Say What?

Communication problems are pretty common for us on Roatan and a good incentive for me to continue practicing my Spanish. I have a few words, but not enough to get through every situation. And then there is the local language …

Most of our staff members speak English, Spanish, and a local island patois that is a sort of mix of English, Spanish, and Carribe with strong Southern and Irish undertones. (I think some of this goes back to the pirate history of the place.) They generally speak the local island talk (of which, I catch about every fourth word) with one another and a much clearer English with us and our guests. However, there are still misunderstandings.

Last week, Terren, one of our neighbor’s workers, came over by boat. He found Kevin and announced that Matt needed to borrow a “wow.” Kevin and I looked at each other in bewilderment. We asked him to repeat it several times, but all we could get out of him was a “wow.” We had no idea what it was, so Kevin led him up to our tool bodega to look around. Terren rooted through a few tool boxes until he found a valve.

This made sense in an island way. The islanders tend to switch all their “v”s to “w”s. I’m not sure they use “v”s at all. We first noticed this a while back when the grounds guys started the yearly chore of “warnishing” (varnishing).

Then a few weeks ago, Delia asked me to pick up some nice soap for her at the grocery store. “What kind do you want?” I asked. “Dow,” she replied. I thought about it, and realized she wanted Dove.

We generally do pretty well, but we still are stumped here and there. However, it’s still better than my Spanish.