Callate, cuchara, cuidado

I sent Kyle to Chile one summer, I think it was inbetween her 8th and 9th grades. She was about 14. I wanted her to learn Spanish and experience another culture and she was open to it. About half way through the summer, Kelsey and I went to visit her for about a week. If I have the year correct, that would have made Kelsey about 12 years old.

At that time Kelsey only knew a few words of Spanish. His vocabulary consisted of "Gracias, gracias, gracias" said frequently and in response to any circumstance that warranted it or not. In the limited time he was in Chile he charmed many people with his smile and his delivery of those words of thanks.

He knew about three other words in Spanish, those being callate, cuchara and cuidado. So we were in the living room of the family that Kyle stayed with on the weekends, playing cards if I remember correctly. There was a little boy about 4 years old that we were playing with. He was a little rambuncious and suddenly tripped. Kelsey, being the bilingual traveler that he was and now thinking in Spanish and wanting to tell the little boy to be careful yelled out, "cuchara"!

Oh well, I guess thats better than yelling out cuchillo.