Sometimes you know……….

I thought I was ‘sayin somethin’ when I passed the NY State Regents exam for Spanish Comprehension with flying colors. I had Puerto Rican classmates since elementary school and always had the desire to speak Spanish. After four years of high school Spanish, I was confident that I could survive the new world that was predicted to be dominated by Spanish speaking peoples.  When I got to college, I enrolled in Spanish as my ‘cake course’. That means the course was supposed to be easy for me, by balancing out the rigors of being pre-med with a course I knew I could ace. That's not exactly what happened.

Professor Fernandez made reading Spanish literature interesting, but it was not easy. This was a great deal more complicated than identifying colors and asking for directions to la bibliotheque.  I took four such classes, that is another two years of Spanish class. I was ready.

When my new roommate walked in and announced she was from the San Juan office, I was ecstatic. We became fast friends and she helped me pronounce Spanish words with authenticity. One evening we went out to dinner with a manager from her office. In an effort to impress I repeated a phrase I’d heard my roomie use frequently. I exclaimed, Cabron! after tasting my meal. The table got quiet and I saw Ms Manger cut her eyes at my roommate. Dictionary.com explains this better than I could:  “Well, if you’re an English speaker, you can tell the difference just fine between calling something shit as opposed to calling something the shit. Spanish speakers do this for cabrón.”   I had used the word incorrectly, inappropriately, just should have stayed quiet. ”I see what you’ve been teaching her.” It was the source of a good laugh for many weeks to come.

I’m not going to blame my lack of Spanish practice afterward on that one incident, but I bet subconsciously, that embarrassing moment made a lasting impression on me. I bought Spanish language picture books for my daughter but as a toddler she showed little interest. That makes sense to me now, but it didn’t thirty years ago.

I never gave up on my dream of becoming fluent in Spanish. Eventually  I joined a Meetup Group online which spoke exclusively in SPANISH once a week. That was the most difficult ninety minutes of my week. That lasted for a couple of months before I gave up again!

Recently, I took a cruise to Mexico. Once aboard, I befriended several other solo travelers. In Puerto Vallarta I took a taxi to the shop of a well known sculptor and jeweler. The driver and I communicated about the landscape and his baby daughter. The shop clerks spoke just enough English to make my visit pleasant. The following day at port stop number 2, I decided to bravely ask another taxi driver to take me to an authentic Mexican restaurant in town. His English allowed him to tell me that he was 82 years old and had lived in Mazatlan all of his life. His wife always cooks at home, but he knows a popular restaurant I could visit. He drove me to the center of Old Town where the traffic got really congested. He instructed me to walk one block in THAT direction and go to the restaurant on the corner. I was greeted by a young man with a huge bottle of hand sanitizer. I thought, this is a good sign. The place was packed. The waitress brought over a chair for me to sit while I patiently waited for someone to finish their lunch. The menu was entirely in Spanish and my waitress did not speak a lick of English. I knew the Spanish words for shrimp and coffee. To this day, I don't know what flavoring was in the coffee but I stopped after 2 sips. When the young man brought the sizzling shrimp dish to my table and quickly left, I just stared in disbelief. All those years of Spanish and you didn’t understand what you ordered. I could smell the bacon wrapped shrimp that looked delicious. I generally don’t eat bacon but I found myself in a personal quandary. No one will know you tasted the swine, unless you tell them. I don’t eat pork, but this sure looks good and how in the world will you be able to explain to them that you don't want it. You ordered it,  now eat it.  I tenuously picked  up the first shrimp by the tail and dayum, it was good. The second one was even better. Then my conscience kicked in, and I peeled away the bacon for the remainder of the meal. 

I was mentally prepared to get sick, but I remained in good physical health. I’ve since been reminded to use Google translator but that’s not really the point of this story. Sometimes you know, and sometimes……..

Be well.

Christine A Harper