"Ay orrrrrrr mi chiquititos"

This week I caught myself calling Chiquitito "pet", a north-east English expression that both my Grandmother and mother use, and after laughing at myself it made me stop and think how much my language has changed over the years, and more recently after five years of tropical living.

Papicito and I both originate from the UK, and whilst we can (and do) lapse into our local dialect, we had different childhood  influences and education and I do not think we sound that similar.

So what new words have worked their way into our every day vocabulary over the last five years?

Our first two years of expat living were spent in Malaysia, and whilst we learned a few pleasantries of Bahasa Malay we never picked up much of the language. As an ex British colony there was enough English spoken that we managed to get by.

The main word that we picked up in Malaysia, and still use today, is "ay-orrrr". I always thought this was a Chinese word, but a Malaysian friend has recently told me that it is a Malay word. And its meaning? Any time you need an expletive "ay-orrrr" will do the trick. If  your friend told you they had just had an unexpected windfall "ay-orrrr" is the perfect exclamation. If the car in front of you does something unexpected and you break sharply, why risk Junior learning a profanity when "ay-orrrr", with extra "orrrrrrrr" fits the bill perfectly.

Can I just add that Chiquitito, who is learning to talk in both Spanish and English has also mastered a fantastic "ay-orrrr" this week.

We have lived in El Salvador for approaching three years now, and as a former Spanish colony, where English is not spoken as much as I had hoped for, we have had to make an effort to learn basic Spanish.

Of course, in the house we speak English to each other, but there are some words of Spanish that have become part of our every day vocabulary, and I know that we will continue to use them even when we eventually move on to somewhere new.

"Si" ("yes") is the most common Spanish word that we use, then probably "gracias" ("thank you") and also "con" or "sin" to denote whether we want our cold drink "con hielo" or "sin hielo" - with or without ice.

One of the words that I use on a frequent basis is the Salvadoran word "dundo" or "dunda" depending whether it is a man or woman that I am berating. It is considered very impolite to call someone stupid in El Salvador (estupido/a), but "dundo/a" is an accepted slang form.

(The difference between the a or o at the end of a word is masculine and feminine - o for masculine, a for feminine).

So when I do or say something daft, or someone else does "dunda" is the perfect word, and always guaranteed to make the Salvadoran you're talking to laugh with surprise. Likewise, when someone makes your life difficult, like the shop assistant who over charges you then rolls her eyes when you complain - a 'dunda!" muttered under your breath (or out loud if you strongly about it) makes you feel better!!

I also use "chiquitito" and "chiquitita" a fair amount too, and it is our pet name for our young son. It is a term of endearment, so instead of calling someone "dear" or "darling", or when talking to a close friend, you would use the expression "mi chiquitito/a".

The other word that I will probably take away from El Salvador is "super". But hang on a minute, I know what you're thinking - surely "super" is an English word? Yes it is, but it is a word that gets used here all the time. Is something really good? "Super bien!" Very fast? "Super rapido!" Is someone very clever? "Super inteligente!"

If you want to learn more Salvadoran slang words then check out Jose Herrera's blog.

So, until next time, adios mi chiquititos.

PS - What's your favorite word that you use every day that is not from your native language? Share it with us in the comments box below!

Has anyone seen my cat?

So, the saga of car ownership in El Salvador continues.

After two trouble free years in Malaysia, where we long term rented a car - expensive but hassle free, we decided to buy a car when we arrived in El Salvador - mainly because car rental is exorbitantly expensive.

The first mistake we made was to buy a car unseen, before we had even arrived.

Before you start to think we were totally stupid, it was an expat guy who was leaving the company that Papicito works for. So we thought we could trust him! Wrong!!

The photograph he sent us showed an old if tidy looking Nissan Pathfinder. We asked around and people who had known the car said it was a good buy.

So we handed over our $3,000 and looked forward to being mobile on our arrival.

It didn't help that we arrived during the wet season, but the car had been parked in an underground car park, the inside was inches thick in green mould, the battery was flat and there was a huge dent in the rear passenger door, that was so bent out of shape that water poured in when it rained!

That started a long process of trying to make the best of a bad job by spending money keeping the car afloat, including a new engine (but that's another story).

Two years later, when the car was finally driveable, we decided that as we now had Junior and were going to be here for another couple of years that we would upgrade.

Once more we bought a car from a member of staff who was leaving, but this time we got it checked out by our mechanic, and handed over the cash.

Incidentally, we sold our old car to a bloke from Santa Ana for not much less than we paid for it!!)

We were now driving a slightly newer Mitsubishi Montero, and the difference was similar to upgrading from a Skoda to a Rolls Royce!!

We had the car serviced and everything went fine for a month or so. Then it started cutting out at junctions. The revs would drop, the brakes would go heavy and then......the engine would stall.

It went back to the garage and had a mountain of things fixed. Still it cut out at junctions.

And it sounded noisy - like driving a car with a hole in the exhaust.

"Don't worry!" said the mechanic. "There might be a small hole somewhere, but this noise is normal!"

By now I was beginning to doubt the expertise of my mechanic, and he spoke no English, which made explaining problems difficult. So I swapped to a highly recommended English speaking one.

He came, he checked the car, attaching all sorts of monitors, that were able to tell me, amongst other things, that the airbags had been disabled (presumably after the smash the car had been in said the mechanic, as he pointed out the slightly misaligned bonnet on the car).

He took the car away to fix it and it was like a dream. He emailed, sent videos and photos and I felt like I was there in the shop with my car, like an anxious parent at a sick child's hospital bedside.

The car returned and drove like a dream......for a day, then back to square one! The car went back to the shop to have every possible connection cleaned. It came back and drove like a dream....for a week.

So, there it was......I had spent the GDP of a small country on my car and it still died at junctions.

On a plus note, it was intermittent. I'd maybe get 3 weeks good driving then a day, or if I was unlucky a week of bad driving.

And this is how we continued for nine months or so.

Then the car needed servicing and suddenly it was impossible to drive, cutting out all the time, so I sent it back to the mechanic.

He serviced it, replaced numerous parts and brought it back last week. It seems to be working ok, but I am nervous, waiting for it to cut out.....which usually happens at a really inconvenient point, like half way around a busy roundabout in the morning rush hour traffic.

Today the mechanic came for his money, and to check it over.

And as we stood talking he said "Your exhaust is noisy because whoever had the car before removed the cat!" (for the non-technically minded amongst you he is referring to the catalytic converter).

So that's it! My car has spent the last ten months mourning the loss of its cat........if anyone finds a 20 year old metallic green cat purring at the door step...please don't take it in thinking its homeless.

Give me a call and maybe my car will run like a dream when its returned!

Has anyone seen this cat?

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