¡Progreso! (Progress)

I had the most excellent meet-up the other day! I’m so excited about it.

Several weeks ago, I had posted a question on the Palmer City Buzz Facebook group, asking if there was anybody who spoke Spanish who would be will willing to meet with me once a week for lunch (my treat) and tutor me in Spanish. I got a lot of replies, mostly from people who had suggestions on aps to use and/or websites to go to. One girl did volunteer, and I think she’s going to help me a lot in my endeavor to learn a foreign language, but we have to wait until she gets home from College this spring.

The best thing to come out of that post, however, was the creation of the Conversational Spanish Meet-up group! Which is basically just a group of people who want to practice their Spanish together. We meet once a month at The Black Birch Bookstore in Wasilla, and basically just chat with each other.

Our first meeting was a little awkward at first. There were four of us, and we really didn’t know what to do. So, since I am the one who put the whole thing together, I just started out by telling them WHY I did it, and what I wanted to gain from it. Then each of the others told their story about why they were there and what they needed to get. That got the ball rolling, and from there we just kept going.

One of the ladies had her three children with her. She told us that the kids were enrolled in a Spanish Immersion school, and she was just trying to keep up with them. Two of the kids spent their time browsing the bookstore and playing with toys they had brought with them. Her oldest son, however, actually sat with us at the table and participated in our group discussions. His name is Jackson, and he was awesome. I love that kid! If I were to have a son, I’d want him to be exactly like Jackson. He was very respectful and polite, and yet confident enough to not only answer questions in full sentences, but to even ask his own questions and contribute to the conversation. And he was only 13 years old! At the end of our meeting, he said that he had fun and wanted to be a part of the group from now on. Go Jackson!

Another lady told us that she had recently taken a DNA test and found out that she was 100% Spanish. Apparently, she had been adopted and had not known that about herself. She felt the need to connect with her roots by learning her native tongue.

The third person in our group was a Sophomore in high school who was teaching herself to speak Spanish (she already knew how to Sign fluently). She was painfully shy and barely spoke above a whisper, but by the end of our meeting she warmed up enough to even ask some questions.

And then, of course, there’s me – struggling to learn a new language so I can go meet up with my friend Marina down in Argentina.