Scene from a trip

Scene: Mr. B and I are standing in the produce section of a grocery store in Santa Elena, Costa Rica, a small town on top of a 4500 ft mountain. We're looking to buy apples to fortify us for the hour-long drive back down the winding, bone-jarring rocky dirt road (with extra rocks).

It looks like there's a clerk weighing and bagging produce before customers take it up front to pay. We're unsure whether the apples need to be weighed.

We look at each other. Mr. B, aka the Spanish speaker of our team, says 'Go over there and look inquisitive.'

Ohh... kay....

To be fair, Mr. B speaks some Spanish and did a masterful job of figuring things out during the trip, but he is, after all, a card-carrying introvert and at times it got to be a strain. Plus, we had noted that people generally turned to me when initiating conversation, even though I could only gesture helplessly toward Mr B (unless they were asking me about a color or a fruit). We figured out that either I have the more open body language or my 'Ola!' is flawless.

Oh yeah, Mr. B also generated a new swear word for me, probably while driving: Sombrero de ano. Babelfish kindly translates that to anus hat. Nice, huh?

I'm thinking it will come in handy, since Young Son's Spanish is limited and I don't they've covered 'ano' on Dora the Explorer yet.