The conversation went something like this:
Me: Oh my goodness! Why is it here by itself? It's a baby.
Friend: Wow, someone must have abandoned it.
Me: Oohhh, I guess we're not meant to touch anything in the Galapagos. And it might have some infectious disesae. But, but...we can't just leave it, it's a baby...
Friend: Well, cats aren't endemic to the Galapagos, so it's probably fine to touch. It's also unlikely that it has an infectious disease. The question is what are you going to do with it? You can't bring it back to Quito, let alone to America...
Me: Ohhh, well...maybe we should bring it into town? There should be more food in town, just from like, the garbage or something.
Friend: Well, then it'd become a stray cat that preys on endemic Galapagos species, unless someone took it in. You'd have to find someone. Once you touch it, you assume responsibility for it.
"Cuando estamos en la bicicleta, hay un gato muy pequeño!! No madre gato!! Si nadie le ayude, va a morir!!"
Cuando estamos en la bicicleta...
When we were riding bikes...
So it's been a while since I've taken Spanish, but I feel like this is not grammatically correct. Estamos means "we were," yet I said "la bicicleta," which is singular. I suppose we could have been on a tandem bike, but I think this phrase translates as "when we were on the bike" instead of "when we were riding bikes." Oh well.
...hay un gato muy pequeño!!!
...there was a very small cat!!!
Well I don't know how to say "kitten" or "baby cat," so I settled for "a very small cat." I got my point across.
No madre gato!!!
No mother cat!!!
I don't know the Spanish word for "abandoned." So I said there was no mother cat near the small cat. You make do with what you can.
Si nadie la ayude, va a morir!!!
If no one helps it, it will die!!!
Okay, this was a bit over-dramatic. I didn't know how else to express why I was worried. I didn't have the vocabulary for something reasonable like: "It looks like it's a baby kitten that can't fend for itself." I'm also not entirely sure my pronouns are correct in the above sentence. Also, looking back now, I think it's supposed to be se va a morir, because I believe morirse, which means "to die," is a reflexive verb.
Then some more Spanish sentences and I recognized the word huevos. Eggs. Cats prey on the eggs of indigenous species, like all the indigenous birds in the Galapagos. Cats are unwanted predators in the Galapagos Islands.
Then a sentence I fully understood: No te preocupes. Don't worry. It's no TE preocupes, because preocuparse is a reflexive verb. I suddenly remembered having a lesson on Spanish reflexive verbs in 8th grade, my first year of Spanish, nearly 13 years ago.
At some point, the conversation shifted to the day trip again. I remember nothing about this conversation, but my friend informed me that I continued it in Spanish. If he is correct, I am very proud of doing so, but I honestly have no memory of what I said about our day trip.
Two days later:
Also, I have a small coin purse, on a keychain, in the shape of a kitten. I bought it in Malacca, Malaysia, from a shop in the style of Hello Kitty, and I thought the kitten we saw looked just like it. Como este, I explained, unsure if it was supposed to be esto or este. Judy asked me where I got it from and I tried to reply in Spanish. I knew the verb for "to buy" was comprar, but I could not remember how to conjugate it. I started by saying comprí, which was wrong, so Judy corrected it to compré. Oh right...verbs ending in -ar and -er and -ir are conjugated differently in Spanish! I had learned this 13 years ago in Spanish 1 class!
Conclusion
- Reminded me of what reflexive verbs are in Spanish.
- Reminded me of a basic concept on verb conjugation in Spanish
- Brought out some Spanish vocabulary that had been hidden in the back of my memory
- Provided a starting point for me to relearn Spanish pronouns.
Conclusion: Cute kittens can help people learn Spanish.