Monday, August 18, 2014

mission trip misadventures #1: " Dear Lord, tell me she hasn't seen 'Porky's!'"

And so begins a reverently irreverent series.

Most stories will focus on the joy and perils of intercultural communication and/or "SMF to be an American" moments..

This first installment was not technically a mission trip, but  boy, "it will preach."
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Steve Nay  (far right)and I (far left)  were

  roommates one summer semester 

 many lunas ago in Guadalajara, Mexico.


We were there for a language and cultural immersion; 
         we attended school,
                    and lived with a  delightful Mexican family  of five females who knew no English...




.......or maybe two words at best.

Or worst.
One day, Steve and I were talking with Laura, our 14-year old Mexican sister (second from left in photo)  She mentioned (in Spanish, of course) that she had seen a few American movies.

One of them was "Porky's."

We gulped, and knowingly
glanced at each other.

"And there's something I've always wanted to ask an American about that movie," she continued.

Not only did the gulp factor increase, but I suddenly and involuntarily  remembered a scene from that movie I had tried hard to forget (Steve, a holier man than me, I'm sure had never seen the infamous film).

"Uh...what might that be?,"  I nervously volunteered.

"What," she innocently (?) asked, "does 'Fook yer mother" mean?
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Upcoming posts  in this series:
  •  "Naked and Ashamed in Lima" 
  •  "Pregnant at a Paraguyan Altar"
  •   "Germane Pizza Rocks." 
  • "Not only was that turbulence not normal, it was 100 times worse than I knew was possible.."

For more misadventures in Mexico with Steve and Dave, read
"Eye See Two Gringos"
,,and see the photo album of incriminating evidence at 

Guadalajara, Mexico: summer (1984) study program en espanol

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