What's in a Name?

Logan isn't a very common name here. I now introduce myself as "Loh-gahn" because it's easier for them to say it and causes less confusion. If they do know it, it's either from X-Men (because that's Wolverine's first name) or from the Renault car (because the name of the model is Logan).



Andres, the concession guy at my school always says Wolverine and holds up his fists so that if he had claws, they'd form an X. I always just smile and nod because I haven't actually ever seen X-Men.

There's this crazy (not literally) guy in Machala who is a friend of my old host-dad. His name is Raul. He drove me to get my Ecuador ID in my first month here. He remembers my name because of the Renault car. We always call it my car, too. Every time I see him, he always yells "Logan, Renault!"

The last name is way harder. When my name was in the newspaper here (pretty popular don't you think?), they put me as Logan Prunner. I even spelled it out for the photographer. The Morochos still laugh at that and say "Logan Prunner."

Speaking of mixing letters, what is difficult here is that the letter b and v have the exact same sound here. The lower class many times mixes these up when writing. On the side of a wall I've seen "No vote basura" which means "Don't vote trash," but it should be "No bote basura" which is "Don't toss trash." I was so confused at first because I had no idea what words they were trying to say because they pronounced them the same. It's actually more like the v that sounds like a b. When I was helping with English in school, I had to teach the kids that there are two distinct sounds for the b and the v. I like to say the v like a b because it's fun. With the exchange students, we say "vamos" which is "let's go." Now I love saying "b-b-bamos!" I say it all the time.