16 October 2006

bubble head

I spent most of today reading one article in El Comercio (the local equivalent of The New York Times).

While it's a pain in the neck to have to thumb through a dictionary every other minute, I'm learning lots of new vocabulary and phrases. Too bad I don't have a photographic memory, which means there's still an echo when you rap on my skull, but at least my thumbs will be nicely toned.

Most of the time I feel like Frodo wading through the swamp of Dead Marshes. Every now and then I'll read a sentence and comprehend it immediately (in Spanish without having to translate it into English in my head). When this happens, I feel a sweet bubble float out of my clavicular notch (with rainbows and everything) and I brighten.

Little by little, I think I can make this work. I just have to be patient with myself and keep trudging.

3 comments:

Carlos said...

And don't forget that many a Spanish speaker cannot read the El Comercio. Good job!

Carlos said...

What was the article about?

Elaine said...

The article was a profile on Paul Farmer. It recounted anecdotes from Mountains Beyond Mountains and discussed Farmer's work in Haiti, Rwanda, Russia, and Perú.