Mayra is what we might call culturally diverse. Her father is German, and her mother is Costa Rican. To look at her, I would never have assumed that she was of Hispanic origin. It took me by surprise that she knew so much about her mother's culture and spoke Spanish so fluently. She explained to me that in most Spanish-speaking countries, one's culture is practically sacred. She recently spent two years in Costa Rica getting to know her grandparents, family, and a culture that she will never be able to let go of.

She speaks Spanish with her mother often, but never German. She says that her mother's heritage is very important to her, so she (her mother) insisted that the children learn Spanish at a very young age. They speak Spanish exclusively when her mother's family is around and usually when there is a heated discussion. Mayra explained that she was more comfortable speaking English, but that she loves Spanish because it is so expressive and she feels that she can explain herself better because of all of the descriptive words. Apparently, American schools teach a Spanish that is much different than the one spoken in Costa Rica. The Spanish that is taught is very formal compared to the slang words used in Playa Del Coco. For example, they would never use the term vosotros, which is you in the formal.

When I asked her about male/female designated words, I found out that every single noun has an appropriate form. There are very clear gender differences especially in traditional families. Younger generations are not as rigid, but usually everyone uses the correct form in conversation. The men are still considered to be the heads of the families and women are sometimes referred to in slang terms like chick. The gender equality that swept our nation recently hasn't yet fully worked itself into Costa Rica.

Another interesting thing that I learned was that each country (Panama to the south and Nicaragua) has very different accents and may have completely different words for the same thing. She says that this usually only occurs in slang terms, but that it was easy to see who was the tourist in town. Some words are also considered to be taboo in their language, such as stupid. To call someone estupido is like handing them a death threat. They have so much pride that to question someone's intelligence is the ultimate insult.

In closing, she expressed a great appreciation for the language because it is more emotional and more expressive in everyday conversation than English. She also wanted me to tell you that she is forcing me to learn some of the language. She gave me a dictionary and asked me to translate the statement "Hello, my name is Brandy and I can speak Spanish!" Here goes, Hola! Mi llama es Brandy y yo podo Espanol.