I had finished an exhausting day of work on the farm and was
famished. All I wanted to do was eat dinner and go to sleep.
I was teaching them to make roasted potatoes for dinner and
wanted to know when we would be eating so that we would eat them as fresh as
possible. My host dad went to town to sell vegetables and had already been gone
40 minutes.
I asked my host mom when he would be back.
"De aqui a pouco."
I understood this mean "A little while from now."
So I waited.
Ten minutes passed. He wasn't back yet.
Twenty minutes passed. He wasn't back yet.
Half hour passed. No sign.
At this point, I went up to my host mom and asked her again.
"De aqui a pouco." I asked my host brother if my host mom had any
idea when Marcio would be back. He shook his head and laughed.
It was at this moment that I realized "De aqui a
pouco" is the Brazilian equivalent of "Ya mismo."
Anyone who has been to Ecuador or read about my adventures
in Ecuador will no doubt be familiar with that phrase, which is best translated
as "I will happen eventually, probably." It could be five minutes, an
hour, a day, a week, or seven months.
(I was once told in June "Ya mismo llega Navidad.")
When I first arrived in Ecuador, I wanted this to mean
"soon." After a little while, you learn that what you hope the phrase
to mean and what it actually means are drastically different.
Fifteen minutes later, Marcio arrived. I finished cooking
dinner, ate it, and immediately crashed on my bed.
Luckily, I had the prior experience of "ya mismo"
and only let myself get frustrated with "de aqui a pouco" once. The
next day, I was waiting for my host brother to finish digging a well with
Marcio to be able to go to town to use Internet.
When I asked when he would be ready to go, the response was
"de aqui a pouco." At this point, I knew that I had at least an hour
before he would be ready to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment