Hey Team,
While I was at service last week a child asked my to draw "una mariposa" for him. I looked back at him like an idiot and said "¿Mariposa?" The child kind of smiled and then began to draw.."Ah! A Butterfly!" He smiled when he realized I understood and then continued on whith his craft.
One of the aspects of living in the Dominican Republic that I have been struggling with the most (besides the lack of Diet Coke) is the laguage barrier. Back when I was still taking Spanish, I was decent, by no means fluent and that has been over a year and a half ago. Now I am driving the Spanish struggle bus all day. I'm trying to do extra work on top of my Spanish class so I can at least be communacative. It's frustrating. I want to talk to people but I can't so I feel like I just come off as rude.
The frustration over the language barrier is at it's when I go to service every week. Let me tell you, if you have trouble understanding Spanish just wait until you hear small children speak it. As a general rule children speek quietly and quikly, not a great combo when you are trying to learn a new language. This is especially challenging as culturally Dominicans in general speak more quietly than Americans and the Spanish language is already much quiker than English. To get a grasp on children speaking spanish just image Alvin and the Chipmunks speaking Spanish.
At my service site all I want to do is talk to the kids, ask them about their lives, give them someone who will listen- essentially I want them to know that they are cared about and important. This is not such an easy task to accomplish when you are basically limited to "¿Cuántos anos tienes?" and "¿Comó se llama?" My name can even be a complication as two integral sounds in my name don't really exist in Spanish. When I say my name is "Corbin" I get all sorts of crazy looks- the other day I got called Corvette (like the car).
On Wednesday of last week I was watching a child color a horse in a coloring book. I was racking my brain trying to figure out something to say to him. All I could think was how wierd I must come off right now, just sitting here watching the kids color. The boy I was siting next to leaned against me while he continued to color. At that moment I realized that language isn't always necessary to send a message. Presence is important and is not dependent on language, a smile or a hug can mean a lot.
Maybe language evens get in the way of being fully present sometimes. We think about what to say, but we don't listen; we are off in our own thoughts and not paying attention to the real human beings in front of us.
Peace,
Corbin
this is beautiful.
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