Funnier still is reflecting on things I have in common with my grandmother's older brother, my Uncle Sam, a now-retired Baptist minister/speaker/evangelist (well, he hasn't retired as an evangelist) who lives in Argentina and whom I've only seen a handful of times.
I like to think that my writing style has something to do with Uncle Sam's.
Here's part of an e-mail my mom got from him this morning, followed by my translation (it's much much better if you can read the original Spanish).
Might there be a family resemblance?
De acuerdo a lo prometido tengo que darles un informe sobre la boda bilingüe que hicimos aquí en Rosario. El novio no sabía castellano y era muy tímido. Yo prediqué en un inglés paranoico con la ayuda de un traductor esquizofrénico, y todos hablamos al mismo tiempo porque nadie entendía nada. Al final, la ceremonia se hizo en español anglosajón, y terminó con un gran aplauso y una sonora marcha nupcial. Hubo alrededor de cuatrocientas personas y la fiesta duró hasta las cinco de la mañana, al estilo de nuestro país. Lo admirable del caso es que unas diez personas viajaron específicamente desde los Estados Unidos para presenciar la ceremonia. Eran familiares y amigos de los novios y todos se quedaron muy contentos.
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According to my promise, I must give you an exposition of the bilingual wedding we held here in Rosario. The groom did not speak Spanish and was very shy. I officiated in a paranoid kind of English with the help of a schizophrenic translator, and we all spoke at the same time because no one could understand anything. In the end, the ceremony was conducted in Anglo-Spanish [Spanglish?], and concluded with grand applause and a lovely recessional. Around 400 people came and the reception lasted until 5AM, in the custom of our country. The most impressive part of the whole thing was that about 10 people travelled from the US just to be present for the ceremony. They were family and friends of the couple and everyone was very happy.
1 comment:
That's great!:) It sounds kind of like the wedding I just got home from, only it was a Korean wedding. There were two people performing the ceremony, two people DJing and so on because everything had to be said in both Korean and English.
It was funny though because they thought it was really cool that we were Caucasian and we didn't look like them; so for some reason they kept wanting to sit with us...)
(side note, it would be fun if weddings here went to 5AM:)
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