Who's malcriado?

On the way to Utila after a long day’s travel, Kelly, Mosiah, and I arrived in La Ceiba (a costal city where you have to catch the ferry to the island) late in the afternoon. The hostel where we were staying had a common room with a television and a DVD player. We decided to just relax and watch a movie while waiting for the other members of our party to arrive. Unfortunately the DVD player was of inferior quality and would start the DVD over from the beginning any time we tried to make changes. After two frustrating attempts to watch Seven Pounds, we had finally got the picture and sound set at desired levels and were 30 minutes into the movie, when a little Honduran boy walked up to the television and hit the eject button on the DVD player.

Assuming the DVD player would once again start from the beginning, Kelly and I snapped. The boy was probably only around eight-years-old, but that did not stop us from yelling at him. “What are you doing?” “Get away from there!” “We are watching a movie!” And Kelly even pulled out, “¡Eres malcriado!” and shot a glance at the child’s mother who was standing in the back of the room. (To call someone malcriado in Spanish is a very strong thing to say here, and it basically means, “You are poorly raised.”) Without saying a word, the boy left and went back into his room.

We started watching the movie again, which fortunately started at the same part it was on before it was ejected. There was about an hour to an hour and a half of the movie left, and when it finished the boy’s sister came over to the DVD player. We assumed they wanted the children’s movie we had taken out earlier, so we showed her where it was. She just looked at us and said, “No, the DVD player is ours.” Oh.

The Honduran family was leaving the hostel, and they had to wait over an hour for us to finish the movie so they could take their DVD player with them. Their bags were already packed, and the moment their daughter picked up the DVD player they were heading out the door. We felt terrible, and in a I’m-sorry-we-are-jerks gesture, Mosiah helped carry their belongings down the stairs. But in our defense, we had no idea that was their DVD player. The boy didn’t say a word, and the parents, who saw us yelling at him, didn’t say anything either. And who sets up their own DVD player in the living room of a hostel? Yeah, I am just trying to make myself fell better.