Is it my Spanish or just a failure to communicate?

For the past two years Jo Ann and I have been working very hard on improving our Spanish. In fact for the past eight months we have been taking intensive language training. We can now have full conversations with the people who live near our rancho and are able to communicate very well with the construction and landscaping crews who speak only Spanish.

However over the past week we have had several "issues" where we either don't fully understand the culture/customs or we have the typical example of a lack of communication.

The first incident happened two days ago. Tomas, our ranch hand, has never really had full time permanent employment and has two boys in high school who we employ during their vacations from school (summer break and Navidad). However now the boys are back in school and Tomas has a lot of work to get done before the rainy season starts. So as the day was ending I told Tomas that I thought we should hire him an assistant to help with the work, such as mixing the concrete and carrying the heavy materials. Upon saying this I could see Tomas was not happy about this offer. I mention that it would only be until his boys are out of school for the summer in case he is concerned that we would not hire them again. I continue to back track saying that all we were trying to do was to help him and if he does not want the assistant that was fine with us. So was our offer viewed by him as criticism of his work, did he think that we would not hire his boys again, did I use the wrong words or tenses, or was this something that culturally we did not understand?

The second issue happened yesterday and is really a combination of two events. We were going out to Las Cañas primeria school to give some training on using the new educational software that we installed last week. We had asked the oldest child of Agistina if she could help us with training as she uses the software and knows how the programs work. So the prior day, Agistina tells us that we should pick up Alicia at their home at 11:15. However yesterday morning Alicia's father Aturo comes by and tells us to pick her up at the Rancho Viejo school at 11:15. So we go to the school at 11:15 and find out two things, Alicia is not there and the teachers from Las Cañas primeria are coming for computer training to Rancho Viejo. We are very confused to say the least.

We head off to Alicia's home to see if she is there, but alas she is not, her mom says she is probably out at our rancho, so we head off there. Yes she is there and we don't really know how our plans went astray, but we have found her so off to Las Cañas we go.

We get to the school and it is locked up tighter than a drum. We don't know what went wrong, but clearly the directoria of the school either forgot to tell us that they had a change of plans or did we not explain ourselves clearly.

It can be extremely frustrating to be in a land of extremely friendly people, who speak a language that you do not fully comprehend or understand. Sometimes my head seems to explode as I try to absorb all of the nuances and tenses of Spanish, but we are making progress. However, days like these past two really raise questions about your communication skills and your understanding of the new language. This is something that everyone needs to experience as it can be oh so humbling.