Where is Rosetta?

Terry is in pretty thick with Rosetta. They have a very close relationship. He's more religious about studying his Spanish with her than I am. He religiously sets aside time each day for lessons and goes through numbers, vocabulary, grammar and reading books in Spanish with the translator. In addition to his close relationship with Rosetta, he also uses his Kindle for reading Spanish books and uses Think Spanish, Study Spanish, and Berlitz. But he really wants to meet Rosetta out on the streets in Merida. He's always asking me "where in the heck is Rosetta?". He wants to meet up with her and have the perfect conversation with her. The perfect Spanish he studies, with the perfect Spanish words, and with the perfect grammar don't prepare him for socializing and discussing with the real workers and the real ladies and gentlemen living down our real street in real La Ermita. 

If he could only meet up with Rosetta Stone on the street! 

Everybody in La Ermita is friendly enough. We get smiles and greetings all the time. We get lots of questions about where our house is located, where we are from originally, and questions about family. Yesterday we took a late afternoon walk down to the Chedraui for groceries. Late afternoons are a good time to go out because it's when our neighbors are all out socializing. On the way home, we walked by a couple of elderly gentlemen sitting on the curb. They stopped us for a chat. Interestingly, they already knew where our house was here in La Ermita. We were told where to go for fresh seafood, given directions on how to get there, and what time to be there. It was about a 15 minute conversation, but while we picked up on the seafood talk, we still don't know what about half the conversation was truly about. We catch some words of the sentences and nod our heads as we both say "Si, si, si." But, nobody you meet around here ever, never  speaks Spanish like Rosetta. Terry is convinced Rosetta Stone DOES NOT exist past that voice he hears on his computer. Now if you took Rosetta Stone and filled her mouth with marbles you would have not so much what people speak, but what we hear.  I'm pretty sure Terry is in the market for the marble-mouthed edition of Rosetta Stone if anybody knows where to get it.

We've had a lot of discussion with the workers since the construction projects around here are growing in number. It has been the textbook learning experience, ie, we've learned Spanish based on need. We've learned the words for shelf, steep, and a whole number of other words because we've had no choice. Grammar - not so important. Sorry, Rosetta. 

We recently met a new guy in the neighborhood. Ferdi is originally from here but had left 14 years ago and lived in the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, and Chicago. His immediate family is  in Canada. He came back and opened up a small ice cream factory and storefront. We've gone in the back and seen his equipment and where he actually makes the ice cream. We've eaten his very tasty mango ice cream. He knows about the Blue Bell Creamery. And now he has taken a second job where he is gone during the week, and has somebody running the ice cream tienda. How do we know so much about him? He speaks perfect English. We try conversing with him in Spanish, and he talks to us in English. We then just revert back to speaking English...mission unaccomplished.

But, we keep it up. Terry studies and I receive most of my lessons through osmosis while he studies.  And, I do study vocabulary and grammar but just not as religiously. I guess we'll know we're there when other people hear us talking in Spanish and it sounds marble-mouthed to them.