Published: 16.08.2018
With Sonja, a Dutch woman we met at the language school (including in the salsa class, see photo), we went to the main square of the Getsemani neighborhood where we live in the evening. After buying food at a stand and getting ourselves beers, it wasn't long before a few South Americans started talking to us (Comment Cony: 'We started talking to them but it doesn't matter.'). An older gentleman from Venezuela (Comment Cony: 'Actually, he's Colombian, but he's been working here for a long time'), who is actually a tour guide but can't get a license here, sells beer. a 23-year-old bartender, whose favorite activity is writing love songs for his girlfriend, and a group of young Colombians who studied my German-Spanish dictionary all evening and asked me how to pronounce every other word (Comment Cony: 'And de Pueblo no.'). We talked and talked and talked (and yes, all in Spanish!) and watched people salsa dancing, drinking beer, playing guitar, and it was really awesome! Our Spanish is not great and we keep using the same 30 words over and over again and of course, there is no talk of grammar BUT we can communicate. And we learn... the Colombians are really great! In every store, when queuing up, or on the street, they approach us and as soon as they notice that our Spanish is horrible (which usually happens quickly :P), they speak slowly, in simple sentences, repeat the same sentence patiently ten times, and correct us when we say something wrong (which is always). You learn Spanish here on the street. Actually, pretty much everything happens on the street here. Colombian streets are the shit!