Mas frio? Mas frio!

Not having a shared language can present problems.

I’m still in Ecuador for a little while to build a school.  Part of the group that is working on construction is staying at a hotel.  They had an interesting night last night.

At 3 am someone from the front desk knocked on their door, came in their room, looked around, said “mas frio”, turned their air-conditioned down a little and left.  Now the worker did not speak English and the guys in the room did not speak Spanish, so they just looked at each other like, “huh?”

They had lots of questions for each other.  How does the hotel monitor the temperature in each room?  Do they also advise you on your water temperature when showering? And how do they determine what is cool enough for each guest?  Is the decision based on any other factors besides the clerks discretion?

They tried to ask what happed in the morning but the language difference was too much.  So I talked to the manager to see what happened.  It turns out there was fire alarm going off in one of the rooms.  They ended up going to the wrong room and once there did not now what to say, with there being a language barrier.  So they decided to go with, “mas frio” which is the shorten version of “ we are going to all the room and making sure their air conditioners are cool enough…at 3 am, your welcome.”

Mas Frio indeed

The moral of the story is: if you end up in the wrong hotel room in the middle of the night yell something incoherent in spanish and exit.