Learning the Language of Love

OK, I admit to being a bit slow to catch on to things sometimes. Someone once told me that "naive" was no longer in the dictionary and I started turning to the N section before my amigo started to bust a gut. Here´s what I have finally figured out: some of the other students are here to learn a little more than I am. Along with the Spanish, some of my classmates are becoming fluent in the language of love (or amor) in San Miguel. Wow! Spanish immersion school is a cover for a hook up service! Who knew?

It´s perfect really. The other students here are mostly either divorced or single and over 35. Spending a month or more in a high-stress immersion environment throws people together like mashed avocados. It`s a fun, cheap way to get to know someone really well. You get to go home when it`s over, no questions asked if you want to.

However, there are a few of us who innocently and naively (there´s that word again) signed up to learn Spanish and we are all getting on merrily regardless of the reason we came here. It´s shocking how much Spanish a person can learn in two weeks even if you could not understand a single thing the instructor was saying on Day 1. I, for example, find I am already able to communicate in a crude but effective fashion. And I can read and comprehend much, much more than that. Amazing.

The other students aren´t impoverished vagabonds, as you might imagine. Pat, a Denver attorney, took a sabbatical to learn Spanish to help him defend his caseload of Latino clients. Sandy and her husband John are retired from the military and they travel all over the world this way; staying with families and immersing themselves in the local culture for months at a time. Neal just sold his company and liquidated his assets in the UK and is staying here for 6 months to recover from a divorce. Camile is a French Canadian company director who decided to master a third language. He has done the immersion school business before and enjoys seeing Latin America this way. Susanna is an artist who decided to live in San Miguel after the pace in New York got too hectic. Now she bakes cookies and sells them in local restaurants. Those are just a few of the profiles of the people in our class. To a person, it´s a great group of people and a fun way to take a productive break from "real life."

In terms of how cheap the living is here, let me give you some stats. My own comfortably appointed room and 3 wonderful meals a day cost $620 a month. Or you can live cheaply on your own as some of my classmates do. Furnished apartment rental is $350 a month. Spanish school, 5 days a week, $420 a month. Charlene´s 5-day hospital stay with IV and ambulance ride: $86.00. So it´s easy now to understand why so many people from the U.S. are here in San Miguel. Some of the expats we´ve met in town tell us they are living on a total of $1000 a month, and living well.

*(Special note to La: there are a lot of Jesus look-alikes here in San Miguel. They are available in every shape and size I´ve ever imagined Jesus might be packaged. Come on down. It wouldn´t hurt to learn a little Spanish either.)