Jill and Jessa Duggar Special Sunday Dec 13 - Merge

[nastyhobbitses]

4 hours ago, Mercer said:

I do not believe for one second that Jill and Derrick are going to put themselves or the baby in any real danger. We are talking about massively sheltered people who barely engage in normal activities in their own home town. So far in Guatemala Jill seems to be putting in an effort to avoid leaving the house as much as possible.

I'm sure they think they're doing something terribly risky, but I would bet money their time in Guatemala or El Salvador will be spent primarily in secure enclaves of mainly ex-pats. 

They're like those people who claim they're going to "Darkest Africa", when they're actually going on a fully catered safari just outside of Cape Town or Nairobi.

Derick, Jill, stop pretending you're super cool intrepid explorers out in the wilds of Central America when all you do is hang around in your house the majority of locals would only dream of affording, annoy your Spanish teacher, and hang out with other rich white naive expats, only seeing the locals as either threats or a captive audience for your ramblings in broken Spanish about why venerating the Virgin Mary is muy mal.

[nst]

3 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

They're like those people who claim they're going to "Darkest Africa", when they're actually going on a fully catered safari just outside of Cape Town or Nairobi.

Derick, Jill, stop pretending you're super cool intrepid explorers out in the wilds of Central America when all you do is hang around in your house the majority of locals would only dream of affording, annoy your Spanish teacher, and hang out with other rich white naive expats, only seeing the locals as either threats or a captive audience for your ramblings in broken Spanish about why venerating the Virgin Mary is muy mal.

After last nights episode I think they just escaped life. And are living off tlc money

shocking it was

[Bad Wolf]

Eleventy hundred years ago I took 2 years of Spanish in high school. A couple of years ago we went to Guadalajara, and I was able to manage pretty well. Chatted with people in the town square, bargained over the price of things. True, I didn't know enough to tell people they were worshipping wrongly and would go to hell.

Why oh why, couldn't the Dillards have taken a community college class and watched a Spanish channel on the ebil TV before leaving? Especially with an infant and Derrick's surgery. Oh yes, Duggar logic.

[Mercer]

For that matter, I'm sure that before they left they could have easily found a native Spanish speaker locally who could come to the house and tutor them, which would be pretty much the same as Jill is doing now.

[Mothership]

9 minutes ago, Mercer said:

For that matter, I'm sure that before they left they could have easily found a native Spanish speaker locally who could come to the house and tutor them, which would be pretty much the same as Jill is doing now.

In another thread, several posters defended the language lessons in country.  i was one of them.  But, I have to agree, the if you're not going for true immersion--and clearly Jill is not, then a Spanish class at the local Community college would have been sufficient.   She doesn't even attempt to converse in even broken Spanish when walking around.  A native speaker could have easily stopped by her house and tried to teach her in NW Arkansas.   AND, Jill wouldn't have had any excuse to quite the classes:  plenty of j'slaves around to help out with Izzy. 

[Mercer]

If someone is really serious about learning the language, I definitely think immersion and attending a language school in-country are the best option.

The Dillards seem more interested in playing house/playing missionaries in an exotic locale, and I don't get the feeling they're in this for the long haul.

[EmCatlyn]

13 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

Eleventy hundred years ago I took 2 years of Spanish in high school. A couple of years ago we went to Guadalajara, and I was able to manage pretty well. Chatted with people in the town square, bargained over the price of things. True, I didn't know enough to tell people they were worshipping wrongly and would go to hell.

Why oh why, couldn't the Dillards have taken a community college class and watched a Spanish channel on the ebil TV before leaving? Especially with an infant and Derrick's surgery. Oh yes, Duggar logic.

I realize your question is rhetorical but they may be learning Spanish in Antigua, Guatemala to kill time until either Derrick gets a mission placement, or a job with SOS ministries, or both.   He has said more than once (when they were first found in El Salvador and more recently in an article connected to the Specials) that they are doing X while waiting for his placement.  It has been speculated on some thread here that he may be under

 

 

consideration for a job organizing pray vacations/missions for SOS.   The SOS website says something about growing their Guatemala mission.  Maybe Derrick's plan (?) is to work with the SOS group in Guatemala.  He,mat least, may be immersing himself a little in the local culture, even if he is mostly associating with people from the school and the churches etc.

 I maintain that their original decision to go be missionaries in Central America was prompted by the cancellation of the show and the impulse to try to get away from the scandals.  Derrick may have welcomed the opportunity to get away from his inlaws and may have thought it would be best to take Jill away from the scandal.  But now they need to give legitimacy to their mission trip, so until they actually start missioning, staying in Guatemala to learn the language gives them something to do while they wait.   And, who knows, TLC may pick up the tab for additional missioning even if there is no job for Derrick or a real mission that wants them.   

One wonders if they will ever do something useful.

 

[DigDugger]

Was their hotel arrangement explained?  That hotel appeared to be pretty nice.  And it has to be pretty spacious to hold them plus a baby and Derrick's mom.  (Didn't they also take Joy and another girl on one of their visits?)  I'm betting the typical missionary doesn't get to stay in a place that nice.  But then again, the typical missionary hasn't established an LLC to solicit donations through a website.

[luv2laugh]

16 minutes ago, DigDugger said:

Was their hotel arrangement explained?  That hotel appeared to be pretty nice.  And it has to be pretty spacious to hold them plus a baby and Derrick's mom.  (Didn't they also take Joy and another girl on one of their visits?)  I'm betting the typical missionary doesn't get to stay in a place that nice.  But then again, the typical missionary hasn't established an LLC to solicit donations through a website.

I would also like an answer to this question.  These people are taking a luxurious vacation. They are not roughing it on a mission, or even renting an apartment for that matter. They do not belong on TV. The Duggars are an embarrassment to actual Christians, like how Donald Trump is to Republicans. They are more horrible, in terms of grifting, than that of even the Rodrigues family. They need to get off TV and no updates from this family unless one of them breaks free. Also, judging by the fact that "Anna Duggar stays with Josh" has not been trending on Facebook, I think this will become a reality. They have barely any advertisers and people are done with them and don't care. Josh can have 10 more sex scandals, Jill can birth twins in the mountains, Jana can marry, and Michelle can get pregnant again and people still won't find it newsworthy, the public has shown their disgust and has moved on.

[Coconut Flan]

That was an apartment they were staying in.  They rented it on a previous trip.

[mebeforee]

Yeah, it definitely didn't look like a hotel arrangement to me. I'm guessing it's property owned by whoever organized their mission trip. It had a lot of amenities I don't imagine would be normal in the region they're trying to witness to, and if they're as rural as they seem to imply, there probably aren't a lot of commercial hotels in the area anyway.

[OldFadedStar]

So I did a tiny bit of research on Antigua, Guatemala. 

 

A hotel is on average $60 a night. I saw one as low as 25 and one as high as 150. 

 

I found an apartment for $700ish... I even saw one as low as like $200 a month that was unfurnished.

So just looking at hotels and factoring in food costs, it very well could be cheaper for them to stay in a "luxurious apartment" rather than a hotel. 

[Marissap]

On December 22, 2015 at 0:13 AM, Mercer said:

For that matter, I'm sure that before they left they could have easily found a native Spanish speaker locally who could come to the house and tutor them, which would be pretty much the same as Jill is doing now.

Didn't they try this once with Marjorie's mom?  Maybe she flunked them and they had no other options. Lol

[mebeforee]

I have to say I'm surprised that Jill isn't a better Spanish speaker already. The family took Spanish lessons and she's been to a number of missions in El Salvador, I would have thought she'd make a better effort before now to learn it. I know the family doesn't really care to educate themselves and Jim Bob is the worst offender, but it seemed like something that really mattered to Jill to be able to communicate with the kids they encountered. I just remember her crying so much after she had to leave the friend she made there. You'd think she would have learned as much as she could so she could at least write to her.

[Natalie22]

3 hours ago, mebeforee said:

I have to say I'm surprised that Jill isn't a better Spanish speaker already. The family took Spanish lessons and she's been to a number of missions in El Salvador, I would have thought she'd make a better effort before now to learn it. I know the family doesn't really care to educate themselves and Jim Bob is the worst offender, but it seemed like something that really mattered to Jill to be able to communicate with the kids they encountered. I just remember her crying so much after she had to leave the friend she made there. You'd think she would have learned as much as she could so she could at least write to her.

I'm surprised as well.  On top of everything you mentioned, it also seemed she was taking private spanish lessons from Marjorie's mother.  By the time I was done three years of high school spanish at a school lacking any sort of diversity, I could definitely have some sort of conversation with someone.  

[SassyPants]

I think Jill is challenged, I've never taken 1 day of Spanish, am nearing 60 years old , go to So America to visit my daughter ( last 5 years) and can converse and get around. Sorry, most people could get by.  Jill is either lazy or challenged. 

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

I think Jill is challenged, I've never taken 1 day of Spanish, am nearing 60 years old , go to So America to visit my daughter ( last 5 years) and can converse and get around. Sorry, most people could get by.  Jill is either lazy or challenged. 

I think the issue is the intersection of Jill being lazy with Jill's questionable home education not teaching her how to learn.

As long as Jill was able to spit back Bible verses, I don't think her parents much cared if she was able to identify important information and retain it, practiced her reading comprehension, honed the focus needed to really study, gained the basic building blocks of knowledge that form the foundation for future learning, etc. 

I don't think she was ever encouraged to develop critical thinking or analytical skills, to generalize information, or to prioritize education.

At her age without a solid basic education under her belt, learning a new language probably is extra challenging, and I frankly don't think she cares enough to put in the effort it would take.

[Imagine20]

I'm guessing she doesn't understand parts of speech and that is having a huge impact on her learning Spanish. It doesn't matter if she's memorized 1000 noun flashcards if she can't grasp the basics like verb matching and conjugation. 

[Mothership]

It's time for me to confess:  I've been to Guatemala 5 times on what could be considered "short term" mission trips [hate using the term, as it has a really bad connotation, but we won't go there now].  Anyway, I went down with a protestant denomination to be in relationship with our sister denomination there.  We mostly met with folks and asked them what we could do to help and what could they tell us that might help us.  We were supportive of women in the group wanting to go to seminary.

So, this is what my personal experience taught me:   #1-Antigua is not a hot bed of gangs.  It is a popular area for language schools and tourism.  The greatest risk to the Dullards is a crime against property.  First rule--don't walk around with your cell phones in hand or cameras our of backpacks!  You'll likely be robbed or have your pocket picked.   Closer to the border with Mexico and in the Peten region, there is considerably greater violence as the drug trade has spread to those regions.  Not sure what gangs the Dullards are planning to work with in Antigua.  

#2.  The protestants (usually identified as Evangelicals--but not in the sense that we use that word here) in Guatemala do not consider Catholics to be Christian.  They refer to themselves alone as Christian.  So, although Catholics are the majority in the country, the Dullards do have some theological colleagues there. I was never given a specific answer as to why this was the case.  I suspect it was the influence of the protestant missionaries....people like the Dullards.

#3 Language immersion schools in Guatemala can be very good.  They usually consist of staying with a host family, so that Spanish (or one of the indigenous Mayan languages) are heard/spoken 24/7.  Language classes can be up to 6 hours a day.  I suspect that Derick is doing some version of this, but clearly Jill is not.   Even at the intense immersion, 6-8 weeks is the minimum to attain some level of fluency and is what is required for long term missionaries that I met with.  Most do at least 3 months.   There one month of kinda-sorta language classes before beginning their work is just plain uninformed (okay...stupid).

#4  Guatemala  and its people are beautiful, hospitable and diverse.  TLC has an opportunity to go back to their roots as "The Learning Channel" and really share some information about the region and culture. Doubtful that will happen.