FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA

FREE PREVIEW I wanted to pick up as much Spanish as I could before the college reopened in the second half of January. I buried myself quickly into the grammar book and completed all the eighty lessons in a week. The college was to reopen in a week, and I thought that I should have some firsthand experience in speaking the language. I put the book away and got out into the street to greet people and practice my Spanish. To my great surprise and consternation, I could not utter anything more than the ‘si’ and the ‘no’ that I had learned during the previous visit. I thought I had mastered all the grammar and had acquired enough vocabulary to sustain a conversation at least in a limited way. I quickly retired into my room like a dog with its tail between its legs, to escape from the embarrassment and to reflect on what had gone wrong. Obviously my strategy for a quick fix did not work. What other method could I use? Nothing came to my mind. I spent two hours examining all the strategies I could employ, but could not come up with anything practical. I had one of two options: to resign, return the money, and go somewhere else where English is spoken, or to survive in Venezuela at whatever cost. Going somewhere else was not really an option because I did not have a visa to any other country nor a job anywhere else. I could return to India, with the risk of not finding a suitable job that paid enough to meet my responsibilities. I could have gotten married to an Indian nurse in the US (and I knew a few of them who would have done that), got my visa fixed and thereby got my future resolved; but my self-respect did not give into that. I decided to stick it out in Venezuela at whatever cost, but had no clue as to how I would do it. Trying to learn a language in fifteen days for immediate use is not practical; it requires more time. I could not think of starting work without at least a limited use of the language, especially since I was going to be a supervisor with professionals and secretaries that reported to me. After a brief period when my mind was bleak, I thought about a course that I had taken in the University of Wisconsin three years earlier, wherein I was taught how children learned a language. They do not learn grammar or sentence structure. They just listen carefully to what they hear, process it in their mind, and repeat whatever that comes to their mind. I decided I would do just that. I decided to listen carefully to what others said, process it in his mind, make sense out of it, and repeat it in my own way. I made this as my strategy to learn the language. I decided to invite friends to have a beer with me so that I could listen to them and practice with them. Four hours after I retreated from the street, I was back in it inviting friends for a beer. Several friends acceded to my invitation. I listened carefully to all that they said and occasionally uttered something that made sense, but most of the time produced a wink or laughter from them. Although they had a hilarious time at my expense, I did not perceive their behavior as offensive. I felt they were really trying to understand me and give me an opportunity to practice their language. I even perceived that they liked hearing their language badly spoken, because they had never heard it done before. They never transmitted anything that made me feel inhibited. It is a great quality in a culture that facilitates the absorption of people from other latitudes and languages. I felt totally at home and visited the houses of several friends. My efforts paid off, for I began to understand what people said. I even began to utter some sentences, still with errors and accent. I should say that my strategy may not work with everybody who wants to learn a new language. The whole experience that I went through to learn the language sounds easier than what it actually was. Only certain personalities can stand the ordeal surrounding it. First of all, one does not really understand for the first few days what others are saying. One can easily suspect that they are ridiculing him or her. Some may, indeed, laugh at one. One has to develop a thick skin and has the resolve to go forward in spite of all the difficulties. After a few days, it gets better as one begins to understand a little bit more of what is said. Still, the capacity to speak is still further down the road. Until that time, the one who can persist succeeds. It is pretty scary to end up in a foreign country not knowing the language with the responsibility to do a job that involves supervision of people. One needs one’s own family for support, encouragement and as a fallback if things go wrong. I still don’t know how I handled the uncertainties and perils associated with my circumstances without emotional breakup. It was adventurous and even crazy on my part. If one thinks about it before being exposed to the real thing, one will never go forward. A friend of mine who started a successful business confessed to me that she would have never started it had she known or reflected over all the perils and challenges that she would have had to face. The secret of any venture is the capacity to face challenges as they come up. That is what I did. Not everybody is born or made for it.