El Gringoqueño

Me: I just thought of something.  Where did the word guapo come from?  Do you think it’s a word from indigenous peoples in the Caribbean?

I was noticing that the gua (Gooah) diphthong sound is associated with the language of the Taino peoples of the Caribbean.   A good many of these words, guanábana (fruit), Guánica, G­uaynabo, (places),  guayaba (another fruit - guava), etc, are all indigenous and you can see their origins from the gua sound. 

Me: So I am wondering about the word guapo (Spanish for handsome).  Could that word have come from the New World?  And if so, why would the Spanish people have needed to appropriate it?  Wouldn’t it have already existed in their language?

My error is a basic one, as I was to soon find out, but enlightenment is surely a blessing and one of the many benefits of being married to a smart cookie.

Laura: Interesting track of thought, I mean train, or whatever, but remember,  "gua" frequently occurs in Spanish in words that are borrowed through commerce and contact that have a "w" sound in the original language.  Remember "waffle?"  In the Basque Country they called it gofres. Ok, it did not go to GUA but it went to the gutteral "g". Perhaps a better example is the Spanish translation for "wow" is guao or "William" which is Guillermo.  Perhaps the Taino people’s spoken word for the town of Guaynabo, was Whai-NA-bo, and the fruit guanábana was Whai-NA-bah-na. 

Laura: I don’t know for sure, but some time ago I looked up Taino grammar and vocabulary and I found out that "gua" was a common article like "the", "this," "that." This results in phrases, rather than words being translated or transformed into current taíno words we know today. I think in my research I was able to come up with towns that were descriptive phrases "the settlement by the water," "the area by the big tree." Who knows if the name was an actual taíno name or a common way of referring to an area that became Spanish shorthand for a place and hence a name we know today.

Laura: However, in my limited knowledge of taíno words I can’t say they use a strong consonant sound such as "p." So I would be inclined to say that guapo is NOT of taíno origin. But then where did it come from?

This story starts out with some little details. I can’t really make them up, I wish I was that smart. These little details, represent metaphors for life in Puerto Rico, things that make up the backdrop of our lives. I’ve touched on them before. Flat tires is one good example.

This time, at the top of the hill exiting our urbanization, there was a backed up sewer. It had been spewing funky toilet paper laced waste water for the better part of a week. Each morning as I climbed the hill on my bicycle, I would gingerly pedal through the torrent, careful not to splash any of the filth on me or my bike, my poor bike. I was reminded of Jerry Seinfeld removing and discarding shoelaces which had touched the floor of a public restroom. I could do no such thing with my tires.  Ay bendito.

Thankfully, I had avoided the dreaded splash from cars or my own bike for the past four days. Cranking slowly up the hill increased my exposure, but I gaged my ascent carefully and with a bit of luck managed to avoid cars. I was ascending, however, where I would spend more time dancing on the razor’s edge, taunting fate as zippy cars raced off to the day of labor, their windows rolled up tight.

Coming back down the hill should have been a breeze, a smelly breeze, but a breeze nonetheless. The shoulder is wider, and the rivulets of dung laced paper mache ran farther from me. If I took to the shoulder, I was on dry pavement. Hurrah!

Fancy my surprise as a Toyota Corrolla flew past me at a breakneck pace, sending a tsunami, a cascade of putrid liquid over me. This was no splash, a few splatters, but a drenching shower, the kind that only happens in movies and to Ben Stiller.

Ah hell no, they did not actually just do that!

I chased the person to their house. I was surprised to find that this careless person was a 60 year old woman doing her morning shopping. Mrs. Maggoo, was her name. She was a sleepy phlegmatic character.

"Hey, thanks a lot for throwing that disgusting water all over me!" Should I have led with sarcasm? It’s too late for that now.

"What? Um, where was this?"

I couldn’t believe she was going to pretend she didn’t see me. "It was just up the hill here," I pointed, "You know where the sewer is leaking. You drove past me and covered me in that water, that disgusting dirty water."

"I passed slow, and you were off to the side."

"What? I thought you just said you didn’t see me? And are you saying now that I’m making this up, that you didn’t drench me? Wanna smell?" I approached her and leaned in. "Here, smell!" She backed away. Or maybe recoiled is a better right word for it. For you see, I did indeed smell like shit. She continued to protest her innocence, I didn’t see you, but passed slowly, carefully because I was being careful in my careful slow moving careful-mobile car of carefulness.

One pissed off, drenched smelly-assed cyclist in her front lawn seemed to have no bearing on her deny campaign.

I’m sorry, she finally said, or rather, "Perdona." Which in my mind never actually owns the fault. Maybe I’m wrong, but "pardon" just seems like a, oops I just touched your foot in a crowded room, not I just gave you you a shit shower.

At least she could have offered me a wipe to clean myself, a cookie, anything. Bitch.

"Next time, wake up, woman." And I pedaled off to scrub myself and my bicycle.

*shudder*

I bag on Puerto Rico a lot, but there is one reason why I am still here. There are lots of things for an American to dislike, but one thing continues to stand out and surprise me in pleasant ways.

I was pedaling my bicycle up the hill from my house to buy groceries, as I do every morning. At the foot of the hill there is a junkyard, rusted and hidden by bamboo and vegetation. From time to time, a dog from the area takes it upon himself to assume authority over all in his domain. Little packs of them charge and bark with all that their little yippy lungs can muster. They are an annoyance, but not much trouble.

Today, however, was different.

This time the dogs were big. Huge. They were not the little yippy dogs that bark from the safety of their porches, but big ass rottweiler or pit-bull muts, a couple of big 80+ lbs dogs, furiously barking at me and racing up in my blind spot.

I did what I usually do, dismounted my bicycle, put it in between myself and the dogs and slowly moved toward them, hissing and seething at them. I find that the hissing freaks them out and I’ve never failed to cow a dog with this technique. I felt relatively safe with my bike as a shield, and the dogs tucked their tails and took off. Whew.

Unfortunately, as soon as I turned my back on them, mounted my bike and started pedaling again, they regained their courage and came roaring back. Sigh. I’m going to have to open up a can on these asshats. I had to let them know I meant business. Perhaps I should pursue them farther, stand my ground for longer.

At that moment a little Suzuki Gran Vitara bounced up the hill, and first, I got the friendly advice^TM:

"Necesitas un palo (you need a stick)." The person yelled.

Step two after the friendly advice was the actual help, as my new friend proceeded to weave all over the road and shoulder chasing after the dogs, yelling, ye-ah ye-ah! I smiled. "¡Gracias!" I yelled.

Yes, I thought, this is why I am still in Puerto Rico.

Tomorrow: Same hill, different story.

Laura and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary this Monday. Actually we celebrated it on Tuesday, because that was our date visiting a coffee farm, or rather a collective of coffee farms and a processing facility. Here’s a pic:

Those rows in the distance are coffee plants.  Breathtaking how beautiful it was up there in the mountains in Ciales, Puerto Rico.  I spit on the city, ptooie, I’m moving here.

And here’s our little campecino farmer guy delivering his load of fruit for the day.

Look, it’s the Puerto Rican Juan Valdez, maybe here he’d be Juan Sanchez.

Guy really fit the part, is all I’m sayin’.

The next one is of the little coffee plant that grows next to the processing facility. The manager joked that they use it to gauge the ripeness of the fields. It’s like their little ripeness trigger plant or something.

Those are coffee beans. The flesh is juicy and somewhat sweet. I popped one in my mouth and tasted it. It was like a cherry with a hint of tartness and no coffee-like flavor. In fact, the coffee flavor comes from the roasting. This fruit, unroasted and ripe, would make a great pie. Seriously. I’ve got to try it at some point. I’d probably just follow my mom’s recipe for cherry pie.

Here’s the last pic. This one is from one of the farms on the mountain-side. These are small young coffee plants. They will yield fruit after two years, and are considered mature after four. If well cared for, the plants will continue to bear for many years. The farmer joking told us, "… and if they are not well cared for, they die quickly."

Coffee plants don’t like too much sun. They don’t like too much shade. They like to be up high, not down low. Do they seem fussy to you? Many times coffee in Puerto Rico is planted next to the plantain or orange or lemon trees. The neighboring vegetation helps regulate the sunlight.

I liked the scene above because the whole high country was frothing with hazy mist, like big steaming cups of hot bubbly java.

mmmmm.

Javier Ignacio O’Malley Gorbea gladly began the journey to toilet self sufficiency this past week. Javier, third born of four, has awakened each morning for the past few mornings wishing to go "pee pee" and "caca" in the toilet.

 

"Daddy, Mommy go pee pee in da toilet?"

"Yes, Javier, Mommy goes pee pee in the toilet."

Javier smiled, tickled by this little piece of secret trivia. "Mommy goes caca in da toilet," he declared, extrapolating upon known data, quite a valid hypothesis, if you ask me.

"Yes, Javier, Mommy goes caca in the toilet too." We both chuckled at our scatological observation.  "Daddy goes caca and pee pee in the toilet too. Olaia, Jaimito… everybody, all the big people go in the toilet. Asier is a little boy, so he doesn’t go in the toilet."

Javier smiled, happy to be included among the big self sufficient pee pee and caca goers. "I go pee pee caca in da toilet!"