I have just gotten done with my Portugese lesson for the day and in about 4 months that is all I am going to be hearing. Not only will I have to hear what other people are saying, but I am going to have to take what they say put it into my brain and comprehend what they are saying. After that I then have to formulate an intelligent answer and then resite it back to them in Portugese. This is probably one of the most difficult adjustments that I will have to go through. I have taken one on one classes but i truly feel as if i got the most minimal exposure from that experience. Con is great he is always helpful when ever i ask him to translate or how to say a word. However he is not going to be by myside all the time nor should he have to be.
I went to Brazil last year for a two week vacation. Con wanted me see how the country and more importantly his hometown was and to see if this is somewhere I could live. Well I went and it is a beautiful town. I really didn't feel a difference from being in the states where i grew up. The one thing I will never forget in my life was the transfer in Sao Paulo to catch the connecting flight into Rio. Trying to navigate my way around the airport with out knowing any portugese and by myself was one of the most stressful and lonesome feeling I have ever felt in my life and would not want to wish that on anyone. When I got back to the USA I was talking to Con about how I truly had a much greater respect for him and anyone else coming to the USA and not being able to speak our language.
I know that in the begining Con will be with me and he will have to translate for me, but as times goes by we will both have to go to work and we wont be spending every second of the day together. Not only that If I want to go just go to the store and buy a few things or even just taking a walk; I would want to be able to go without hesitation and not worried if someone is going to come up to me and ask me a quetion. Of course I know how to say I dont speak Portugese but that is not how I want to live.
It is funny thing, I have this reoccuring dream that I have been in Brazil for sometime now and I come back to the US to visit my folks. We are having a conversation and without me even knowing it I am speaking to them in Portugese. I pause for a moment becuase they are looking at me funny and not saying a word which is very unusual for my mother. I then realized that I was not speaking English to them. That is where I wake up.
On that note althought it is going to be a lengthy process I will master the language and it will become so natural to me that i wont even relize I am speaking it even in America. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN....
****The most successful marriages, gay or straight, even if they begin in romantic love, often become friendships. It's the ones that become the friendships that last.”
---Andrew Sullivan
***Os matrimônios mais bem sucedidos, alegres ou diretos, mesmo se eles começarem no amor romântico, muitas vezes tornam-se amizades. São aqueles que se tornam as amizades isto dura.”
---Andrew Sullivan
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