Wednesday, December 8, 2010
gosti
the words "otevam na gosti" literally mean "to pay a visit." Now I'm sure I've blogged about this before but I think I neglected to talk about one aspect that is kinda interesting to me and that is the leaving part. The longer I'm here the more I think there is skill involved in knowing when to leave. I don't have it and it doesn't bother me because I'm still integrating and getting to know people and it gives me a chance to use my B. However I will say that when someone leaves it is usually what I would call suddenly. Ok granted my B isn't the best, and usually unless I tell someone to repeat what they said I don't follow anyway because they speak so fast I get lost, and lots of people here also speak Turkish, and I don't, so it's quite understandable why it might come as a total surprise to me when someone gets up to leave. But usually there are signs that can be recognized in any language. I can't even tell you what they are but usually it's kinda obvious when someone is about ready to leave in the states. I had gosti's over the weekend(yea me!) and was totally absorbed in the conversation, you can be absorbed in the conversation even when you have no idea what they're saying, and then everyone got up to leave. Now there are words that talk about leaving or going that I can recognize but I don't hear them being said. Like I said before it's quite possible that because of the language barrier there's a lot I'm missing but it still seems like I could see some of the signs and think "oh this person is getting ready to leave" or whatever but I have yet to! when you're a gosti there's always something to drink and several different things to eat. Chocolates are big over here and little cake type things, kinda like little debbie cakes. sometimes you have banitsa but I think that's not usual for "just a regular" gosti. then again I'm not from here and I don't cook so I can't really say. Maybe it is more usual I just tell myself that so I won't feel bad when I don't make it for my gosti's! love and hugs!
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Your blog made me chuckle, and then I remembered... Me speaking... and a group of 2 and 1/2 year old yapping, and suddenly, one by one they find something much more interesting to do and walk away without warning......
ReplyDeleteI do thing you are right about the language barrier though!
As you first learn a language, you really pick up familiar words in a sentence/conversation and make some sense of it all. Occasionally you pick up a new word.
Soon you will be very good at getting nuances between words, sentence structures and intonations and hopefully at this point you will realize that people are not leaving because they are bored with you (just kidding).....
On another note,
Have you thought about serving American type finger food at your Gosti? Considering the success of your Thanksgiving dinner(Congratulations by the way), it seems people are just as eager to learn from you as you from them! Just a thought.....