Almost the Ides of March

Last week, on Tuesday, three gunmen opened fire on a bank in Monteverde, a beautiful and peaceful little town here. Two of them were killed in the initial shooting, but one made it inside the bank and took hostages. Before it was all over, 9 people were killed and 17 injured. The surviving would-be-robber surrendered to police after holding hostages for 28 hours. The assailants were from a Nicaraguan gang that police think had robbed several banks in Costa Rica in the past year.

Aside from the violence and shock of such a thing happening in so small and peaceful a place as Monteverde, what strikes me about this event is how I managed to miss it entirely. In my house I have cable t.v., and I watch CNN occasionally. From that news broadcast I gathered that what had happened in the world last week was that Michael Jackson's trial began. That's about it. I try to watch Spanish-speaking tv shows sometimes, for practice listening, but I haven't found the local news on tv yet. And of course, the international press doesn't seem to pay much attention to Central America, as far as I can tell. I must get better at picking up the local papers, because it wasn't until last night, reading Friday's edition of the Tico Times--an English language weekly--that I fully understood the story.

I am getting very tired of my continued suckiness in Spanish. I just can't speak. I open my mouth in class and little squeaks of words creep out. At first I was sort of amused by this, but now I am just tired of it. Today I was thinking of something, and realized that instead of trying to find the Spanish word for it, I was thinking of the French word. This is alarming when you understand that I know about 28 French words. "Moi?" Si. Oh, it's a bad, bad jumble in my head right now. I have at least mastered the daily "Coma esta?" "Muy bien, y usted?" that greets me when I get to school. And the very nice woman who sells the coffee always smiles so kindly to me when I say "gracias", responding, "con mucho gusto." But oh, verbs. My teacher almost clapped aloud today when I said "mis ojos son azul" because I used the right form of the verb, but I don't think she knew that I had just read it on a handout. I did not generate that verb form on my own. I could do that, had I about three minutes to think things through. Unfortunately, conversation at school moves more quickly than that and in the real world moves so fast that I give up, resorting to my happy little phrases.

So, in summary, this shit is hard. My sister had an incredible gift for languages. My brother seems to. And me? I got zip. Nada. Ah, what can you do?

Et tu, Brute? Oh wait, that's for tomorrow. And it's sure not Spanish.

take care, all.