When I used to receive phone calls in the States, the usual order of business was something akin to:
“Hello, this is _____. May I please speak to _____?”
You may notice two things here:
1) The person calling states who they are.
2) The person calling asks for who they want to speak to.
The first public phone was installed in Matapalo in 1979, which one would think would allow enough time for people to develop some sort of system for using phones. Instead, the most common call we receive at our house goes like:
LENA: Hello?
MYSTERIOUS PERSON ON OTHER END OF LINE: Hello?
-- LONG PAUSE --
LENA: Hello?
MYPOOEOL: Hello?
-- LONG PAUSE --
LENA: Hello?
MYPOOEOL: Hello. Good afternoon.
LENA: Good afternoon.
--LONG PAUSE—
LENA: Hello?
This can go on for hours. Usually, we have to overcome our sense of indignation at having the expectation that we psychically guess the intentions of the person who called us, and ask who is calling or for whom they are calling. This is followed by another awkward pause, in which we wonder if the mystery person is now indignant at us. Then mystery person finally spills that beans by stating someone’s name in a confused voice.
At first we thought this was an artifact of answering someone else’s phone. We always felt bad that the friends and family calling our hosts were seemingly so upset that strangers with gringo accents were answering the phone that we caused a sudden inability to hold a logically ordered phone conversation (we were also frequently hung up on). We have since learned that this still happens when you have your own cell phone AND it happens when you put up flyers asking people interested in English classes to call Nate or Lena AND it happens to other volunteers in a variety of otherwise unrelated situations.
So we have come to the conclusion that a legit PC project could be teaching rural Costa Ricans to initiate and professionally carry out phone calls. We’re only being somewhat tongue-in-cheek; because the irony is that a growing industry here in Costa Rica for the up-and-coming working and middle classes is… customer service call centers!
haha, love it. my host family insisted my spanish would improve if i answered the house calls... the hanging up reflex from those on the other end somehow doesn't seem to be helping. Though I bet the two of you have killer accents on your holas.
ReplyDeletei think it helps if you really pronounce the "h" at the beginning of your hellos...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny Lena, I had the same interaction with my Hmong mentee here in Portland. Everytime she would call I would say hello and she would say hello like a question, this literally could go on indefinitely, or until I said "hello Anna, how's it going." I tried to talk with her about this very confusing phone mannerism, but that didn't really go anywhere.
ReplyDeleteomg, i was cracking up. loved this post. jajajaja. this happens to me but only bc my voice is unknown and im sure they say on the other end, "who the heck is this? lmao. jajajaja love it.
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