Language barriers are of minor importance (Part 1)

The rate at which Mother is picking up the Spanish language has been concerning me for a while. Friends here are also alarmed when I tell them that, despite having been in Spain for 2 and a 1/2 years, she still pretty much only knows the words for 'shoes' and 'orange'. The other day we had a typical example of how Mother communicates to foreign people. As Mother was stepping out of the pool after her morning swim (N.B. this is not to say she swims every morning...) she witnessed two young boys playing by the steps. Engage Super-Stephanie Mode.

"Hola! HOLA! HOLAAAAA!"

The two children stop playing immediately and stare up at the lady standing at the side of the pool.

"Are you Spanish? Spanish? Español??"

At this point, the young Spanish man in the pool lightly gets Mother's attention to inform her that they are neither Spanish nor English. Mother gratefully acknowledges the man and his help, however proceeds to speak in a very interesting combination of accents.

"Darling! Your head ... " 

*Mother smacks her hand against her own head to indicate that if these young boys continue to play close to the metal handrails it will definitely cause a fatal accident* 

"Dah-leeng, dahr-LING! Por favor! No, no you must move away..." *waves hands like a hula girl, indicating the children need to swim away from the handrails* 

"because... your head... boom, bang!"

 *another great gesture of head-smacking-onto-rail-blood-everywhere-event*

"You undah-stand? Is very dangerous, oof!".... "Where is your madre?"

At this point Mother looks frantically around and her eyes land on a gentleman of about 45, laying on a sun lounger, reading a magazine about cars. She has identified the problem. These boys have been left under the charge of a man. In my opinion, this is just as useful as leaving your child under the protection of a radish. The man peers over his magazine, as Mother's behaviour (outcry) has attracted the attention of the entire pool community at this point. As she is heading away from the pool, the man laughs and says;

"yes, I know - they do that ten times a day, haha!" 

- Of which Mother replies, under her breath; 

"what's going to happen on the eleventh?!"

xoxo