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¿Hablas español?I should have paid more attention to the hippie who was my college Spanish graduate teaching assistant. After one semester of study, nearly 11 years ago, all I manage to remember from the class is how to order beer and request the location of the nearest bathroom. At the time, I'm sure I felt that information was vital to any future international relations I'd be conducting in my career. Somehow, though, I don't think "una cerveza por favor" will help me on my upcoming journey with U.S. Wheat Associates. In mid-February I received an incredibly generous invitation to be one of a handful of American agricultural media invited on a two-week tour of four Latin American countries' wheat facilities March 24 to April 4. We'll be spending a whirlwind time in Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru and Mexico, speaking to the folks importing and using the wheat we grow. It's going to be an amazing learning experience. Now, in the few weeks I've had to prepare for this little excursion I've managed to apply for and receive my passport; get four quite expensive shots to protect me from all manners of diseases; and learn that it's not as easy as you'd imagine to pack for two weeks away from home. I've never had a need for a passport before this, so I was a little concerned about the whole application process. Call it a self-persucatory complex but I get a little worried every time the U.S. State Department has to run a background check on me. Will they find those late library fees from 1996? Will that speeding ticket I got in January come back to haunt me? Fortunately, I got my passport without any delays or visits by menacing government agents in black suits and dark sunglasses. My next step was to begin gathering information on the countries we'll be visiting. I checked out the websites for the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. State Department, and let me tell you, those folks are just right rays of sunshine. If we all followed all of their warnings and advice no one would ever leave the country, we'd all lock ourselves in our basements, all water would be boiled before consumption, and Kevlar would be the national uniform. Good thing I'm not one to panic. Now, once I'd checked out the scoop on the countries we'll be traveling to, and discovered just how to avoid being an extended visitor of the nice gentlemen of the Medellin Cartel, it was on to getting my travel vaccines. While I'm not a fan of needles, I am happy to say I'm now covered for Yellow Fever, Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Tetanus--and I'm pretty sure the nurse snuck in a seven-way blackleg shot while I wasn't looking. I was half expecting a drenching in ivermectin pour-on and the addition of a brucellosis vaccine tag in my ear before I left. Laugh, but I've seen health papers for a load of steers that aren't as detailed as the shot record I have to carry with my passport from now on. Now, all I have to do is pack two weeks' worth of clothing into two suitcases and still have room for my computer, camera, note pads, guide books, phrase book, and the umpteen small bottles of hand sanitizer and bug spray my mother seems to feel I must take with me. Heaven forbid I have germy hands. What would our international neighbors think? The really remarkable part of all this is that I'll be able to virtually bring you along for the trip. High Plains Journal is setting up an online blog for me to share the travel experiences and the information I gather from this great opportunity. I'll be able to update the blog from the road and tell you about the people I meet, the sights we see and even share pictures of our travels. To catch up with our tour, visit www.hpj.com and follow the links to my blog from the home page. And, if you have any comments or questions for me to take along on the trip, share them with me any time. So, until I chat with you all again over cyberspace, here's hoping I don't wind up starting an international incident, the border guards let me in and out of the country, and that I can muster up some more Spanish vocabulary between now and next Monday. Adiós amigos! Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com.
Date: 3/11/08
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