Nu riqi'l a t'uqok al xajäb

My food smells like shoes.

No, not really. But if I wanted to say that to someone from the Guatemalan highlands, I'd say Nu riqi'l a t'uqok al xajäb.

When I was living in Guatemala, I learned some really obscure phrases--both in Spanish and K'iche'. I always got a kick out of surprising people with random phrases or funny slang terms. Anybody can say saqarik or buenos dias (both mean good morning), but most people aren't prepared to hear a large white man say puro utz pin pin, wachalal, which is the K'iche' equivalent of friggin' sweet, bro.

Here in Japan, I've learned the basics necessary for everyday communication. But only studying the basics leaves a void in my heart that can only be filled with off-the-wall phrases like むちむちした太腿 (cottage cheese thighs).

Over the last few weeks, my vocabulary has grown immensely. Unfortunately, most of what I have learned recently is stuff that I wish I never had to learn. Things like:

血圧	blood pressure
輸血	blood transfusion
心外膜液	pericardial effusion
利尿剤	diuretic
治療	treatment
効果のない	not effective

The list goes on. Granted, many of those phrases are good to know--they're just not the ones I had hoped to learn. Now that Mia's home and healthy, I can go back to learning things like 僕の食べ物は、靴のような匂いがする. Or, in other words, my food smells like shoes.