Welcome, aspiring polyglot, to the second installment of the personal story series. This week a look at my social life in Costa Rica, my experience at the university, and learning to live with a family who doesn’t speak any English.
First, though, I had to get to them, considering there had been a miscommunication and they weren’t there to pick me up at the airport when I landed. Luckily, a couple of years prior, one of my close friends and I spent the summer working together and two of his brothers are deaf. In spending so much time with them, I was able to become rather proficient at sign language and, believe it or not, that is the only thing that saved me that rainy day, trapped in the San Jose airport.
When I had finally collected my thoughts and made a plan, keep in mind I was 17, in a foreign country for the first time in my life, completely alone, with no technology, and I spoke public education high school level Spanish. But panicking never helped anyone accomplish anything, so we forged on and I took my first steps into the rainforest that is Costa Rica.
As per usual, it was raining. It was the rainy season, not yet the really rainy season. Hundreds of people lined the street, attempting to coax you into their taxi or onto their shuttle, for a fee. Knowing what I knew, even my first time abroad, I did everything I could to give off the impression that I was on a mission to find someone there. This warded off most of the people as it wasn’t worth it to go after a target that wouldn’t be easy to convince.
After pacing up and down the sidewalk, I noticed a man signing to someone and a sense of relief took over my body. I all but ran over to him and signed to him asking him for help. By some miracle we were able to communicate and he made a single phone call. Ten minutes later a man pulls up in a taxi. He speaks fluent English. The man who made the call signs to me and wishes me a happy stay. I thank him profusely, get into the taxi, and hand the driver my host family’s “address”. The moral of this story is, you never know when the effort you’re putting into learning a language right now will pay off in the future.
The reason I use quotes here is they don’t have addresses in the same way we do. Rather it’s a description of where they live relative to different landmarks. Luckily for me, my driver was a born and raised tico and knew exactly where to take me. After half an hour, I was at my host family’s front door and the first major crisis had been averted. After settling in and setting up my room, I said goodnight to my host family and sat on the wooden stool, taking a moment to sift through all that had transpired. That’s when my girlfriend called.
One of the things I neglected to think about when I left for Costa Rica is whether or not it would be worthwhile to maintain a romantic relationship stateside. Though I had not originally intended to make any romantic connections during my first excursion abroad, sometimes things like that are out of our control. How was I to know that there were going to be dozens of single, beautiful, college girls attending the same classes as me? For a 17 year old, it was almost like a dream…
More on that next week when we dive into ways you can use languages to flirt and things you should and should not do!