don't need it.  
Stop while you're ahead.

Aaaand...congratulations, you're sweating more.

So many of the words in Portuguese are so close to the Spanish that my habit-formed brain and mouth aren't accustomed to adding, changing, or eliminating a sound.  I want to say "es" when I need to say "é" but the "s" keeps finding its way back into the word.  Slithering, probably; I feel like S's do that.

I have 80 hours of one-on-one Portuguese language instruction coming at me in the next few months.  At the very least I will hopefully be able to not break into an anxious perspiring mess from a simple coffee order.

* I can not express how slowly this came out.  It was painful.  Possibly more painful than reading this post.  I hope my future traumatic experiences are more entertaining than this one.