If you want to talk about rice, chocolate, or diapers, I am willing to chat with you!

I have been back in Africa for almost four months now and I thought I should let you know how my French is progressing. You will be proud of me. My vocabulary is expanding daily. I am not progressing as fast as I would if I actually lived off ship and was required to speak French to survive, but I am slowly working on acquiring some useful phrases in French. One of my favorite questions is “Did you poop today and was it big or small?” Although this phrase does not appear on the “Top Ten List of French Phrases to Learn,” it is very important to me as a nurse. It does become awkward in conversation though when someone greets me and says,” how are you?” I can say, “I am doing well thank-you and you?”, but then the conversation ends because my only real conversation piece revolves around body excretion. Actually, my French isn’t that terrible. I can also ask, “are you feeling pain, did you eat, did you swim, and did you pray?” I pick up random words here and there, but my vocabulary remains small. I am starting to understand the majority of conversations, because of my knowledge base of Spanish and the similarities of French and Spanish, but I struggle to actually say anything intelligent in French. I want to respond to questions, but it almost always comes out in Spanish. You can pray for my desire to learn French and motivation to work on it. I have been reluctant to really dive into French language study because I am afraid I will lose my Spanish if I start to learn French and I still have a deep love for the Spanish language and Latin people. I also am so busy; it is hard to devote my free time to study, when I need to relax. A poor attitude, I know… I am working on it! Despite my poor attitude, I am eager to use the French vocabulary that I have so, if you want to limit your conversations subjects and phrases to talking about chicken, fish, rice, fries, apples, bread, water, chocolate, beautiful things, gifts, diapers, see you later, good-evening, Mr. & Mrs., my friend, or the word for dry (which is very important when assessing my VVF patients), I am willing to have a chat with you. If you use any words other than those I just mentioned; we will have to stick to conversing in English or Spanish for now.