It happens so regularly that I should stop being so surprised: something I think I know here in Argentina gets turned upside-down in a heartbeat.
Okay, so here’s the story. A week ago, I invited my students to get in touch with me if any of them would like to get together with me to have coffee and talk for an hour in English and an hour in Castellano. Yesterday, I had a little language exchange with one of my English students and two of her friends. Of course, it happened to be with my favorite student (and who, por casualidad, has the same name as my grandma—Ines), so I was delighted when she took me up on my offer. Anyway, she had described me to her friends as “rubia.” Well, “gringa” and “rubia,” but the “gringa” I expected!
“Rubia,” my friends, I would never have expected to be applied to me. I have dark hair and decidedly yellow-tinted skin tone. Rubia, I thought, was reserved for women with blonde hair and light skin.
Well. Turns out that Ines described me as “rubia” because of my blue eyes!
I had no idea that could happen.
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Imagine my surprise when a street vendor referred to P one day as "chele" which means "light skinned person" in Nicaraguan Spanish. I mean, P has decidedly darker skin than me, right? Dark hair, dark eyes, too. When I inquired, he laughed at me and told me to look around...he's light-skinned on the Nicaraguan spectrum, hence "chele." It's all relative, eh? :-)
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