No Entiendo

SANTIAGO, Chile —After 13 hours of flying to Santiago (complete with rowdy representatives from Wal-Mart and the equally vociferous and offensively twangy producers of the “Redneck Roadshow”), the prospect of making broken conversation in my broken Spanish with my Chilean host family proved unappealing.

I mainly cheered ¡sí! or ¡bueno! to their questions, giving an occasional laugh. Finally, I caught a question about having a glass of something and primitively signaled my thirst with a quick head nod. Claudia, my host mother, explained what she was giving me. It resembled lemonade, so I pretended to understand and took a huge swig.

Oh. Oh my.

“Qué es esto?”

“Pisco sour,” Claudia responded.

This thing was stronger than many a freshman Rubinoff concoction. It was a Sunday. It was also 11 AM. Maybe.

My aloof nodding has led me into similar situations thus far. I spent the weekend at a rustic pottery village, when I thought my family was merely taking me out to lunch. I thought I was going out for a customary, jovial carrete with my host brother, but realized I had misunderstood the night’s plans when someone started shaving his leg. He returned home with a (real) homemade calf tattoo, inked on a friend’s twin bed.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong with uttering a meek “no entiendo” here and there.

Translation? I don’t understand.


D. Patrick Knoth ’11, a Crimson associate magazine editor, is a History and Literature concentrator In Pforzheimer House.