Lost in Translation

Pierina Ponce
9-17-2007
ESL 6
Decide you move to another place there are so many parts of your daily life leave behind, specially if you are moving to a different country where the culture is totally different, and everything is new, new costumes, food and language, even the weather is new and you have to adapt to your new place as fast as you can . For me, coming to USA wasn't an easy decision. Everything that I knew (at that time) every one I loved and I cared about was in Colombia. But there was the opportunity knocking on my door and I knew that coming here would be an important experience in my personal grow. However, I also knew that living in USA would not be easy, because I have to adapt to a new costumes, such as language, food and other
When I got here I felt strange, I couldn't understand anything. I couldn't express myself because the language was an obstacle. I spend a couple of weeks just saying “ok” to everything. After that I realize that I have to say something else then I start saying, “excuse me can you say that again.” after a while a start asking people the name of some stuff so I spend time asking how do you call this or that?. So I improve my vocabulary and I also try to think more in the grammar before I talk.
But the language wasn't the only problem, I was also shock by my new life. I Knew that the culture will be totally different and didn't know what to expect for the people and how I should act with them, but fortunately I meet great people, who help me set myself. So what I did was spent a lot of time looking at them, see how they behave themselves, how they ask for things in restaurants, how they answer to regular simple question, and just like that I start finding my own way.
But it wasn't a matter just about how to be proper, the food was (and sometimes still is) a big issue to me, in my country, we prepare fresh meals and eat them together, we spend time cooking every single day, so our food (specially lunch which is the biggest meal on the day) is always hot and delicious. Most of the people in Colombia think about what to eat, they try to eat something nutritious and different every day, here the people is more practical (because her the life goes faster) they just to stop by any store and grab a salad, or sandwich for lunch no matter who prepare and how long it had be on the shelves.
At the beginning, when I didn't know much about the food here, I choose to eat what I tough I knew but “surprise” even the world wide known Pizza here tasted different (at least to me). That way I realized that talking about food nothing would be the same. But not everything is so bad, the food in USA offers the opportunity to eat food from every single corner of the world. And that's good, is an excellent way to learn about different cultures trough their cuisine.
There were so many things lost in translation. Aspect of my culture that never were so important to me until I not longer have them. Memories that still make me be attach and proud to my culture. But those things left behind let a great space to new things, to new experiences, that maybe someday will be also lost in translation.