Dave manages to annoy people in yet another language

It is several days since my last post, which itself was fairly meager. I could say that I have been too busy doing and experiencing wonderful things here in Ecuador – and Kathy and I indeed have been having a fabulous time in this most charming nation – but I cannot lie to you dear reader. (Well, I suppose I could, so don’t put that down as a blog rule. But in this instance I won’t.) I’ve been devoting my spare minutos to brushing up on my Spanish.

“No Senor!” I hear you cry in horror, “the 600 million Spanish speaking people of the world already have enough problemos.” And it is true that in the triage of my 50 year old life I had previously assigned mastering a foreign language a Do Not Resuscitate. I have absolutely no talent for it and though I have studied some French, Hebrew and Spanish, I have hitherto never been able to locate a bathroom in any of those languages without pointing to my crotch. (The case of my Hebrew education is particularly remarkable. Though I studied in an intensive kibbutz program 4 hours a day over 5 months I am unable to identify the letters on a dradle.) And I do feel that one of the privileges of advancing years is that you know your weaknesses and strengths, and you really ought to stop beating your head against the weaknesses.

But I have found that being able to communicate with the natives at least at some level is an important part of the travel experience. In some places all you may have is hand gestures (the Bronx, for example), but whatever you’ve got, more is better.

And so, against my better judgment and the entreaties of the State Department, I have been going through my handy Berlitz and am practicing on every Pablo and Rosita unfortunate enough to cross my path.

When it comes to Spanish, I operate on the following principles:

• There really is some of it in my head somewhere. I passed the course, didn’t I? My neurological decline is more a matter of retrieval than grey matter loss. And though it is harder and harder to get new information to stick the stuff that I filed away before hitting 30 usually is still there. The only problem is locating it.

• And if what I find going through my cerebral attic is actually French, or even Hebrew, or possibly Klingon, what the hell. It’s all foreign talk anyhow. They’ll figure it out.
  

• Just about any word that is long and obscure enough probably comes from the Latin, which is more or less Spanish and fair game, right?
  

• I keep Kathy around to translate my Spanish into theirs. She took it in high school and seems to have paid attention.
  

• When in doubt, adding an "O" to the end of a word makes it passable Spanish.
  

• Talking loudly helps too. It really does. So does repetition. It really does.
  

• But here's the key which I will now share with you. I call it Walkabout's Credo: Dare to Annoy.

To illustrate, as I explained to one fellow, “Actualidad, mi espousa habla mas bien que moi, mais ella no quiro fabricacion una gaffe. Yo no care-o.”

And the remarkable thing is that I am frequently able to make myself understood, and it is rather gratifying. Spanish is a lovely language, clear and logical. Though this business of making all those pesky parts of speech agree in gender and number is a bit cumbersome – kind of like doing a Sudoku puzzle in your head while trying to carry on a conversation. So I treat that as optional. Verb conjugation, ditto. And what’s this nonsense about past and future tenses? Live for the momento, I say.

Your sometimes faithful correspondent

Walkabout Dave