¿de veras?

The phrase "¿de veras?" or really? has been the most useful phrase I learned from my family. As I´ve mentioned before, I understand Spanish but I can not speak it very well. So sometimes people will say something interesting to me and all I used to say was "si", which isn´t that interesting. Now I can bust out the phrase "¿de veras?" and it´s all good. For example:

My mom was telling me a story about a former trainee that stayed with them in 1998 and ended up marrying a Honduran woman. My mom and his mom (who met the wife for the first time at the wedding) cried for hours after the wedding because they both hated her-even though my mom spoke no English and his mom no Spanish.
¿de veras?
Boom! She continues the story with excitement and animation. If I were to say "¿si?", it could have appeared as though I wasn´t interested.

It´s a powerful little phrase. In other news, time is moving fast here. Have I been gone for 5 weeks? I feel like I arrived yesterday. My days are packed and just fly by. I know that I´ve mentioned that 4 hours of Spanish a day is a lot, but it´s not as much time as it may seem anymore. Next Sunday I am moving to Siguatepeque for 4 weeks for Field Based Training (FBT). FBT is the tough part of training-when we go out into the communities and schools and give charlas (talks) about self-esteem, pride, HIV, etc. Scary! One of the interesting things about PC is how fast you know people. In the states, 5 weeks is not really that long but 5 weeks here and we´ve learned a lot abou each other. It´s really fascinating.

"¿de veras?"

Ha! Works like a charm!