Maybe I am built differently from other people, but I don't think so. The single most important aid to my learning new things is NOT the specifics of the didactic method used, not the spiffiness of the materials, not the appeal to my visual-versus-auditory-versus-kinetic-learner tendencies, but simply, encouragement.
Toward the end of our first year in Panama I was taking Rich's visiting brother and nieces on a sightseeing tour. My Spanish was still fledgling, but increasingly functional. In Casco Viejo, the beautiful, old, colonial downtown neighborhood, we entered the National Institute of Culture building, partly because it has an interesting mural of Panamanian history, but more importantly because I know where the public bathrooms are in that building. The girls went off in the direction of the bathrooms and I tarried in the grand vestibule where Larry was looking at the mural. Larry is fluent in Spanish and brilliant in general, so I was generally reluctant to speak Spanish with him in earshot. As he moved farther away I noticed an older man in a crisp, white guayabara looking at me questioningly. He was clearly on duty as a tourist guide, so I greeted him politely and asked a question about the mural.
Now whenever a foreigner speaks to a native Panamanian, one of two things happens. By far the most common is that the Panamanian's face morphs quickly from its neutral or smiling expression into one of concentration; brow furrowed, slight frown about the mouth, and lifted eyebrows, intent on puzzling out what the foreigner is saying in their strongly-accented Spanish. This man was different. As I began to speak, his face relaxed into an encouraging smile and he nodded slightly as I went on. The effect was magical! I found words I didn't even knew I knew; I made fewer mistakes than I ever had; I was actually happy to be speaking my second language! We chatted for about 15 minutes, about the history of the Ministry of Culture, about his job, about my home country, about the climate. I felt as if I came of age in that conversation. No longer a toddler or even an adolescent, I could finally be seen - and more importantly, FEEL - as an adult in my new language.
In the book Dreaming in Hindi the author delves into the current research on second language acquisition to annotate her memoir about learning Hindi. All of it was fascinating, but the point that resonated most strongly with me was that human beings have a powerful drive to learn language, which flowers during the first few years of life, and during that initial phase of language acquisition a child generally receives positive affirmation every step of the way. A toddler, being cute and cuddly, is apt to be sitting on someone's lap, literally in the lap of emotional luxury, as the adult says, smilingly, "That's right! Horsie!" And in the child's limbic system, where emotional literacy is laid down powerfully while the word is cognitively absorbed, the pleasure of learning cements the deal.
Second language learners, especially in adulthood, get little or none of this encouragement. We are greeted with funny looks, well-meant but emotionally derailing corrections, and even attempts to change the conversation into English, as if we are hopeless in the adopted tongue. This last response drives Rich crazy. His Spanish is excellent, especially for a foreigner who learned it 40 years ago and has had little opportunity to speak it since, and he always feels slighted when Panamanians refuse to speak Spanish with him. Some of the staff at school, whose English is far more limited than his Spanish, insist on speaking halting English with him and on those days he comes home feeling insulted and defeated. I point out that in all likelihood the Panamanian is trying to be generous, trying to make it easier for him, although it doesn't make logical sense, and I'm not even sure of that. Is it somehow threatening for a foreigner to speak one's language? Do they just want more practice speaking English? Or is it wrapped up somehow with our North American colonial past in Panama that has spawned an odd combination of cultural insecurity and fierce national pride?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Religion de Monday Night
I'm trying to remember how I got into this... and wondering if I could get out if I wanted to! On Monday evenings a small, earnest group of women gathers at the next door neighbors' house (the people of the WALL) for a Christian evangelical prayer and study session... led by a man. It starts at 7:30. We gather and chat from 7:30 until 8:00 or 8:15, whenever the last stragglers get there. I gather that some of the women come in taxis, so their tardiness is an accepted fact of Panamanian life.
I was initially invited by Marcia because she thought it would help my Spanish, which it does. It turns out that she also hoped it would help my religiosity, but it doesn't.
"Our" men are conspicuously absent. I think all the women are married, but only the pastor's wife is here in the company of her husband. Marcia's husband has made it clear to us what he thinks of Marcia's "obsession" with religion. He is in his bedroom watching Monday night football. He once said to Rich that living with his wife's, his mother's, his mother-in-law's, and his daughters' religious propensities is like "living with the Taliban." Wow.
The formal program begins with a long, rambling prayer by Marcia, whom I think is being groomed for a higher position in their little church. We all stand. Marcia sways back and forth, eyes closed tightly, chanting syllables and phrases in a frenzy of devotion. I listen for words I can understand... "misericordia"... "Dios"... "Jesus"... She ends with an Amen, sinks into her chair, and looks up at the pastor expectantly.
The pastor is a vibrant little man who is more paternal than patriarchal. He announces the topic for the evening and begins talking about a passage from the Bible, citing historical and present-day analogies, and engaging each member of his audience with eye contact and enthusiastic gestures. Sometimes he draws pictures, like one of the temple in which David asked for bread after slaying Goliath, but was turned away because the only bread they had was sacred bread, meant for the priests, not for the people. (Do I have this remotely right?) The pastor is very interesting. He speaks much more clearly than any of the women, so I enjoy listening to the language and even get caught up in the story. Not having much of a church background, I suppose that is exactly what good preachers do. I am mildly curious about whether he also preaches in front of a large congregation, but after their enthusiastic commandeering of me into this little group, I am afraid to take the next step and find out.
He talks for a half hour, and then winds up his lesson with a prayer. This time we stay seated. We are sitting in the back room of Marcia's house, which is her home office for her customs business. The office has air conditioning, so we all cluster around the two desks, sitting on chairs and a sofa, enjoying the cool. (At least I am; several of the women seem to be uncomfortably cold.) When the pastor finishes, Marcia hops up and goes out to the kitchen to prepare little plates of ceviche and crackers, a breaking-bread ritual which may have symbolic meaning but all I can think of is how most of these women could do without an extra meal. Most are overweight, part of a growing trend in Panama.
Informal chat resumes. We talk about diets and cures for colds and about Diana's sister, who was cured of breast cancer by God. Diana then offers that she admires me (ME?) because I volunteer at a nursing home. At this, the pastor invites me to join a church group which visits a nursing home, which I am about to politely decline until he says the name of the institution, which makes me sit up and take notice. Asilo Bolivar - the public nursing home Angela has told me about. I will go.
I was initially invited by Marcia because she thought it would help my Spanish, which it does. It turns out that she also hoped it would help my religiosity, but it doesn't.
"Our" men are conspicuously absent. I think all the women are married, but only the pastor's wife is here in the company of her husband. Marcia's husband has made it clear to us what he thinks of Marcia's "obsession" with religion. He is in his bedroom watching Monday night football. He once said to Rich that living with his wife's, his mother's, his mother-in-law's, and his daughters' religious propensities is like "living with the Taliban." Wow.
The formal program begins with a long, rambling prayer by Marcia, whom I think is being groomed for a higher position in their little church. We all stand. Marcia sways back and forth, eyes closed tightly, chanting syllables and phrases in a frenzy of devotion. I listen for words I can understand... "misericordia"... "Dios"... "Jesus"... She ends with an Amen, sinks into her chair, and looks up at the pastor expectantly.
The pastor is a vibrant little man who is more paternal than patriarchal. He announces the topic for the evening and begins talking about a passage from the Bible, citing historical and present-day analogies, and engaging each member of his audience with eye contact and enthusiastic gestures. Sometimes he draws pictures, like one of the temple in which David asked for bread after slaying Goliath, but was turned away because the only bread they had was sacred bread, meant for the priests, not for the people. (Do I have this remotely right?) The pastor is very interesting. He speaks much more clearly than any of the women, so I enjoy listening to the language and even get caught up in the story. Not having much of a church background, I suppose that is exactly what good preachers do. I am mildly curious about whether he also preaches in front of a large congregation, but after their enthusiastic commandeering of me into this little group, I am afraid to take the next step and find out.
He talks for a half hour, and then winds up his lesson with a prayer. This time we stay seated. We are sitting in the back room of Marcia's house, which is her home office for her customs business. The office has air conditioning, so we all cluster around the two desks, sitting on chairs and a sofa, enjoying the cool. (At least I am; several of the women seem to be uncomfortably cold.) When the pastor finishes, Marcia hops up and goes out to the kitchen to prepare little plates of ceviche and crackers, a breaking-bread ritual which may have symbolic meaning but all I can think of is how most of these women could do without an extra meal. Most are overweight, part of a growing trend in Panama.
Informal chat resumes. We talk about diets and cures for colds and about Diana's sister, who was cured of breast cancer by God. Diana then offers that she admires me (ME?) because I volunteer at a nursing home. At this, the pastor invites me to join a church group which visits a nursing home, which I am about to politely decline until he says the name of the institution, which makes me sit up and take notice. Asilo Bolivar - the public nursing home Angela has told me about. I will go.
Nursing Home Tales September 2009
I visited my old ladies this morning and they were in rare form. Some days they are all sleeping, but today everyone wanted to chat. Food is a favorite topic, as are family structure, the heat, and how demented the other patients are. I try not to laugh, but sometimes it's hard to keep a straight face when Cecilia tells me her daughter is still a little girl (at 63?) and then Bertha asks where her husband went this morning (he's been dead for 2 years) and Cecilia comments, "She's crazy!". Ceci is an enigma to me. She is a beautiful 80-ish woman; still agile and ambulatory, but swaddled in the ubiquitous Pampers they all wear. She is always quite eager for my attention until she tires, when she abruptly tells me to "go with God" (like a friendly way of saying "go to hell"?). I always start with and end with Ceci because she retains enough of the social graces to enjoy the hello and good-bye rituals. She never seems unhappy, or particularly happy, but she is remarkably uncomplaining. Ever since they moved the home to this new location three months ago she says that her daughter, Nelli, the retired professor, hasn't been heard from and doesn't know where her mother is... I tell her that I would be glad to pick Nelli up and bring her over, but this never goes anywhere. I ask if her other daughter, Isolde, knows where Nelli is. This always triggers a story about a recent (10 days ago? 10 years ago?) trip with Isolde where they saw huge skyscrapers and gardens... She enjoyed the outing, which I hope was real. I often wonder if I could take her out away from the hogar for an afternoon, but I don't know what problems might arise that my limited Spanish would make difficult to resolve.
Bertha is the only resident whom I find repulsive. Conversational, ambulatory, and sociable, she is somehow more off-putting than poor Melinda, a skeleton of a woman who cannot control her spastic limbs, cannot speak, and must be fed, diapered, and lifted from chair to bed and back again. I sit down with Melinda each time I visit, hold her hand, and say (in English, her native language), "My name is Anne. I come to visit because I love to hear the stories of older people. I wish you could tell me your stories. You are a professor, no? And so you must have many stories about your students and your work." Sometimes she barely responds, but more often than not she sways her head wildly, staring at me and making guttural noises in her throat. The nurse tells me she can hear and understand me, but I don't know how she knows. Melinda has no muscle tissue left at all in her arms and legs, not having used them for over five years, and I could put my two hands around her ribcage. In the U.S. she would receive physical therapy, but here there is none in this private domiciliary care institution. She is very tall for a Panamanian and has a beautiful face, if not for the haunted eyes. The aides tell me she has a good appetite, so perhaps one could assume she wants to continue living, although it's hard to know what is instinct and what is volition. I cannot imagine persisting in her state for such a long time. I try not to project onto her what I imagine I would feel.
Bertha is a formerly plump woman of about 80 who is the proverbial busybody. She appears at one's elbow within minutes of arriving, looking for her husband, demanding conversation or sweets, and complaining that her tongue hurts. She leers at people and says critical things, making the other old ladies alternately laugh or yell at her. She stands by Melinda's bed and says, "Close your mouth! Don't leave your mouth open!" I explain to her quietly that Melinda can't close her mouth and she interrupts me to comment on my gringa blond hair and blue-green eyes. I laugh and agree that I am a gringa, and she says her daughter married a gringo and lives in the U.S. I ask her if she has visited her daughter there and she says she wants sweets. I ask if she is hungry and she says she can't find Alfredo. I don't know if people ever remind her that her husband, Alfredo, died two years ago, but it seems unnecessarily cruel, so I ask if she wants to take a walk with me. We do circles around the downstairs for awhile, steering her gently away from people when she is about to accost them with a nasty remark. I wonder whether this personality is consistent with her youthful self. If so, no wonder Alfredo gave it up and died!
Victoria is a luminous personality, always laughing and kissing my hands when I sit down on her bed. She is extremely bright and alert, but unable to walk and seems content to be utterly sedentary. Whenever I start a conversation, she is right there with me, on topic, asking how my mother is, my children, my house. She loves to talk about food and cooking, and about the jungles of Puerto Pina in the Darien where she grew up. She laughs delightedly at things I say, and compliments my Spanish. I have had to work hard to understand her speech, which is either an eastern Panama dialect or rendered blurry by her malformed palate and teeth. She speaks in a singsong tone which reminds me of the way another man spoke whom we had met from the Darien. Vicky has a daughter and son in Panama, and a daughter in the U.S. who teaches kindergarten in Virginia. Today, when I asked about her teacher-daughter, she exclaimed delightedly that she had talked with her on the telephone over the weekend! Vicky is the only one of my ladies who is consistently oriented in space and time, so I am pretty sure this happened. I asked her about her husband, but she says she was not married, but _____ (some other word). Common law?
Lucia reminds me of my mom. She is proud and dignified, kind when approached kindly, and quick to bristle when treated demeaningly (as the nurses' aides sometimes do). Her cap of beautiful white hair frames a face so wrinkled one can see the toll of years of sun exposure. She cannot walk, and sleeps much of the time, but when I get her started telling stories, she will go on until we are interrupted by lunch or by Bertha or Cecilia. She has told me about her childhood in Chiriqui, the mountains of western Panama, where she lived too far away to go to school. Her mother was fair-skinned (Italian?) and her father an "indio"; but her father died when Lucia was 2 months old, so she and her brothers were raised by her hard-working mother, who worked on a coffee plantation. Lucia, in turn, had three children, none of whom are still living. At least I think that's what she said... It's the kind of thing one doesn't want to make someone repeat. She has told me about bouts of malaria, and dengue fever, and the hardships of her working life as a school custodian and then a maid for a North American family in the Canal Zone. She shakes her head and says, "It was hard. So hard." I tell her she has earned a rest. She smiles and says she is content to rest now. I wonder if she has a single living relative...
More about my Lucia
Lucia grabs my hands as I kiss her in greeting and sit down on the edge of her bed. "Hello, my love", she says, "how are you?" We chat about the pros and cons of midday naps (it is 10:15 in the morning and everyone is lying on their beds); about Panamanian coffee and how it is grown, harvested, and dried; about planting seeds for fruit trees. I get up suddenly to assist Ana, who is about to take an unauthorized walk (Ceci always sounds the alert when one of the precarious ones makes a move) and Lucia, awake now and interested in the goings-on, swings her legs to the floor and sits up. When I return to her, she is brushing her hair. She asks how my mother is and asks me to remind her again where my mother lives? She acknowledges me with such warmth when I come, in contrast to the way she snaps at some of the aides, tht I feel sure she knows me. Still, for the umpteenth time, she asks "Do you have children?" I smile proudly - proud of my children, of course, but even more in this instance of my now-fluent oft-repeated response to this question. "Yes, I have three children; two boys and a girl. The oldest is a young man who is 28, lives in New York City, and works with computers. My daughter is 25, also lives in New York, and is a violist. My younger son is 23 and lives in Moscow, Russia, where he is a journalist." Lucia quickly rejoins, "Moscow! How far away!" An aide walks through the room, calling to a woman on a far bed to wake her for lunch. Lucia watches the brief, familiar scene of an aide cajoling one of her compadres to get up. She turns back to look at me, her eyes widening as she formulates her question.
"Do you have children?" she asks.
Sometimes when I tell people about my "teachers" at the old folks home, I laugh as I point out what ideal Spanish teachers they make because they forget what I tell them and, in asking me the same questions again, provide ideal conversation drills. Today, though, my eyes well up as I look at this beautiful old woman, her wrinkled face drawn in pain (her knees are hurting today) and wonder if she can feel any of the connection to me that I feel to her. I don't think she has any family left in the world who are still connected to her and, if I understood her correctly in a previous conversation, none of her three children is living. She says she was never married, but the father of her children was "an indio" (an Indian). Her father died when she was 2 months old. She worked hard as a school custodian for 13 years out in the province where she was born for an unkind principal before coming to Panama City to work as a housekeeper and cook for an American woman in the Canal Zone. That relationship sounds like it had its positive points (Lucia says of her mistress, "She never called me her "employee", but always "her girl") but the condescension even in that affectionate statement makes me wince.
What has Lucia known of love?
Bertha is the only resident whom I find repulsive. Conversational, ambulatory, and sociable, she is somehow more off-putting than poor Melinda, a skeleton of a woman who cannot control her spastic limbs, cannot speak, and must be fed, diapered, and lifted from chair to bed and back again. I sit down with Melinda each time I visit, hold her hand, and say (in English, her native language), "My name is Anne. I come to visit because I love to hear the stories of older people. I wish you could tell me your stories. You are a professor, no? And so you must have many stories about your students and your work." Sometimes she barely responds, but more often than not she sways her head wildly, staring at me and making guttural noises in her throat. The nurse tells me she can hear and understand me, but I don't know how she knows. Melinda has no muscle tissue left at all in her arms and legs, not having used them for over five years, and I could put my two hands around her ribcage. In the U.S. she would receive physical therapy, but here there is none in this private domiciliary care institution. She is very tall for a Panamanian and has a beautiful face, if not for the haunted eyes. The aides tell me she has a good appetite, so perhaps one could assume she wants to continue living, although it's hard to know what is instinct and what is volition. I cannot imagine persisting in her state for such a long time. I try not to project onto her what I imagine I would feel.
Bertha is a formerly plump woman of about 80 who is the proverbial busybody. She appears at one's elbow within minutes of arriving, looking for her husband, demanding conversation or sweets, and complaining that her tongue hurts. She leers at people and says critical things, making the other old ladies alternately laugh or yell at her. She stands by Melinda's bed and says, "Close your mouth! Don't leave your mouth open!" I explain to her quietly that Melinda can't close her mouth and she interrupts me to comment on my gringa blond hair and blue-green eyes. I laugh and agree that I am a gringa, and she says her daughter married a gringo and lives in the U.S. I ask her if she has visited her daughter there and she says she wants sweets. I ask if she is hungry and she says she can't find Alfredo. I don't know if people ever remind her that her husband, Alfredo, died two years ago, but it seems unnecessarily cruel, so I ask if she wants to take a walk with me. We do circles around the downstairs for awhile, steering her gently away from people when she is about to accost them with a nasty remark. I wonder whether this personality is consistent with her youthful self. If so, no wonder Alfredo gave it up and died!
Victoria is a luminous personality, always laughing and kissing my hands when I sit down on her bed. She is extremely bright and alert, but unable to walk and seems content to be utterly sedentary. Whenever I start a conversation, she is right there with me, on topic, asking how my mother is, my children, my house. She loves to talk about food and cooking, and about the jungles of Puerto Pina in the Darien where she grew up. She laughs delightedly at things I say, and compliments my Spanish. I have had to work hard to understand her speech, which is either an eastern Panama dialect or rendered blurry by her malformed palate and teeth. She speaks in a singsong tone which reminds me of the way another man spoke whom we had met from the Darien. Vicky has a daughter and son in Panama, and a daughter in the U.S. who teaches kindergarten in Virginia. Today, when I asked about her teacher-daughter, she exclaimed delightedly that she had talked with her on the telephone over the weekend! Vicky is the only one of my ladies who is consistently oriented in space and time, so I am pretty sure this happened. I asked her about her husband, but she says she was not married, but _____ (some other word). Common law?
Lucia reminds me of my mom. She is proud and dignified, kind when approached kindly, and quick to bristle when treated demeaningly (as the nurses' aides sometimes do). Her cap of beautiful white hair frames a face so wrinkled one can see the toll of years of sun exposure. She cannot walk, and sleeps much of the time, but when I get her started telling stories, she will go on until we are interrupted by lunch or by Bertha or Cecilia. She has told me about her childhood in Chiriqui, the mountains of western Panama, where she lived too far away to go to school. Her mother was fair-skinned (Italian?) and her father an "indio"; but her father died when Lucia was 2 months old, so she and her brothers were raised by her hard-working mother, who worked on a coffee plantation. Lucia, in turn, had three children, none of whom are still living. At least I think that's what she said... It's the kind of thing one doesn't want to make someone repeat. She has told me about bouts of malaria, and dengue fever, and the hardships of her working life as a school custodian and then a maid for a North American family in the Canal Zone. She shakes her head and says, "It was hard. So hard." I tell her she has earned a rest. She smiles and says she is content to rest now. I wonder if she has a single living relative...
More about my Lucia
Lucia grabs my hands as I kiss her in greeting and sit down on the edge of her bed. "Hello, my love", she says, "how are you?" We chat about the pros and cons of midday naps (it is 10:15 in the morning and everyone is lying on their beds); about Panamanian coffee and how it is grown, harvested, and dried; about planting seeds for fruit trees. I get up suddenly to assist Ana, who is about to take an unauthorized walk (Ceci always sounds the alert when one of the precarious ones makes a move) and Lucia, awake now and interested in the goings-on, swings her legs to the floor and sits up. When I return to her, she is brushing her hair. She asks how my mother is and asks me to remind her again where my mother lives? She acknowledges me with such warmth when I come, in contrast to the way she snaps at some of the aides, tht I feel sure she knows me. Still, for the umpteenth time, she asks "Do you have children?" I smile proudly - proud of my children, of course, but even more in this instance of my now-fluent oft-repeated response to this question. "Yes, I have three children; two boys and a girl. The oldest is a young man who is 28, lives in New York City, and works with computers. My daughter is 25, also lives in New York, and is a violist. My younger son is 23 and lives in Moscow, Russia, where he is a journalist." Lucia quickly rejoins, "Moscow! How far away!" An aide walks through the room, calling to a woman on a far bed to wake her for lunch. Lucia watches the brief, familiar scene of an aide cajoling one of her compadres to get up. She turns back to look at me, her eyes widening as she formulates her question.
"Do you have children?" she asks.
Sometimes when I tell people about my "teachers" at the old folks home, I laugh as I point out what ideal Spanish teachers they make because they forget what I tell them and, in asking me the same questions again, provide ideal conversation drills. Today, though, my eyes well up as I look at this beautiful old woman, her wrinkled face drawn in pain (her knees are hurting today) and wonder if she can feel any of the connection to me that I feel to her. I don't think she has any family left in the world who are still connected to her and, if I understood her correctly in a previous conversation, none of her three children is living. She says she was never married, but the father of her children was "an indio" (an Indian). Her father died when she was 2 months old. She worked hard as a school custodian for 13 years out in the province where she was born for an unkind principal before coming to Panama City to work as a housekeeper and cook for an American woman in the Canal Zone. That relationship sounds like it had its positive points (Lucia says of her mistress, "She never called me her "employee", but always "her girl") but the condescension even in that affectionate statement makes me wince.
What has Lucia known of love?
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