First Days in Maracaibo

I spent some time trying to decide how I should start my first blog post in Venezuela. There are so many things that I'd love to share with everyone, but that would make my blog post go very long... And they're usually already long enough. So I'm just going to write. I don't know if there will be any flow or structure, but there will be thoughts. Thoughts written out from the bottom of my heart: because I love Maracaibo.

Week 1

Arrival

Upon arriving we had some problems getting through immigration and customs. Our Visas were changed from 90 to 30 days by the immigration officer checking our documents. By law, he's not allowed to do that, but we weren't going to argue with him. What were we going to say anyways? "No bueno! No bueno, senor!" We would've been sent home immediately. And there would be no chichas or pabellon or arepas or anything!

I've had to make few decisions for myself since coming here, usually those being choice of food... And actually, that's only happened once... So pretty much there have been no decisions made for myself by myself yet, which is good.

... Let me just stop this blog post for a second to tell a quick story that happened while working on this post. Andrea, our roommate, speaks as much English, as I speak Spanish (So, basically, not enough). Our conversations consist of some form of "What's up" and "Como Estas" followed by one word answers or longer answers with many hand gestures. We're both sitting at this table working on our laptops when I walk over to give my speakers to my teammates, so they can play the movie on louder speakers. They turned the volume up as loud as they could, which apparently wasn't very loud for Maracuchan standards.

As I'm about to sit down, Andrea starts speaking to me in Spanish. I understand one word: "movie".. And that's about all I got. After 3 minutes of back and forth, she types it into Google Translate which did a terrible job of translating, but I got an idea of what she was talking about through context clues and gesturing. I tell you, I'm going to be good at all games that require no talking after this trip. We finally, after 10 minutes and Lissy's help, communicated that she wanted us to know she didn't mind how loud we had the movie volume. At least I think that was the conclusion.

This was actually better than most conversations Andrea and I have had which usually end in me quietly whispering bueno after not understanding a word she says, or her just looking at me very confused. We ended our talk today explaining to each other in our non-native languages, that we were going to slowly learn each other's language. To that we high-fived in success!

Welcome Party

Last night (Sept. 14) we were welcomed with a party and worship, Maracuchan style. It was Hippie themed...

They don't normally dress like this, in case you were culturally unaware of all things Non-American

At first, it was hard to talk with anyone who didn't know at least some English. Every conversation is pretty much the same. 

Me: "Hola, como se llama?"... 

Me: "Que estudias?"...  

Me: "Ahh Bueno..."
-Time to move on, because I can't ask you anything else-

I got to lead worship by playing guitar and singing some more well known Christian worship songs. It was awesome to connect over this, as the songs I played were known by them - just in Spanish. A dance party broke out, and soon I was swept onto the dance floor... Now, I don't know if it's like a required class that they must take or what, but pretty much every Maracuchan knows how to dance (and dance well). As I danced with the Maracuchans that night, I realized one thing: I may not be able to communicate with them via words, but I can through music and dancing. And I guess that's good enough for now.

Just as an update, since I'm finishing this blog a few days later from when I started: Andrea and I had another quick conversation. Neither of us could communicate with the other in either Spanish or English, but enough words were spoken. Words like 'Day', 'Good', 'Classes', and 'Eat'.

That's all we really needed. At least 3 complete thoughts were shared and understood to some extent. Honestly, there's probably some thick-accented Americans that I would probably get less out of. But I look forward to the day where many complete thoughts will be shared with many Maracuchans. Preferably over some delicious chicha:

This is what the chicha looks like.. Except instead of a nice fancy cup, it's a cheap plastic one