Sunday, March 4, 2018

When Two Worlds Collide.

Morning, Two Feet Belowers…

So, last night, Joey and I had one of our most trying and rewarding encounters EVER.

Let me set the stage:

The caregiver coordinator, Bob, called Joey earlier in the week to tell her she’d be having a new chick for the weekend by asking how her Spanish is, which is VERY little.  Ah naw, Bob, what were you thinking?.  He went on to say that she knows English, so Joey’ll be fine.  HOWEVER, Bob speaks to her in Spanish.  Crap, this IS NOT gonna be good.

Now, Joey learned German in school to be different.  It’s cool to listen to her speak the language, and one day I’d like to get her there.  I think it’d bad.

I’m Puerto Rican by my bios and learned some Spanish from my best friend, Noe, to get by and not get beat up in the most Hispanic populated schools of Quanah Parker and DeZavala.  I picked it back up again in high school and college, but by then, I was jaded, and started thinking if they wanted to be in the States, why aren’t they speaking English instead of us catering to them.  If the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have to learn their language, right?  Needless to say, I didn’t apply myself…just enough to get by to pass said courses.  It used to piss me off when people at work spoke Spanish excluding me from their reindeer games, which I thought was rude, but that was on them.

I actually knew more than I thought, because, thanks to social media, I’d gotten friends from all over the world, some I’ve met on Skype and whatnot.  It’s been fun to see the fam dynamic of other countries and REALLY LISTEN to the language.  They knew some English, but it was really patchy, so I’d have to have Google Translate on split screen to copy and paste.  I’ve been learning through them, and vice versa.  Google Translate’s a wonderful thing, you guys; although, I’m gravitating to Bing more recently.  Also, we took the cruise a couple years ago to Honduras and Mexico, which was a blast, and want to do again.

Anyhoo, getting to last night, I quickly saw this was going south when Joey was trying to instruct her about the Boys meds, so I started pulling out my phone with my iTranslate app…ironic since I’ve moved onto Galaxy.  Then, we got something simple for dinner.  While we were eating, Joey was trying to talk to her, asking the question she normally asks everybody, who comes through here…how old are you.  I knew that one off the top of my head, so I threw it out there.  I think it surprised both Joey and me.  She said she was 63, which she didn’t look it.  Next, Joey where she was from and how long she’d lived in the States.  I translated that and read those questions.  Juarez, and 17 years.  She also went on to talk about the importance of learning English living here, which we thought was nice to know she thought that way coming from Mexico; however, we noted she’d said she’s lived here 17 years.  Hmmm.  Then, it was time for Joey to do her routine.

I followed them into the room.  While Joey was getting out of her chair, I was typing the process to tell Maria.  After that, I told Joey to call if me if she needed me like I normally do.  I didn’t hear anything until the very end when she thought she’d need me to help tell Maria how to help Joey get on the bed…which she really didn’t.  She winged it through most of it.

When we were in bed, Joey told me the only real hiccup was that Maria tried to put Vagisil on her toothbrush instead of toothpaste, so that had to be fixed.  She also thinks that Maria’s got a hell of a memory, because of the language barrier, so she’ll virtually remember everything from last night.

At any rate, we’ll be prepared…ADAPTABILITY, you guys!  And, my friends abroad, thanks for being you and teaching me.  I know you’re reading.

Be good to each other.

-J-

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