Spark Plugs

Near the end of my stay in San Lucas, Guatemala, it was my host sister, Jocelyn's, seventh birthday. My friend Jessica and I went down to the ice cream shop to buy her an ice cream cake. While we were there, I started feeling a little funny in the tummy area, and a bit lightheaded. Having already survived three bouts of amoebic dysentery in my three-month stay, I knew enough of the warning signs and decided to take it easy. I asked Jessica to take the cake home for us and I'd join them later, but the party was starting soon so we wanted them to have the cake sooner rather than later. I went outside the shop to the plaza and sat on the cement steps in the shade of a tree, watching a pickup basketball game. Not long after I sat down, a white couple emerged out of the throng of indigenous San Luquenos and approached me.

"Hablas espanol?" the woman asked.

"Si," I responded.

"Do you speak English, too?"

"Yes..." (Where is this going?)

"Oh, thank god," she said, and collapsed next to me. It turned out that she and the man with her, who were Canadian, had rented motorcycles from a place in Panajachel, which is about an hour's drive from San Lucas. Just outside the town, one of the bikes had broken down and they needed help calling the rental place and being picked up.

"Sure, no problem," I said, though inwardly my heart was racing at the thought of carrying on a conversation with someone in Spanish over the phone. I was still learning how to converse in person and the phone is even harder!

It was Sunday, but the Parish office was open, so I led them over - just a five-minute walk down the main street in town. I dialed the number they gave me and haltingly told the man who answered the situation. He was very accommodating and said he'd send a truck right away. But first, he wanted to know, did the couple have any idea what was the matter with the bikes? I relayed the message.

"We're not sure, but we think it's the spark plugs," the woman said.

After a moment's hesitation, I dragged up a word out of the depths of my memory, and I told the man on the phone that they think it was the bujias. There was a pause, and he asked me to repeat it.

"Las bujias?" I said, even more uncertainly.

"Okay, I don't know what that is, but don't worry, we'll send someone out."

I hung up the phone and told the couple to wait at the church and a truck would be along in about an hour. They thanked me profusely and I returned to the plaza, slightly shaken from the weird turn of the day and the adrenaline rush of a new experience.

I finally had a minute to compose myself and reflect on the experience and realized the hilarity of it. The reason I know the word spark plugs, despite not actually knowing what spark plugs are, is that in tenth grade Spanish class we were given lists of vocabulary to memorize, with a quiz each Monday. We resisted every list, but no list did we resist harder than the one about cars, including the word spark plugs. Our teacher insisted that we might need it someday, and he was right. Even if it didn't end up helping, I was proud I remembered it! (I looked it up when I got back to the house and I had the right word but it could be a regional difference, or else my terrible pronunciation!)