Thursday, September 10, 2009

Cultural Differences

I have always had a hard time blogging because I just felt like I had nothing cool or interesting to talk about. I have recently thought of something to share. As we all know Efren and I have a multicultural marriage. This can provide for funny, awkward, different situations that not alot of other couples experience. I have decided to share those with you. They started popping up the day we met and I'm sure we will be experiencing them until we get to heaven. Some are English words, some are Spanish, some are situational, some are random, and all are pretty funny. The very first that comes to mind happened at the very moment we met. It went like this:
"Hi, I'm Efren."
"I'm Cayce. What's your name again?"
"Efren."
"What??"
"EFREN."
"Spell it."
I had never heard of that name before and his accent was pretty thick. I felt bad that I couldn't understand him, but I guess he didn't think I was THAT rude.

Thank you, Jesus, for Skype because the first 15 months of our relationship was played out in cyberspace. That's where the next situation took place. As well all know my hair is very straight. One day, I woke up from a nap and did what I always did back then, got on skype to talk to Efren. We say hello and catch up a little and then came his question:
"Um, Cayce......why is your hair so.....(pause)....close to your head?"
Flat, he wanted to know why my hair looked so flat. As women we know that's not a good thing to have flat hair, but apparently mine was. At times he doesn't know the word for the point he is trying to make so he has to describe it. The same happens for me in Spanish. One day I described something as fluffy and he didn't know that word. Try to describe fluffy. "It's like....(waving my hands in a big circles)....fluff...er....fluffy....uh......" Finally I just related it to a cloud. "Yeah, a cloud is fluffy!" Ok, good enough.

In Venezuela there is no Santa Clause. Instead, there is baby Jesus. In all their nativity sets Jesus is missing until Christmas morning when he is finally born and placed in the manger. He is the one that brings the gifts. Quite a night for a little baby. Last Christmas Efren hid all the baby Jesus's from my mom's 47 nativity sets (much to Reagan's dismay) and replaced them Christmas morning. I like that one, I think we will celebrate baby Jesus instead of Santa. Our kids will probably be the one to ruin the Santa suprise for the other kids at school....sorry ahead of time.

What makes your marriage or relationship fun and different?




5 comments:

dad said...

We have so many I have forgotten most of them....and no culture difference

kara-kae james said...

I'm married to your brother. I don't think I need to go into much detail about what makes our marriage "interesting" other than that simple fact.

Reag said...

Ahhh, you forget. I found one of the baby Jesus' and re-hid him from Efren. Watching him all bewildered on Christmas morning was SO worth keeping the secret from the day after he hid him. Some of my favorites: "Do you fourfeet?...Furfight??"
"Let's get Alien vs. PreDATEor."
And the ever-popular "Hey, Cayce can I-"
"NO." (Efren. Even though it's not cultural, I felt like it should be mentioned. He won't let me do ANYTHING.) Hahahaha

tate said...

your blog makes me smile.

Unknown said...

This put a smile on my face :) All I can think of right now is ummm, Nick is sarcastic. I am not.