Anecdote

At the end of the school day yesterday I was standing at the gated entrance/exit of the school, performing my usual Wednesday door duty.  Most of the kids had piled out for the day, but there were some stragglers around waiting for parents or buses. One of the students still at school was a third-grade boy who is blind. Students and teachers alike enjoy being around this kid because he loves life and school so much it's infectious. I don't actually have this kid as a student, but I interact with him in some way weekly. I greeted him as he approached me, and he mistook me for Tia Valerie, his science teacher. I let him know who I was, and then I informed him that Tia Valerie was about six meters behind him, but that she was walking towards us now. He got really excited and grabbed my hands, saying "mande." I asked him what "mande" meant, as I had yet to learn it. He replied "lunes" (which is the word for Monday in Spanish). I replied, "No, Como se dice mande en ingles?" To which he replied, "Monday." At this point Tia Valerie approached us, and I relayed the story to her.  She informed me that "mande" means "tell me" in Cuencano Spanish. The third grader then informed both of us that he just thought I couldn't say "Monday" correctly in English, which made us all laugh.