Fíjese que…
When you live in Guatemala, this is a phrase you will hear all the time. Fijarse literally translated means: to take notice, to pay attention. This is the literal translation but there is so much more that comes along with the phrase. The way things happen in Guatemala is different from that of the United States of course. I had to learn to become accustomed to the fact that things will not always happen when you want them to, nor will they happen when people tell you they will happen. And that is where fíjese que comes in…
When I first started working in Guatemala I was frustrated when people would start their sentences with “fíjese que…” because I quickly came to learn that meant whatever we were working on was not going to come to fruition when scheduled or happen when I thought it would – at least not on the timeframe that my ‘deadline oriented American self’ thought it should. At first when I heard the phrase it was like hearing “so here’s the thing…”
As the months went on however, I would find myself using the phrase all of the time to explain to people that while we were trying to finish a task or a project, there could always be something that caused a little delay. Or I would use it in my story telling or to get a point across. Ultimately, most things would get done, or if not, we always learned something in the process.
Hence, I learned to stop fretting over “fíjese que” and learned to realize that this was a part of my Guatemalan life, as much as hearing the ayudante on my town’s bus shouting for the next destination, or the water sometimes going out, or not being able to leave a friend’s house without having had a cup of coffee and some sweet bread with them. Learning the language is not always about the words themselves. You learn a language truly when you learn the culture. And ““fíjese que” is definitely more than just a phrase. It is part of life.
