On the Importance of the Letter "R"

Ernesto and I have been busy, busy, busy these past few weeks, hence our absence from the blogosphere.  I have been temporarily working part-time at the Institute creating the budgets and itineraries for all of our academic programs.  It's tedious, detail-oriented, anal-retentive work - my cup of tea!

It's been a great experience to learn more about the administrative side of programs, how money is allocated, and how demanding clients (especially professors!) can be.

The job requires me to work very closely with the woman who does all the logistics for the Institute.  I create the itinerary, the budget, and check availability of transport, lodging, tours, etc.  Once the client agrees on the itinerary and price, she makes all the calls to reserve and confirm bookings.  Since I'm new to the job and know little about the providers with whom we work, I've relied on her heavily to help me learn the ropes.  I also work closely with the Financial Director, doña Zori, who makes sure that all of the budgets I create or modify are correctly calculated.  She's the second pair of eyes that keeps me from making some catastrophic mistake that could run this place into the ground.  Doña Zori is 60+ years of age and given a certain amount of respect.  No one else here is referred to using the honorific "doña" or "don", which is equivalent to calling someone "Miss Zori" or "Mr. Ernesto".

I spend several hours each week with each of these women, neither of whom speaks English.  For this reason (among others), the job has also served as a continuous Spanish lesson.  I learned the words presupuesto (budget), tarifa (rate/quote), itinerario (itinerary), impuestos (taxes), and imprevistos (unforeseen expenses) within the first hour of working here.

Below is an example of one such important Spanish lesson learned on the job:

Yesterday one of the women taught me the infinitive "cargar", which means "to charge" - as in, "How much do you charge?"  As you can imagine, this is a handy verb to know when discussing budgets.

Referring to a specific line in a budget and eager to try out my new, very helpful verb, I asked both doña Zori and Maria Estela (the woman who will soon take over my job), "¿Nosotros cagamos mas para este servicio?" or "Do we charge more for this service?"

Both women looked at me with tilted  heads and asked me to repeat what I had said.  Knowing that my accent is sometimes strong and difficult to understand, I spoke louder and more slowly, annunciating every syllable:  "¿No-so-tros ca-ga-mos mas pa-ra es-te ser-vi-ci-o?".

Both women erupted in laughter and I, still clueless, thought that the answer to my question must have been so obvious that the question itself was comical.

Then Maria Estela explained to me the importance of the "r".

The verb cagar means "to shit."  The verb cargar means "to charge".

I had asked them whether we shit extra for this service.

Fortunately, neither was offended.  Rather, I suspect that for the remainder of my tenure here, we will shit for all of our services, since they find the thought of this much more amusing than actually charging for services.

I'm not sure why verbs associated with excretory processes are so problematic for my tongue.  I still continually mispronounce hornear (to bake) like urinar (to pee).  I have peed many delicious desserts since living here and will probably shit as many services.