In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Taxco Central Park, Guerrero, Mexico
“Well, if it isn’t time for lunch…” he thought to himself. “I could just head back to the Fonda Paisa. Mrs. Juli is a very nice person, and she cooks up a wonderful breakfast,” he continued in his reflections when all of a sudden, his stomach growled loudly!
He made his way decisively from the Cultural House while listening to his stomach, protesting still. “Oh, my God! It seems that I’m hungrier than I had thought!” he said to himself, smiling as he crossed over to the plaza towards the Fonda.
He climbed the stairs to reach the second-floor restaurant. Doña Juli greeted him with a warm, welcoming smile, wrapped in the delicious aromas that floated in the air. “Good afternoon, Sumercé. I hope that you are carrying a healthy appetite, for today’s lunch is very good and quite substantial.
“A fine morning to you, also, Doña Juli. You’ll have to pardon my poor Spanish, sometimes I don’t understand well. What did you call me just now?”
Laughing, she answered. “I greeted you, saying Sumercé. It’s like saying: Good morning, Sir. We use it as a form that denotes a lot of respect for the person we are talking to at the moment. To be frank, this expression rarely used in these lands where the Paisa heritage and idioms prevail un our everyday culture. I lived for some years in Cundinamarca, that’s where the Capital City is, and learned to use that term, for there it is quite common.