Victim of the Tower of Babel

As a life-long language learner, I ~~often~~ always struggle to find the right word in the right language. And I ~~always~~ often end up using the wrong word anyway.

One time, a friend in the thick of language school told me that she had burst into laughter when a non-native English speaker used the word “elephant” to describe an “eggplant” dish. Although she was embarrassed by her own uncontrollable giggles, she knew that it was coming from a sense of relief that other people make mistakes too.

I can understand.

Heavily accented English. Mispronounced vocabulary. Misused idioms. Misspellings. I can smile… because when I do, I am smiling at my own mistakes too.

Like my language school director once told me on a particularly bad language day: “You’re a victim of the Tower of Babel!”

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

Spanish with the nuns

Buried in my neighborhood is a tiny green door that leads to a tiled courtyard full of vibrant plants. Charming little rooms surround the tiled courtyard, completing the charming little haven.

In one room, there is a set of five sewing machines. Four treadle. One electric.

In another room, there is a plastic table with accompanying plastic chairs and a rough blackboard.

This is a sewing and Spanish school for immigrants. It is managed by nuns. A friend brought me along to class one day to see if I could enroll.

The first time I met the nuns, I had to bend over at the waist to greet them with kisses on their dainty little faces. Only one seemed more than five feet tall. And not one of them was under seventy. Maybe eighty.

I was captivated. “Is it possible to sign up for Spanish class?” I gripped my friend’s elbow as I awaited the nuns’ answer.

It was possible. After Semana Santa, I officially enrolled for the final trimester of the school year. (And by officially enrolling, I mean that I jotted my information on a scrap of notebook paper.)

On the first day of class—a lesson of body parts vocabulary—the teacher chalked a stick figure on the board with a rectangular trunk. For good measure, she placed a few wild curls on the faceless head to classify the figure as “female.”

During class, the figure was blessed with a chalky esophagus. No other organ required equal visual explanation, so the figure proudly sported her solitary organ until the end of class. And as the teacher erased both the figure and her esophagus, we students trickled out of the shadowy room and into the blast of sunlight that spread across the courtyard.

Since then, class has brought me in close contact with other immigrants as we reveal tidbits of our lives in choppy Spanish and laugh about our language woes. We share struggle and community. We even share goods: sometimes we carry home peppers, cucumbers, handcrafted sewing class projects, or even potted plants.

As the final trimester enters the final month, attendance has dwindled as most of the women fast for Ramadan.

The first and second hour classes combined and I suddenly found myself in a class of women who struggle with pronouns and simple verbs. But the energy and fun we have together is rewarding enough for me.

Yesterday, while practicing the structure “I like,” a classmate smiled and said, “I like Trish’s face.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed the teacher. “Trish has a nice face.”

The other students murmured their agreement and admired my reddening cheeks. Until, for lack of a Spanish equivalent, I burst out the Arabic expression, “God be blessed!”

Spontaneous in Níjar

The weekend finally came after a long, busy week.

“I’m sipping the last of my now-cold coffee and enjoying the fact that I have nowhere I need to go today,” I wrote in an email to my parents.

Five minutes later, a friend whatsapped me: “If it works and you want to…” She and her husband were planning to pick up a load of donated clothing for our second-hand shop. Could I help?

“Yes, I can. What time?”

“Ten minutes.”

Even though it was after ten o’clock, I was still in pajamas with a bedhead. But I dashed around the house and out the door just in time, bedhead (calmed but not conquered), coffee breath, and all. Had I remembered to put on deodorant?

As we were loading the last of the clothes along the winding streets of downtown Almería, my friend’s husband said, “We would like to take you to Níjar.”

Of course, this statement wasn’t as unprecedented as I make it sound. They knew I had been wanting to browse through handmade pottery and they were willing to drive me to a quaint, mountain town to do my browsing.

There I stood with my bedhead and bad breath. But I wasted only a moment in indecision before heartily agreeing to the spontaneous plan.

So we went. And it was lovely. The spontaneity made it delightful. The handcrafted merchandise made it breathtaking.

It begins again

Today is the first day of Ramadan. Earlier this week, a friend told me that Ramadan is a time of growing close to God.

Whether or not her comment reflects her true goal during the obligatory month of fasting, there are many who are seeking God. And many are finding. Sometimes in ways they don’t expect.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
(Jer. 29:13)

Pray that those who are seeking will find.

Today I will see beauty- Part 2

In my blog post last week, I told you that I wanted to see beauty in the daily grind of life. I wanted to intentionally notice.

I managed to get a photo from each day and multiple photos from several days. My self-induced challenge made me look for beauty, even when I wasn’t snapping pictures. I liked that.

There were a lot of photos I would have liked to have had and one I accidentally deleted… but instead of telling you about those, I’ll show you these:

(Most of the photos below were taken on my phone, so I won’t vouch for their quality.)

silvery underside of tree — Thursday: My favorite tree. When I pass under it, I love to look up at the silverly undersides of the leaves.

sun shining through clouds over city — Friday: After an early morning rain

trees and roses lining boulevard — Saturday: The roses are still blooming

silhouettes of two women — Sunday: Friendship

family of three with sombrilla and market bag walking along tree-lined boulevard — Sunday (again): A family walking home from the market

elderly couple seated on bench along tree-lined boulevard — Monday: An elderly couple enjoying the tranquil boulevard

open cupboard — Tuesday: Organized cupboards!

water bottle in case made out of aluminum bottle tabs — Wednesday: The water bottle holder itself is not very beautiful, but two things make it beautiful to me: 1) it was a gift and 2) it’s made from recycled aluminum can pull tabs.

Today I will see beauty- Part 1

Sometimes beauty gets lost in the daily grind of life until I hardly notice it anymore. Noticing the beautiful things in life generally doesn’t happen unless it’s intentional… at least for me.

Many days, I would notice the trash, but not the snail.

This week, I want to be intentional about noticing beauty. I propose one photo or descriptive scene each day.

I’m making the “descriptive scene” an option because sometimes the best photos lodge themselves in my mind and never make it to my camera. Sometimes because pulling out my camera would detract from the beauty. Sometimes because the moments happen too fast. Sometimes I am trying to be culturally sensitive.

(Pictures speak a thousand words, but sometimes words can speak a thousand pictures because words come from human perception rather than a camera lens.)

So for one week, I will look for beauty in every day… and give you an update next Thursday.

Join me?

Small town librarying

After a couple of months of life in Spain, I gathered up courage to visit the local library. Through the park that hosts elderly men in the morning and rebellious teenagers in the afternoon. Down a long hallway lined with local photography. Until I stood in a room full of books.

Unruffled by my presence, the librarian looked at me over a piece of cardboard she was painting. A prop for a children’s program? “Can I help you?” she asked.

There would be no subtle spying out of the library grounds. I was an outsider and expected to state the purpose for my unheralded intrusion. “Uh, I live here now and-and I would like to read m-more books in Spanish.”

“You need proof of residency from city hall and a copy of your residency card.”

I retrieved the documents and filled out the paperwork. Then I selected a book.

The librarian scrawled the due date on a slip of paper inside the front cover of my selection. I admit that even in that small town, one-room library, I was startled by the lack of technology.

The book I had chosen was boring, so I returned it the next week.

“Did you finish it?” the unruffleable librarian asked without glancing up from her new craft project.

Why this sudden sense of guilt? “No.” I cleared my throat.

“Okay. Just leave it there on the desk.” And she continued unruffledly crafting.

A week later I slipped in again, determined to select a more interesting book. This time, the unruffled librarian was in the middle of a sewing class. She barely looked up while I selected Las Memorias de Sherlock Holmes.

She pulled out my file without confirming my name, made a phone call to the main branch—the internet was down, she said—and then picked up a pencil.

I’m sure my eyes widened when she penciled the due date in the corner inside the front cover.

Sherlock Holmes was a better choice, but I still didn’t finish it by the due date. So I attempted my first renewal.

The librarian’s hands were covered in black paint as she was undertaking yet another craft project. “Did you finish it?”

“No. I would like to renew it.”

“No problem. Just bring it back when you finish.”

Assuming she was referring to the due date, I pointed out that the date inside the front cover said tomorrow.

“No, not when it is due. When you finish,” she clarified. She held up a black hand while the other still clutched a dripping paintbrush. “My hands are covered in paint right now. When you finish, bring the book back and I will erase your fine.”

This week, I returned the overdue book. There was a painting project spread across the entire library floor. The librarian’s pre-teen volunteers cleared a skinny path for me between the massive sheets of damp paper. The unruffled librarian continued hot-gluing safety pins to name tags as I selected another book and brought it to her.

Inside the cover of the old book, she jotted down the number of the new book, handed the new book to me, and returned to her gluing. Apparently, she didn’t feel like traversing the skinny path to her desk.

But this time, she was not the only one unruffled. I had grown accustomed to small town library dynamics and was quite unruffled myself.

Writer’s block and little people

“The words don’t come anymore. It’s like they’re stuck,” I told my roommate. I used to love sitting down to answer emails. Now, despite the fact that I still love to get emails, it’s harder to sit down and respond to them. What used to be a joy now feels more like a discipline.

“It’s like the one thing I used to be good at no longer works!”

My journal entries have grown thin and factual. My blog entries are dry.

Sometimes I get tired of words, trying to recall or learn words in three languages. Tired of trying to make myself understood in any of those languages and their respective cultures.

Sometimes I want to turn off the words in my brain and just be—I want the “nothing” box that men claim is real.

So instead of writing something profound, I offer you some snapshots of my favorite little people: Carissa Joy, Clark David, and Albert Harris. My family kindly keeps me updated with pictures of my growing niece and nephews.

Featured photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Niece and nephews photo credits to my family

Welcome to Almería

statue of man and woman working in greenhouse

view from mountain of sea of white plastic greenhouses with blue mediterranean in beyond

A Good Friday stroll

The Good Friday streets were quieter than normal. I plodded along, bracing myself against the wind.

When I was young—not more than ten—I overheard a conversation between my mom and her friend. The friend claimed that it always rained on Good Friday, even if it was just a little. Mom was politely dubious, but the statement impressed itself upon my impressionable mind. Did it really? Was God reminding us of the death of Jesus through a sky full of tears?

However, since this friend had revealed the fact after Good Friday, I had to wait an entire year to see if the statement were true. By then, I had forgotten about it. And I forgot the next year and the next until more than twenty years later, I still had never noted whether or not the rain dutifully came on Good Friday. Would it come to every part of the world if it indeed came at all? Would it come to Spain?

To be my age and wondering these things made me question my sanity. Why would I believe something that had neither Biblical nor meteorological basis?

I continued to walk, lost in rambling thoughts. My morning plans had been changed at the last minute, making me wish I had stayed in bed longer. But since I was up, I thought I might as well go for a stroll. My relaxed pace allowed a stooped, old man to zip around me. As he passed, I wondered what his story was.

Today the world was worth noticing: young voices pouring out of open cafés, elderly men congregating on park benches, a boy with a soccer ball. What did Easter mean to these people?

I wandered into my favorite café. “Coffee with milk?” The server asked before I had selected my chair.

“Thank you.” I smiled and pulled out my Kindle. I read, inhaling a fair amount of secondhand smoke and sipping my coffee from the sweet rim of my mug—I hadn’t used sugar and tried not to think too hard why the rim tasted sweet.

“One euro, guapa.” The server made change for my ten euro bill.

“Have a good Easter.” I smiled at her.

But would she? In Spain, the climax of Holy Week is the passion of Christ. That part of the holiday is celebrated and reenacted until resurrection Sunday is almost lost. Like their Jesus, did these people also keep their faith eternally nailed to the cross? Did they believe in victorious faith? Victorious life?

A dog trotted along a crosswalk, confident he owned the street. His owner followed a few paces behind.

The North African store was one of the only stores open on Good Friday. It bustled with limp produce, loud Arabic, and bodies that were busy making room for themselves in the small shop.

I dropped a euro on the floor as I paid for a few too-ripe tomatoes. The clerk gently smiled at my clumsiness. And then he switched from Spanish to Arabic to bid me farewell.

I greeted the mother of a lesser-known acquaintance and we walked home together in the powerful wind.

“I have laundry on our roof,” I told her as a gale threatened to carry us off like Mary Poppinses.

She had also hung her morning laundry on the roof, so at her street corner we said hasty goodbyes and rushed to rescue our scattered clothing.

It was afternoon when I opened my laptop to write an email. Outside my bedroom window, the clouds lowered over the mountains while the sky and the sea simultaneously turned gray. Then from somewhere came enough drops of rain to make me wonder, against all logic, if Mom’s friend had been right after all.

Photo by Anant Jain on Unsplash