Como Se Dice?

June 30, 2010


Artifacts dug up during a recent
construction project.



Check out the detail on the head.

Our neighbor Bobby is building a house across the street and it’s coming along well. He’s got a very loyal crew, who show up early and always seem to be laughing as they work.  In the course of digging the hole for his foundation and cistern, a number of Indian artifacts have been uncovered.This morning he brought some of them over to show us.  

The oldest civilizations in Ecuador settled along the coast here about 4000 to 5000 years ago. The Valdivian Culture is probably the most notable, though there were a number of others. 

The Incas didn’t push north into Ecuador until about 1500-1600 A.D., and then only into the Andes. They never made it here to the coast, as far as I've read. We don’t know how to identify or date these artifacts, but all of us find them fascinating.*

Todd and I are determined to learn Spanish.  I took four years in high school, but that was a long time ago; Todd has never taken a Spanish course, but he has a natural ear for it, and frequently understands what is being spoken better than I do.  Together, we get by.

We’ve had the Rosetta Stone for awhile, but that is boooring, though I know it is effective for many.  Daily immersion is undoubtedly the best way to go, but we want to supplement it with homework and disciplined practice each day.  We have homemade index flash cards, and add at least five new words or phrases daily, with the idea that we would set aside a certain amount of time to run through them.



Thinking of you.



Best laid plans, I suppose.  Last night was our first serious night of “homework”, which blew up into a huge argument because SOMEBODY was “conjugating the words too much” and SOMEBODY ELSE couldn’t handle a few extra verbs and idioms slipped into the deck.

The other thing I’m trying to understand is what is being said over the town’s loud speakers periodically.  The speakers’ tinny sound makes comprehension even more difficult. It could be as innocuous as “there’s going to be a pot-luck at the Catholic Church on Wednesday”, or perhaps “the egg truck will be here later today.”  It is very hard to understand even a few words. 
For all we are aware, they could announce “a tsunami is coming – run for your lives” and we wouldn’t know it.

* Finders' keepers, apparently, but authentic artifacts are not allowed to leave the country legally.

Because this is much more interesting
than the one I took of the flash cards