This evening we had Raphael (I'm sure that's spelling incorrectly) from Cuba join us. He is in the US for about 6 weeks and came to Panama City for a few days. He knows about us from the members at his church who met Wm on his recent visit. We really looked forward to this visit to talk about Cuba and just visit - however, he speaks NO English. Not a word. We speak few words. C has just finished his second semester of Spanish but he is by no means fluent. He would be staying with us Tuesday and Wednesday nights and during those days visit C's Spanish 3 class and church. Luckily, Carmen has Latin American roots and lived in Brooklyn for many years. She was pretty sure she could translate 90% of what he was saying. She explained that Cuba has a very distinct dialect that she was not familiar with. After W + C + M had spent about 3 hours alone with him, they didn't care how little she knew - it would be more than the slow talking, hand gesturing communication they were attempting. After Carmen had been at the house for about 3 minutes, Raphael said it was like he had been on "pause" for the afternoon.

We invited a few others for dinner and had a wonderful time visiting. We asked him tons of questions and he was able to ask us a few. M + I were leaving the next day for Space Camp and leaving them with it. Luckily, Carmen's sister was available to translate for them.

Paz!