Which Bao? Which Shai?

I have tried to perfect my Chinese over a twenty-three year period.  It’s gotten “good” but the indignities of incomprehension, remain, seemingly, forever.  At breakfast this morning my wife used a word to describe my daughter’s hair:  暴晒’d  bao shai,de, which means “scorched. “  My daughter didn’t blink.  “My hair is not  bao shai de, mom.”  I, however, didn’t recognize the word.  Once again it needed to be explained.  Once again, I valiantly inquired: “Um, what does “bao shai” mean?  Which bao?  Which shai?

I spent two summers in my twenties studying some Spanish.  A few weeks at most studying, and then bouncing around on the backpacker circuit in Mexico, Guatemala one summer and down in Ecuador and Columbia for another.  I’m here to tell you, as a native English speaker, Spanish is easier.  I have been amazed this trip how much has come back, and how quickly. 

This morning we had a forty-five minute drive down to the “Sweet Gulf”, a natural fjord that separates the Osa Peninsula from the Costa Rican, Pacific shoreline.  The driver and I in the front seat chatted away amicably.  I struggled to be clear, but mind you, I haven’t used any Spanish in quite some time.  And by this point, ten days into a two-week trip, I was feeling reasonably conversant. All foreign languages are not created equal. 

I, nor much of anyone else, would likely ever penetrate bottle-nose dolphin speak.  But certainly they are majestic animals with whom we naturally want to engage.  We had a gentleman take us out into the gulf so we could see the dolphins.  We quickly spotted a lone spotted dolphin, which usually travel in packs.  He considered us, took a deep breath and bid us adieu.  We plodded about for a bit and eventually came upon a mother bottle-nose dolphin and her calf.   And, as they always say happens, they seemed to want to play with us.  The driver cut the engine and they dove under the boat, popped out again, and repeated driving away in the other direction. 

And more powerfully than with monkeys or sloths or any other mammals we saw on this remarkable time in the rain forest, I think we all had an urge to communicate with this mother and child.  Could we swim with them?  I suppose we could try, but they were so fast and capable in the water.  We’d be mere veritable sloths in comparison.  

Later, miles away, we saw another mother and child pair. They almost certainly were not the same duet we’d been playing with earlier, but then again, maybe they’d returned to continue the conversation.