Grapes Upside Down

1. Powdered Sugar

~Madisen~

"Commit yourself!"

I run my fingers over the iridescent blue keychain—llavero, I've just learned it's called—closing my eyes as the textured letters scrape gently along the skin of my thumb. C-O-M-M-I-T... ¿Cómo se dice "commit yourself" en español?, my buzzing brain asks.

I've torpedoed headfirst into a churning sea of undiscovered Spanish words, and I long to gulp down every last one of them. Y-O-U-R..

"I don't mean, like, commit yourself to an institution," Glenn clarifies with a twinkle in his mischievous eyes. The cohort of university kids rewards him with a short, collective chuckle.

"It can be tempting to stick close to one another and fall back into the comfort of speaking English, especially as you adjust to living in a new country and go through the phases of culture shock. But those of you who commit yourselves to interacting with Chileans, making new friends and speaking Spanish consistently will improve your fluency exponentially compared to those who play it safe."

I readjust my posture, taking in every one of Glenn's words as I circle the smooth metal carabiner in between my fingers.

"So, who's ready to take the pledge?" Glenn invites with an animated expression. "You commit to speaking exclusively in Spanish for the next six months of your study abroad program. No English, even amongst your university peers. The exception, of course, being phone calls home to family in the States."

My stomach swirls with anticipation. I cannot wait to speak Spanish fluently, the phrases flowing out in bold colors like perfectly curled birthday ribbons.

The waiters begin to serve our group of forty students as Glenn's wife and director of our exchange agency, Marcela, stands to join him at the front of our two enormous tables. Unlike her American husband, she addresses the group in Spanish, with no trace of humor as she informs us about the afternoon plans. Glenn displays a series of silly facial expressions as she speaks, raising his eyebrows, grimacing and blinking repeatedly for no apparent reason. I marvel at the curiousness of this romantic match.

Seriousness permeates each of Marcela's words, released like the speeding bullets of a machine gun but at the volume of pitter-patter rain. The flood of information assaults my brain, then vaporizes before I can make any sense of it.

The largest hamburger known to humankind is placed in front of me by a good-looking waiter. He smiles at me in that invasive way some men have, his virility pervading the air between us and causing me to tense up. A question flutters off his full lips, though I fail to understand even one word of it—due not only to his overpowering proximity, but also because Chileans speak ridiculously fast.

"¿Cómo?"

He repeats it, making no effort to speak more clearly, and the pit of my stomach tightens with the familiar dread of being stuck in the void of miscomprehension.

His expression takes on an air of amusement as I smile with timidly raised eyebrows. In the next moment, I am saved by the visual cue of a tiny cup of ketchup, which he gently tilts left to right while repeating himself one more time. The sentence still sounds like a bag of garbage being dumped out. A few beats after reaching my eardrums, the syllables finally click into place.

It turns out that ketchup is pronounced kechu, the final consonant evaporating into thin air as the Spanish vowel sounds completely subvert the familiarity of the word. Cognates are often the toughest terms in spoken communication, like geometrical transformations that our brain can't quite compute.

"¡Ketchup! ¡Ah, sí, por favor!" I nod gratefully and smile in relief. He winks at me, his cinnamon eyes sparkling.

In an American restaurant, there would be a bottle of ketchup on the table and no need for such a question. It would be as absurd as asking someone here in Chile if they care for a basket of bread with their meal.