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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

My friend Erasmo


Erasmo is a quiet kid from Southern California. He's the kid who is always where everyone else is, but he usually doesn't say a word.

The running joke for the first week was the Erasmo doesn't speak a language. Which was just an incredible joke for someone (not myself) to even conceive.

It always blows me away to think about the language links that occur in every conversation I have down here. Normally I speak in Spanish, while my mind is always thinking in English. I've spoken with other people whose second language is Spanish, so therefore I'm converting my English to Spanish which someone else is then converting to German, which seems like a lot of work for a simple conversation.

Erasmo, whose name I'm not sure I'm spelling right, was different. For the first week it was literally impossible to figure out if he was fluent in English, Spanish or neither. I was pretty amazed that I had met someone over the age of two who was possibly not fluent in any language.

Then I started talking to Erasmo and I realized he actually speaks English and Mexican Spanish fluently, which ruined the made-up persona I had given to him. However after talking to him I learned he was even crazier than somebody who doesn't speak a language.

After talking to him for a while, I learned his favorite thing in life is a good rave, and the lifestyle that goes with it. Erasmo then told me he brought his clickers with him for his 1-year stay in Argentina.

Clickers are little lights you hold in your hand that upon being clicked can light up white, a color, or alternate. There primary purpose is to enhance dancing in raves; this is all according to Erasmo.

I thought long and hard about this, then I looked Erasmo in the eye and said, "Wow Erasmo. You did it. You found the absolute least important thing anyone could ever pack for a year trip in a foreign country."

He laughed. Then remembered he only brought two colors of clickers and got mad at himself for not bringing more clickers.

Erasmo is now my favorite person in Buenos Aires.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Man,

Do you have my ticket for the korn concert?

Thanks,

1998

Justin Adler said...

1998,

Actually there I saw graffiti here that said "Nirvana and Korn" real big on the side of a wall and yes the R was backwards.

Your welcome,
Justin Adler