How to speak Spanish. You don’t know or speak the language of the country you are moving to, What happens?
Amazing discoveries things happen. New horizons. New adrenalin. Travel is an experience and as such is a great teacher. A few years back we moved down to Central America. We only spoke English.
Itching for new discoveries. New culture. Cut-offs weather. Especially after growing up with cold Canadian winters. Freezing your back side at -40 is not my idea of a great time.
Absolutely foreign concepts to many of our Latino friends.
Discovering a new way of life. New ways of thinking. Has been one of the greatest benefits of learning how to speak Spanish.
All of the small things. Even those that are fluent in the language, such as Dave Clark, explains in his discovery.
“Where I currently live in the western U.S., there are many rest homes and assisted living centers nearby where elderly people go to live.
Within about a four mile radius of our business, there are around five facilities with one right next door to our building.
In the assisted living facilities, the people that live there are semi-independent as they usually have their meals cooked for them, entertainment planned, and rides to go places.
On the other hand, usually in rest homes, elderly people need more constant care, both physical and medical.
Both rest homes and assisted living centers are usually very costly.
When I lived in Latin America, I asked a lot of the locals if there were “rest homes” in the area.
It took me a while to even figure out what the word for “rest home” was, because not many Latin Americans were familiar with them.
After asking many local friends, I finally found out that the word for “rest home” is “asilo de ancianos”.
So basically, translated directly, it would be called an “elderly asylum” or “elderly shelter”.
In all of the areas of Latin America I lived in during two years, I only saw one rest home.
Since I lived only in the mid-size to smaller pueblos, rest homes may have been more prevalent in larger cities.
Now let’s explore some of the possible reasons why there aren’t as many rest homes in Latin America.
Their culture in regard to elderly family members is very different from our culture here in the U.S. Older family members will customarily live with their children in the same house.
The reason this happens, according to my observation, is that family ties are very strong, and often the elderly person is not financially independent.
In talking to some Latin Americans themselves, they seemed to have the mentality that parents take care of their children when they are younger so that they will, in-turn, take care of them when they get older.
In the U.S., people seem to have more of an independent attitude.
As soon as teenagers get old enough, or get married, their parents will gently, or sometimes not so gently, push them out the door.
When people become elderly, they often want to stay in their own homes or live in a rest home so they don’t burden anyone.
Compared to Latin America, few elderly people in the U.S. live with their children.
As you can imagine, homes could start to fill up fairly fast in just a few years as children get married and grandparents are also living in the home.
As I have mentioned in the past, there is usually a great attitude of respect among family members in Latin America, especially from children to parents and grandparents.”
Like Dave, we re-discovered what family was again. We re-discovered the real value of possessions other then money or what money can buy.
Many potential opportunities jumped out because of the difference in culture and the globalization where people can now live. We are part of the baby boomer generation. Soon we will be in need of assisted living accommodations.
A move back to Canada.
Not in this life time…
Small things like no arthritic pain because of the cold, walking on the beach, wearing flip flops and cut-offs during winter months, outside, for hours on end say no. We will continue to enjoy and treasure our new found friends and experiences as we continue our journey of how to speak Spanish.
New adventures are calling.
