I've started a continuing education class in literature at ITESO, partly because I get an employee discount and partly to force myself to speak more Spanish. Unfortunately, it is a 3 hour class after I finish work on Fridays. Last night was our first session, and we started with Agustín Yañez, who I didn't know, but is apparently a native son of Guadalajara who is important in Mexican literature. My Spanish skills have been flagging lately, so I was a little nervous about joining the class, especially after the teacher started talking about how Yañez is remarkable for his immense range of vocabulary including a lot of typically Guadalajaran words that are now anachronistic. I stuck it out pretty well for the first hour though, listening in silence with most of the class not realizing that I'm a foreigner. And then my mind began to wander as she read a long autobiographical account of Yañez's childhood growing up in Barrio de Santuario...what pulled me back was the teacher going around the room asking everyone: ¿Usas avión o bebeleche?
Okay, the teacher is asking us a question. Avión= airplane, bebeleche=either baby milk or drink milk, which syllable is she stressing? Wait, either way the question makes absolutely no sense!
Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to have an immediate answer. I felt like I was the applicant in the Monty Python sketch about the job interview. I was afraid that if I confessed that I didn't know what was going on, it would prove that I didn't speak enough Spanish to be in the class, so I was preparing to answer "avión". Luckily she gave up asking before she got to me. My senses were very acute for the next few minutes, and making use of this adrenaline fueled acumen, I pieced together that these are two alternative names for the game of hopscotch. I definitely dodged a bullet; if I'd answered "avión" as planned, I rather doubt that anyone in the room would have believed I called it that in the barrio where I grew up.
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