Mañana mañana is the Latin term for yes, you’ll have it, but it will come tomorrow. Or perhaps the next day. Or the one after that. Every day I practice the saying, without even knowing it. As I wait for the bus, and my kids to get out of the bathroom, and for the check to come in the mail, I wonder when are ever not waiting?

A few days ago, Coco and I went to Pequeno Mundo as a diversion from waiting around and being “bored” as my daughter told me. We headed out to replace a mirror Addison had broken in the excitement of seeing his full-length reflection.

When we walked in to the barn-like store, I saw the lines stacked up at the check-out. “I hope those are gone by the time we’re ready to go.” Pequeno Mundo is the store that sells most things we can do without in life, but we convince ourselves we need them. Candles, cans of corn from Thailand, plastic bins that have misfitting lids, screwdrivers that really can’t hold their turn very well, and so on.

The lines were not gone when we were ready to leave. Trying not to get too picky, we strolled our cart to isle seven and began the wait. Then, after about ten minutes, the clerk disappeared. Then after another ten minutes, the clerk still remained missing. We were trapped. I looked up and down and every isle was packed. If we backed our cart up and started over again, inevitably the clerk would reappear, and we’d be waiting even longer in some other line. After another ten minutes, Coco said she was having fun though her legs hurt and she was hungry.

The woman who was checking out had a bad credit card or something. We never did get to the bottom of it. On the way home to get an ice cream, we got stuck behind a bus. And another one. Coco’s fun had ended back in the parking lot, and she whined about how long it was taking to get to the ice cream store.

I have a feeling all we ever really do is wait. We might as well all start practicing the patience of mañana mañana, goodness knows we all need it.

Whether in Costa Rica or New York, we’ve got to bring with us our stuff. No matter what stage of my life I’ve been in, I seem to always be hauling a cart. On the airplane, I’ve always got more to pull along than others. I’m amazed at those with the single fanny pack. I admire people who get it all in one bag. I even had a job once that ran out of office space when it came to me, they gave me a cart. Just find a space that’s open I was told.

With my car in for another adjustment, I pull my orange cart out and take it from the kid’s school to the grocery store to the pharmacy. One night, a rat crawled into my garage and must have discovered something I’d neglected to take out of the bag after shopping. The little rodent chewed a huge hole right through the bottom. Now, I’ve got to be sure I don’t put a wandering avocado on the bottom.

Few people stop for pedestrians in Costa Rica. Being pregnant or crippled doesn’t always add to the advantage either. Having a cart surely gets no exceptions. I have to fight my way across like the rest of the world as I lug my stuff to it’s next stop.

I go through phases or trying to downsize and get sleek. It never seems to work. Between diapers and snacks and water and my camera and…..I’ll be pulling more than my share for a while to come.

Me: Coco you better not chew on your cheek or you’ll get that sore again.

Coco nods. But keeps chomping on the inside of her mouth.

Me: Remember how much that hurt when you scraped the inside of your mouth?

Coco nods again.

Me: Do you want to think about not doing it?

Coco: But Mom! I’ve got lip hang. I can’t help it!

Lip hang. Who says I’m only learning new words in Spanish. Cielos!

I remember sitting on the porch with friends years ago. A four year old girl approached me and began speaking in French. After she finished, she noticed the odd look on my face. Her father told her I spoke English. The girl switched languages with out missing a beat. From that day on, I knew I wanted to give my kids something I never had - bilingualism.

A new study came out trying to figure out why kids learn languages so early. To follow suit, the media has added reports about how we can make our kids bilingual. Moving to a Spanish speaking country was a very dramatic way to give my kids two mother-tongues. That includes Addison.

He understands two languages better than I do. The muscles in his face are slower to follow suit, thus the formation of words come according to his ability to make a hard “c” sounds or snake his tongue around the “s.”

The great beauty of two languages bouncing around the house is that no one gives a second thought to who’s getting confuses about what. As I’ve written before, I think the Spanish and English offer a benefit to the kids because they can chose and stress the word that they can pronounce. For instance, Coco’s first word was agua - not water. But she soon learned to say water not long after. Addison says azul instead of blue and si instead of yes and vaca instead of cow. It’s fascinating, interesting, and enjoyable to watch the little neurons connect in their brains, sending gleeful messages and smiles to their faces.

I taught Coco sign language just because it was so fun. We all still use it as a tool in noisy rooms or when we shouldn’t speak so long. I get to wiggle my fingers in the word “wait” and it holds me back from screaming at her instead.

If I could throw a third and fourth language in there, I would. The child at that party that spoke French and English also spoke Greek. It was humbling. It took me years to get over feeling so stupid. I do not think kids get as confused as we think about languages. I think kids get confused at the things inside the words we say. And at the one language that almost needs no translation: our actions.

Because Addison sleeps with an oxygen hose, I wake up a lot at night. The little nubs pop out of his nose. I think it must only be angels that wake me up as I often jump with a start for no reason only to reach over and find that all the tape I’ve stuck to his face wasn’t enough. When I get up so often in the middle of the night, I figure I need to lay off the exercise because I burn all my calories while crawling around on his bed and jumping up to check the oxygen machine.  But since he’s getting stable and I’m waking up two or three times rather than ten, I’ve decided to put my toe back into my running shoes.

Granted, it’s only thirty minutes, but it feels like a big plus. And though I look totally ridiculous running up hill, I look like I might at one time have been an athlete when I’m running down hill. What I’d forgotten about running is how many times I get asked directions.

The other day a taxi driver slowed down to ask me where a calle was. I had no idea and pointed him into the direction of a guard down the street. The minute he left I said shoot because I messed up the language again.

When I first arrived here, I would plot exactly what I was going to say as I approached the cashier:

Good morning.

Yes, here is my points card.

Could someone help me with this large bottle of water?

Thank you and have a nice day.

And then, out of the blue, the person would ask me something and throw me off track like a derailed boxcar like  - Nice purse you have there. Where did you get it?

I was so new at the language, I couldn’t think fast on my feet. If I didn’t plan what I was going to say, I’d misunderstand the singsong syllables that came streaming out of the person’s mouth. Most of the time I’d freeze and stand that just looking stupid. Really stupid.

As I pointed the taxi driver to go down the street, I said every thing right…until the last word. Derecho - should have been derecha. I was explaining that the guard shack was on the right - la mano derecha. Derecha must have an “a” to match the feminine of the word hand. However, mano is a tricky one as even though it ends with an “o” it is feminine, thus all adjectives and articles describing it must be feminine. This explanation is actually what goes on in my head, in nanoseconds, when I talk. I sometimes get it right and often get it wrong.

Then, as the man drove away and I was biting my tongue, I thought: No. Maybe I was right after all. Ticos tend to say la mano derecha but other Spanish countries say el lado derecho. In the latter, I’d be back using the “o” instead of the “a.” (Lado means side.)

Oh that masculine and feminine thing. It’s a tough concept for those of us who’ve grown up with all nouns created equal. Running doesn’t use any calories compared to learning a new language.

If I make a mistake in Spanish, Coco is quick to correct me. The thing is - I asked for it. We were stuck in a traffic jam today and what is normally called a road was turned into one very, long parking lot. I needed another oxygen tank for Addison.

After not moving for fifteen minutes, I called the tiny shop that sells home office “human” repair supplies like hospital beds and oxygen machines and begged the young man to stay open a few minutes in case I was late.

When I said the word nadia to indicate no one was moving. Coco shouted out the correct form of nobody, which is nadie.

For some reason, my Spanish has taken an extra deep nose dive. I suppose it might be the overload of medical terms:

oxygen  -  oxígeno
level - nivel
thermostat - termóstato
temperature - temperatura
lungs - pulmones
phlegm - flema

Or perhaps it’s having to stare deeply into a medical professionals eyes and figure out basic life and death situations in a language I can’t even say I’m fluent in. But I’m getting better. I now longer call a carrot - zanahoria - a mosquito - zancudo. And if I ever get out of line, I have my own personal, shouting, exuberant instructor to correct me.

Every neighborhood supports a shrine. The choosing of the patron depends on the mothers and fathers from many years ago who decided that St. Joseph or the Virgin Mary or St. Christopher would stand vigil at the entrance to their homes.

Along mountain drives thin dirt, and sometimes paved, roads dip down the sides of the hills like veins of gold. An amazing amount of people live down these crooked paths. I occasionally visit my nannies in their homes and my car has to do a nose dive to make it down these hills. Crawling back up them is an adventure in itself.

House upon house pile into the hillsides like marbles stuck in a crack in the driveway. A barbed wire fence or a gate sometimes is all that separates one from another. It is not surprising to find a thousand homes nestled along these steep roads.

Many parks also have a shrine. This lady was once well adorned with many flowers in a small park I used to live by.  I suspect the ritual of leaving flowers rises and falls with the economic times. Or perhaps, as with many customs, the old tita that once cleaned and cared for this custom has passed on.

In a neighborhood I used to live in, the maid used to bring my “almost finished flowers” from vases to the base of our neighborhood shrine. Now, she looks a bit lonely though I see she still manages to find a light from above that shines upon her. And perhaps, that old tita has finally caught up with her.

*Tita is the nickname for grandma. And of course tito is grandpa.

When one language lacks a good way of something, another language has a way of filling the gap. What would life be without the taco? Or voilà? Magic shows wouldn’t be the same without it. After over a decade of trying to figure out the Spanish language, I’m hoping a whole new crop of words crosses the border.

Ya - means already:

Now that form of already can take on almost any meaning and adapt to the situation at hand. It is pronounced with a kind of soft “ja” for the “y.” In Costa Rica, it’s used as often as rice is cooked. Ya ya ya - all right already!  Ya basta - enough already! Ya voy - I’m going already - Ya vengo - I’m already coming (one of my favorites). The words in English are too long and arduous. Ya is short; to the point; and voice inflection can change the meaning in a split second. Add a hand gesture, wow, it’s like a linguist’s slice of heaven.

Entonces - means so:

So then; so then tell me already (combine that with the above and now we’re talking fun); so then what was next?; so then you mean…;and on and on. The great thing about this segue is we can skip all those other words and linger on the “s.” It’s much simpler that way.

Pura Vida:

Every person, around the world, should say at least once - pura vida - the good life. Poo-da  vee-da. Pura vida can be used for a simple hello; a how’s it going; it’s going fine; and thank goodness - I still think life is grand.

The Spanish language offers so much more than just the taco and burrito. What language couldn’t use a pura vida?

I am compelled to do a spring cleaning even though this is technically not spring in Costa Rica. Perhaps it’s been bred into me from my winter homeland. Between stirring the stew and mixing the salad, I’m pulling out the furniture and digging out the dirt from deep underneath the stuff I keep in my life.

The other day while Coco was doing her homework, I pulled off the lid to a bathroom vent fan. The grates were covered with a greasy dust. While I was up there, I wiped off the light bulbs and ran a rag down the frame of a photo of Arenal volcano I have hanging behind the toilet. (The volcano is erupting of course - fitting I thought.)

I moved on to the kitchen and half way between cleaning, Addison needed a snack. I abandoned a pile of dust, crusty food, and upside down, dead cockroaches in the middle of the floor to get his agua de pipa and cheese chunks.

The nanny walked into the kitchen and saw the pile.  ¿Quién encontró al diablo? She said. I stopped in my tracks. Did she just say say: Who found the devil? I asked her to repeat it as she reached for the broom. Sure enough.

A saying in Costa Rica is that the devil hides underneath and behind things. He’s not sitting out in the open with his pitchfork in hand. When you move things and get behind to see the dirt and junk, the devil can no longer hide.

No wonder I feel so good after cleaning. Can’t wait to see what I find behind the dryer.

One of the most common words I hear is a lie. Mentira. In the on-goings of our busy day, I will hear about a lie, who lies, or the word lie expressed in some form or another.

Of course when I first heard this I thumbed through my fat Spanish/English dictionary and found that mentira means lie. When I got confused is throughout the day people would use the expression: mentira mentira mentira - always three times and said quickly and usually to children. Why was everyone calling everyone else a liar, especially the kids?

That’s where life can get lost in the transaltion. Understanding language needs, in my humble opinion, the expression of action needs to go along with audio. If you’ve ever just arrived to a new country and are trying to listen to that “kind-of-sexy-yet-robotic” voice of the answering machine lady, do you just stare in horror as she rattles off your options? You couldn’t even understand the word one or pick out the word four!  All that money on Spanish/French/Chinese lessons right down the drain. Fear not. It’s not you, it’s the learning curve. Add the visual, and you’ve got a chance.

So I watched the nannies and others use this term over and over. It is most used when Addison protests. For example if he is playing a delightful game of “Crazy Eight Diego” at his breakfast table and needs to get dressed for school and starts screaming at the top of his lungs to express the feeling: No! I dont’ want to! I don’t want to stop doing what I’m doing! Leave me alone! A nanny will say: mentira mentira mentira. (There’s not even enough pause to put a comma.)

Now to call someone a mentiroso - a liar - is mean and people usually mean it. Miente mas que habla means he lies through his teeth. And parace mentira means it seems unbelievable. After amalgamating all these forms of the word and listenting to it for years and watching the interactions and expressions of those that say it and listen, I think I’ve finally got the meaning down.

The funny thing is….I feel funny using it. When a person says mentira mentira mentira to a child, it is this cultures style of language to help calm a child and say: No it’s really  not true. I’m not going to destroy you and make you miserable by picking up your deck of cards and putting you into the bathtub. My culture’s language tends to tell it more like is: Yes I know it sucks but you have to take a bath by saying something like - Wow. I know you’re mad, but we’ve got to get dressed or we won’t make the bus.

Which one is better? I’m guessing if we asked Addison he’d choose the card game every time.