Bicimáquinas (Bicycle Machines)
Duolingo Spanish Podcast
Duolingo
4.5 • 14.9K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2019
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Carlos Marroquín has always been an inventor. But he wasn’t putting that talent to much use in his native Guatemala until he saw a rare sight on the road that stopped him in his tracks: bicycles. That turning point led Carlos to transform the lives of many farmers and towns through his bicycle-inspired inventions, or as he calls them, bicimáquinas.
A transcript of this episode is available at https://bit.ly/3GdeQeB.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Un Carlos Marroquín was 20 years old. He was working as a truck driver. |
| 0:04.8 | He drove routes that took him all over his home country, Guatemala. |
| 0:09.4 | One day in 1988, he was driving through a small town when he saw something unexpected. |
| 0:15.6 | There was a group of foreigners, altos and rubios. |
| 0:20.0 | That was the first thing that caught my attention. |
| 0:25.0 | After that, he realized something else. All had bicycles. |
| 0:32.0 | He had barely seen one bike before, and here was a whole group of them. |
| 0:37.0 | He stared for hours, watching how the foreigners fixed them. |
| 0:41.0 | They told me they came from Canada, and they were part of the project, PedalCanada. |
| 0:50.0 | They were in Guatemala to demonstrate and develop the use of the bike as a means of transport. |
| 0:59.0 | Carlos was captivated. Bicycles weren't that common in Guatemala at the time. |
| 1:04.0 | The Canadians asked him if he wanted to hang out and learn about how the bikes worked. |
| 1:09.0 | What they didn't know was that Carlos was already an expert mechanic. |
| 1:14.0 | He didn't say this to the Canadians, but by that time Carlos loved inventing new machines. |
| 1:19.0 | His inventor brain was already going a mile a minute. |
| 1:24.0 | When I saw this artifact with red and black wheels, |
| 1:28.0 | I was wondering how the things worked out. |
| 1:31.0 | I also liked inventing my own machines. |
| 1:36.0 | He didn't say this to the Canadians, but by that time Carlos loved inventing new machines. |
| 1:42.0 | My imagination started flying. |
| 1:47.0 | The bikes offered me many opportunities. |
| 1:57.0 | Bienvenidos and welcome to the Duolingo Spanish podcast. |
... |
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