Life after Graduation from Spanish Class

It’s time to update my blog when I get an email from Dad wondering if I am OK!!!   It’s been a while between posts, mostly because I was too tired at the end of each day last week.  I am now on the boat and, after two days of decompression, am back in English mode.  Being on the dock is a huge culture shock after three weeks of immersion.  As the dock gates slam behind me, La Paz seems like a distant memory.  I am not sure which is the alternate reality, but they are worlds apart.

Backing up….

We had rain about ten days ago!  Those who are reading this might wonder why that’s worth mentioning.  But here it’s cause for celebration since they've had no measurable rain for three years!  The timing for me was not good, though, because I was on my way back from Loreto, when I gone to check on the progress of the sale of my house and to visit friends.  The trip up was uneventful and I passed the 4-hour drive listening to Mexican ‘country western’ music.  It was heartening to realize that I could make out more than half of the words.  Once in Loreto I had to help my tenants figure out how to start the hot water heater – they speak NO English so our conversation was conducted solely in Spanish, and I was thrilled to see that they were not looking at me with the look that says “what on earth are you trying to say???”

The rain started on the way home in my rental car, and I slowed down, mindful of slick roads after long dry spells.  Turning on the wipers, I quickly discovered that the right hand washer blade was lacking the bracket that held it to the washer arm…and was about to fall off if I continued to use it.  But, if I took it off and ran without it, the arm would scratch the window.  What to do?  One thing that has always impressed me about the people who live here is their resourcefulness, so I scouted around for something to tie the washer arm to the blade.  Stripping a decorative cord from my purse, I lashed the two together in good Girl Scout fashion and was shortly on my way.  When in Mexico….

Last week, the tempo of Spanish classes increased when I was assigned to a group class for 4 hours a day and a private lesson for one hour daily, instead of the 3 hours of private lessons I had in my first two weeks.  I was really excited about that because I would be able to learn from the mistakes of 3 other people, not just mine!  And I would be  ‘in Spanish mode’ for more of the day.  

Good plan, except for the twice-weekly salsa class, the piñata class, and the nightly walk downtown for an ice cream left little time for all of the homework we were assigned.  Going home provides little respite, because the family speaks Spanish, and I don’t want to miss any opportunity to learn how to make tamales or roast tomatillos to make salsa verde.  It’s hard to describe how tiring it is to be talking at the same time that your brain is working in the background to upload words to your mouth.  And by the end of each day, I had little energy for blogging!

The good news is that I really can understand much much more of what I hear.  When I first arrived, whatever anyone said sounded like one long word with no spaces….and now I can hear the spaces!  And I can put sentences together using virtually all of the Spanish tenses, including present and imperfect subjective, tenses rarely used in English.  I am pleased with my progress, but I am ready for a break to let it all settle into place. 

As a closet etymologist, I continue to enjoy the nuances of the language.  Two in particular struck me this week.  One is the word “Ojalá”, a word that is used to introduce the expression of a wish, usually in subjunctive tense, as in “Ojalá that we can be underway in a few more days.”  The word has no literal translation in Spanish, but as it was presented in class, I wondered about its roots…and was not at all surprised to hear that it had evolved from the Arabic expression for ‘God willing.’  So the language, even here in Mexico, carries the traces of the Moorish occupation of Spain in the end of the first millenium.

The second linguistic curiosity is the fact that there is a single verb in Spanish for ‘to wait,’ ‘to hope’ or ‘to expect.’  All three concepts are captured in one verb ‘esperar,’ and the intention is derived from the context and inflection.    However, those of you who have ridden Mexican busses know that this makes perfect sense, because as you wait at the bus stop, looking down the street for a bus that the schedule leads you to expect, you are bound to hope that it is going to appear!

Coming from a job where my focus was on improving efficiency, you might wonder how I tolerate the bureaucracy…but I often remind myself that the Dalai Lama said that all sorrow in life is due to expectations.   Only gringos expect things to go quickly in Mexico, and life is much easier if you adopt a local perspective.  A friend put it well when he pointed out that ‘mañana’ does not really mean “tomorrow” – it simply means “not today.”  So when you ask when your car will be ready and the mechanic says ‘mañana’, you don’t get your expectations up too high.

For example, in Puerto Escondido two weeks ago, my skipper spent a week waiting to put his boat in the water.  There were a few “mañanas” to get his boat to the front of the line, and then the day he was supposed to go in, the travel lift broke.  Once the lift was ready, he was having trouble with his engine, and had to ask them himself for another mañana. But he made it, and is now in La Paz, working on a radio install as I type.  Although sailing the Sea of Cortes sounds exotic, many say that cruising is simply working on your boat in exotic locations!

The marina here looks much like any in the US - except that there are NO derelict boats.  All of the boats seem to be cruise-ready and none of the people on the dock communicate in any language but English- an abrupt change for me.  I spent yesterday organizing and cleaning the galley and inventorying the supplied.  Today I am busy putting together a provisions list, and on Wednesday we plan to rent a car to run around town bringing batteries to be recharged, getting groceries, buying permits to visit the marine park and otherwise preparing the boat.  Thursday we plan to join a few people at the language school for a small Thanksgiving dinner, and then get serious about packing to leave, hopefully SUNDAY.

Baptism by Culture

My immersion is not just in language – per my previous post, it is cultural as well. Some might say that I am not just immersing myself in Spanish – I am drowning myself!   But every opportunity to speak the language is an opportunity to learn more about the culture as well as build my vocabulary.   For example Monday on the way home, passing the Casa de la Cultura, I saw an ad for piñata classes, offered in Spanish, of course. ¿Porque non?  So I went into the office and introduced myself, paid the $100 MX (US $8.00) and started right in. 

This made for a long day on Tuesday – Spanish from 8:30-10:30, piñata class from 10:30 to 12, Spanish again from 12-1.  A trip to the bank to change travelers checks, 2 hours of Spanish homework, dinner with my homestay family, and salsa class at 9:00.

In piñata class, I learned all the words for balloon, glue, wrapping paper, tissue paper, bucket, and verbs related to making papier mache….as well as the history of the piñata.  According to the instructor, piñatas evolved from an old Italian decoration, called a “pignatta” that came to Mexico with the conquistadores in the 1600’s.  The Italians got the idea from the Chinese, gracias a Marco Polo.  Who knows where the Chinese got it from, but the lineage persists in that the Spanish word for ‘tissue paper’ is ‘paper from China.’  My instructor says the word ‘pregnant’ evolved from the concept of something filled with good stuff….and its slang origin is the reason it was not a word spoken in ‘polite society’ for so long.  Very interesting.  

The first day, we created the papier maché ‘bodies’ which we left out in the ubiquitout Baja sun to dry, while today we built the bases for the 7 ‘horns’ that represent the Seven Deadly Sins.  In Mexico, the Chinese-Italian concept was blended with catholic teachings and endures today…those Jesuits and Dominicans found all kinds of ways to reinforce their message!  There was lots of joking about the 7 sins, the instructor claiming that he could not list them all because he only remembered the ones he had committed.  There are 5-6 people working on the piñatas, apparently all employees of the Casa de la Cultura, and their task is to make 50 of them to sell as fundraisers for the Christmas time.   I am quite a novelty to them, and they are appear to enjoy teaching me as much as I enjoy learning spanish from them.

Saturday I revisited the park where the astronomers hang out, and got an impromptu lecture on galaxies, black holes and lunar phases, further padding my vocabulary.  I’m getting much braver about ‘guessing’ when I don’t know the right word – so many words in Spanish can be created from a similar English root and a Spanish suffix such as ‘-dora,’ ‘-ista’ or ‘-ito’ ---and I am finding that if I pronounce the root as I would in Spanish and hesitate just a tad, the helpful local listener will add the right suffix – an ad hoc Google translater!  

And Sunday, I noticed an announcement for a free presentation of Hamlet - again, en español.  As one who sails to Vancouver just for the Shakespeare festival, I HAD to see this!  Try to imagine Hamlet in simpler language (the translation was done in a way that even I could understand most of it!) supported by melodramatic music more evocative of a soap opera than Stratford on Avon.  Hamlet, described frequently as 'loco' throughout the presentation was clearly NOT the protagonist in this recasting!

Insights into the culture

One of the benefits of learning a foreign language is the insight that it permits into the culture.  Most tourists to Mexico don’t venture far off the Malecon, visiting the beaches and restaurants that cater to English speakers.  Interactions are limited to ordering beer and arranging dive trips, and not being able to read the signs prevents them from learning much about what is going on in town.  Having lived in several other countries, I really believe that a visitor can not really appreciate the culture without learning the language.  I remember well soon after I moved to Japan, when I finally was able to read enough Japanese to see that moneylenders were proudly offering housewives the chance to buy a washing machine at ‘ONLY’ 30% interest – rates that to us would be usury.  This really allowed me to see the difference in money management between Japanese and American families.

Similarly, learning Spanish has already opened many windows for me into Hispanic culture.  For example…as Bill (my fellow student and housemate) left for his plane, he bequeathed me with his stack of Spanish language magazines…reading material for the beach.  One of his magazines featured Justin Bieber prominently on the cover, so I figured that it was targeted at an age group whose level of Spanish might not be TOO difficult for me.  Yet, the first article I encountered was an article debating whether women with angry facial expressions were that way because they were sexually frustrated!   So Justin Bieber must appeal to a different set than I expected…or the Bieber set is worried about things I did not expect a 14 year old to be concerned with! 

Another example: three of us got tickets on Thursday for a show presented by a local amateur theatre and dance group.  Consistent with the Day of the Dead celebrations, the story concerned a card shark who is dying of thirst in the desert amid a bevy of dancing cacti (of various sizes due to the various kids inside them).  As he faints of thirst, a Catrina appears (the vampily dressed skeletons associated with Day of the Dead) to teach him some lessons of life and show him the errors of his drunk and dissolute ways.  The two of them amuse the audience with witty repartee and a charming card game in which they each cheat shamelessly on the other. 

Once the Catrina’s lessons are learned he falls asleep again and awakes expecting (as did we American watchers) to find that all is now resolved and forgiven.  Yet, the dancing cactus are revealed to all have skulls in place of their faces….revealing him to be truly dead and amusing the heck out of the all (Mexican audience,  The three of us (the sole Americanos there) were immediately struck by the fact that the equivalent US show (think Scrooge) would have expected a ‘happily ever after’ ending.

Last night, 5 of us went to a beginning Salsa class downtown….which started at 9 PM!  I was pleased to find that I could understand at least 80% of the instructor’s directions (admittedly, a lot of it WAS uno, dos, tres….cinco, seis, siete….), and three of us will be continuing while we are here in La Paz.  JAs in the US, there were many more women than men in the class, but Tino the teacher did not allow the women to pair up – rather he had the men form a line and the women rotated into and down the line.  The two men in our group grumbled good-naturedly about not having had a break for the entire hour, while we got to sit on the sidelines for a few minutes.  Photos of the class to come on Tuesday.

The immersion begins

The air-conditioned bus trundles smoothly down highway 1, leaving the station only 5 minutes later than advertised.  As advertised, it’s a very modern affair, clean and air-conditioned  - no goats or chickens – even some fairly recent DVDs. Highway 1 is only one lane each direction the entire length of the Baja, though, and the driver does not hesitate to tailgate the slower trucks in anticipation of passing as soon as there is a big enough opening.  I think we were less than 10 feet from one of them!

Arriving at La Paz, it is just a short taxi ride to the home where I will be staying for the next two weeks – a lovely villa with walls at least a foot thick and hand painted tiles on the floors and walls.  The owner tells us that the house is over 100 years old, and was originally the main home for a hacienda that occupied the entire block, before the property was subdivided.  Right from the start ‘hablamos espanol solamente’ and I am heartened to find that I can understand virtually all that my hostess and the other student here (Bill) says, although I still need to think longer than I would like before responding.

After dinner Bill and I go out for a walk on the waterfront, where La Paz comes alive.  In 80 degree weather, over the course of our promenade, we encountered a science fair, a wedding, a bingo gathering, salsa dancing complete with prancing shark mascots, a concert, and an astronomy club.  The "astronomicos" invited us to peer through their telescopes to see the moons of Jupiter, the Andromeda galaxy and an incredible closeup of the moon and invited us to return on any given Saturday.  Planeo volver!  (I will return!)

As I post this, three days of classes are behind me, and I am feeling the brain-fatigue that comes from an overdose of mental stimulation.  I spend 2.5 hours in private Spanish only lessons each morning and there is generally a bit more time spent hanging around the school chatting less formally with instructors.  The school arranges for some cultural activities each week and we are lucky to be here for the Day of the Dead, a HUGE latino-american festival.  Our cultural presentation in Spanish yesterday covered the altars that families build to remember family members who have died, and we participated in building one to commemorate Steve Jobs. 

Yesterday we visited the cemetery with an instructor and then spent several hours at the city-wide festival where folk dancers and skeleton-costumed comedians entertain the audience, elaborately dressed Catrinas wander the crowd, and vendors hawk tamales and other fiesta food. 

Bill and I were fascinated by the Catrina competition.  There were 12-14 entrants, including children and adults, faces painted to resemble a skull, dressed in very flamboyant gowns over arms and legs swathed in black nylon embossed with white bones.  After parading across the stage, the entrants mingled with the crowd, posing for photos like ghoulish Goofies, and vamping shamelessly.   Although all were dressed in skirts, Bill and I agreed that one of the entrants could not possibly be a woman.  But since Death makes no distinction due to gender, we assumed that there must be no rules that the person under the costume had to be male.  Today the winners will be announced, and we are looking forward to seeing if we've got our money on the right one.

La Paz is a charming city – it keeps a very low profile in the Baja, unlike Tijuana or Cabo, where high rises, traffic and police sirens are more the norm.  There are few buildings over two stories, and the waterfront is a family affair.   As the sun sets, and the heat abates, the Malecon fills with strollers, skateboarders, street vendors and stargazers.  Sailboats ride at anchor in a sea streaked with scarlet reflections, and pangas are pulled up on the sand after a day of fishing.  The colonial Spanish heritage is evident in the cast iron scrollwork, and bougainvillas bursting from big planters.  All that’s missing to evoke a Seaside Spanish town is the song of a canary.  

My Spanish classes are challenging...and come with homework.  I'm finding that I can truly understand a bit more each day.  While our instructors pace their delivery to the students' level, the average person on the street does not...and I am finding that the spaces between words are getting much clearer.  It will be interesting to see how much more fluent I feel in another two and a half weeks.  I'm quite optimistic.