FRUSTRATION

I am not the type of person who likes to wait around for things to happen - especially when it comes to communicating. My Spanish is very basic, and very functional. I can understand what people are telling me more now that I have ever been able to. But I CAN’T FREAKING RESPOND!!!!!!!! Right now, I have four to five word sentences, TOPS. Mostly I respond with yes’s or no’s, or an uncomfortable pause and contorted face that means I don’t understand. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I am. People are kind and patient, but how long can they be patient? Hell, I’m not patient! I want to learn! To SPEAK!

I am trying so hard to learn Spanish – I have tons of different types of learning materials, ranging from books, CDs, interactive CDs on the computer – I even put them on my iPod for chrissake!!!! But they just doesn’t seem to be helping. The big problem is that I’ve been here for two flipping months already and Apasco can’t seem to provide their employee with what should be a VERY basic need – CLASSES TO LEARN HOW TO SPEAK! They knew I was coming for 6 months – couldn’t they have arranged it before hand? I gave them the contact of the place that I wanted to work with here, but apparently it’s too expensive (can you PUT a price on being able to communicate?), so they are looking around for other alternatives. Great and flippity dandy. I can’t pester them any more than I already am; you would think that calling once a day is enough. Maybe I have to march at the corporate offices with nothing but hot pink moon boots on shouting through a bull horn to get people to realize how important this is. Crap. So I’ll have to wait another two months until they arrange these alternative classes to start really learning and improving. Hey, maybe I should let them know that a good time to start is when I am already fluent – you know, after I’ve gone through the tumultuous affair of trying to fend by myself in a land of sharks that eat people who don’t speak Spanish.