One of the main reasons why I wanted to do international volunteering was to improve my Spanish. Despite having studied Spanish for a combined 6 years in high school and college, despite trips and studies in El Salvador, Mexico, and Spain, I’ve never felt quite comfortable with actually using it. On all my trips, overwhelmed by having to decipher actual Spanish-speakers who spoke fast and with correct accents, I retreated into the safety of my numerous English-speaking companions, only using it when I had to and happily delegating local interaction to others. Knowing that I hadn’t fully immersed myself in these places, that I hadn’t challenged myself to put the knowledge I knew I had to use, I came to Nicaragua determined to improve my Spanish.

So, now that I’m 14 months in, where am I now? I realized this while riding the bus recently on the way to work: I’m doing pretty well! Interestingly enough, if you use the language you want to learn, you learn it. I’ve found myself able to make conversation with strangers, friends of friends, taxi drivers, you name it. I can understand pretty much anyone, and my ability follow conversations between Nicaraguans (even if I’m just overhearing them– NO, IT’S NOT EAVESDROPPING!) is improving more and more. I can form more and more complex sentences, am able to respond faster and more coherently, and my on-the-fly conjugation, while it has its off days, is pretty damn good (if I do say so myself). People tell me that I speak good Spanish, they compliment me on my accent… it’s great!

What I’m most proud of, though, is that it’s not just Spanish I’m getting the hang of; it’s Nicaraguan. And Nicaraguan is a different beast altogether (just as Salvadoran/Mexican/whateverSpanishspeakingcountry is different). It’s the slang (“¡qué tuani, mae!“) it’s the double-meanings (that result in uproarious laughter whenever I fall into them), it’s the pronunciation and accent, it’s the different cultural connotations of certain words and the contexts in which they can be used (it’s also a never-ending process; I find myself continuously altering little details of knowledge, and I’ve come to more than a few realizations that something I thought was totally innocuous is actually kind of strong). And for me, understanding Nicaraguan Spanish, and what makes it uniquely Nicaraguan, has been and still is a critical part of my acculturation process. Language expresses the values, and perspectives of a culture and the individuals within it; when I ask someone how they’re doing, and instead of answering “fine,” or “ok,” they say “allí vamos” (more or less “we’re getting there”), it expresses a forward-looking optimism that embraces the struggle of life and believes that there is something to be struggled for. Understanding what people say to me and how they say it means I have the ability to understand them as people. And understanding them means I can build relationships with them, bridge those gaps of culture, distance, history, privilege, etc. Language grants me access (albeit not total and definitely not objective) to the Nicaraguan experience in a way that can’t be understood by just seeing it on TV or in photos.

a photo with my boy Melvin, and a little Halloween costume language joke. Gallo… pinto. Get it?

Which brings me to the picture I posted above. “Quip kalm end espic Espanglish.” These days, I stick in Spanish words whenever they’re more convenient; “I took advantage of” is now “I aprovechar‘d,” “You dressed up all fancy!” is now “You’re all arreglada/o!” There’s also certain things that I just can’t say anymore. If anyone reading this could shoot me an email and give me one word to call someone who has a taste for the finer, more expensive things in life and is very reluctant to ever let them go, that’d be awesome. Until then, though, I’m gonna call these people fresas.

One would think that this loss of English might be concerning, considering that my current plans are to return to the United States permanently following the end of my 30 months here in Nica. I, however, look at it differently. I, and other volunteers (shout out to my wonderful Volunteer Missionary Movement, Witness for Peace and Jesuit friends) speak Spanish all day in our jobs, and when we hang out with our Nicaraguan friends and neighbors. And eventually, our language changes; we all navigate Spanish and English so well that they start to mix, and for me, it’s almost like we have a secret volunteer language that allows us to express ourselves much more clearly and accurately to each other than in either Spanish or English. What Espanglish shows me is that we are successfully building relationships we are here to make, bridging the gaps that we are here to cross. It shows me that we are leaving ourselves open to learning, that we are vulnerable and letting ourselves be changed, that we are staying present and really living here. We alter our beliefs, our values, and our perspectives, and we alter our language.