Canutito learns to think culturalmente

¿Habla Usted Spam-glish?

The weather had been algo calentito, which was very unusual para ser tan tarde in the fall. Este sudden heat wave en el otoño had brought out a todos los moscos that had been hiding en las molduras de la casa. Canutito was fascinated, watching the houseflies walking from the moldings hasta las ventanas. Los moscos caminaban straight up the window glass effortlessly sin tener que hacer hold on to anything. “I wish I could walk ansina como los moscos, grama,” he whispered suddenly.

“¡Qué cosa tan silly to say, m’hijo,” Grama Cuca replied, as she kneaded some dough para hacer tortillas. “You sure would look funny walking up el vidrio de las ventanas. Somebody might come up detrás de ti and smack you right en la cola con un flyswatter ¿y luego qué? You might fall en la masa que estoy haciendo.”

“Well, at least it would be real easy para hallarme if I fell there in the dough,” Canutito teased back. “Now that I think about it though, se me hace que yo prefiero mejor ser como una spider que como un mosco.”

“Pero las arañas have six legs, m’hijo,” retorted Grama Cuca, as she grabbed el bolillo del cajoncito en el trastero. “I would have to iron un bonche de calzones for you every day con todas esas spider legs of yours.” She pretended to iron con el rolling pin. “Besides, ¿qué si viene un pájaro and eats you up entonces?” “Entonces I would turn into un gato and crawl up donde the birds could not find me, or maybe I could just comerme al pájaro,” Canutito said as grama put más leña into the fire en la estufa. She slapped la tortilla down arriba de la estufa and she said: “Pero si te comes al pájaro entonces next a dog might come y comerte a ti porque he would be bigger than you and eat you up como nada.” She flipped la tortilla pa’l otro lão.

“You have to learn to think bien inteligente. Algunas cosas culturales no son logical pero they have a lot of truth escondida en ellas. Let me give you una cultural riddle called ‘una adivinanza’: -cuando subí mis vacas a la sierra negra todas eran blancas pero cuando bajaron, todas bajaron pintas. ¿Qué será’?” Canutito stopped to think por un momento as he translated: “What is it? When I took my cows up the black mountain, they were white but when I brought them back down, they were spotted.” Cuando no supo la respuesta he said: “I guess que they must have been unas magic cows que podían cambear color, grama.” “Déjame darte otro clue, m’hijo,” grama said as she slapped down otra tortilla en la estufa. “Upon the black mountain, my white cows I put. When I brought them back down, they were covered in soot.” She picked up the tortilla from the black stove y la hizo dangle in front de los ojos del muchito. “Any idea?” she asked.

Canutito’s eyes lit up. “Las vacas blancas son las tortillas when you are putting them to cook, the black mountain es la estufa negra and the spotted cows son las tortillas when they are cooked y tienen little brown spots en ellas!” “Muy bien, m’hijo,” Grama Cuca praised him. “It is more fun to think culturalmente than trying to think of turning yourself into a fly or a spider.

Cuando piensas culturalmente, tienes que usar tu brain de veras…