Lost in Language

Living in a land where everything is conducted in a language that's not my birth tongue gives me very different sensitivities. It's harder to pick up on subtleties and details. I have to ask a lot more questions or just be content with not completely knowing. Sometimes I realize that I don't know the rules of certain types of conversations. I find myself wondering things like, "Would it be more appropriate to continue expressing some sort of sympathy right now or should I just be quiet?" "Was that supposed to be funny? And if so, why? Should I be amused or saddened?" Also, while I can't shut off my ability to process English, if I accidentally (or not-so-accidentally, for example, when I'm on the bus) space out, Portuguese words can become like background noise.

On another level, I am so much more sensitive to emotions. Operating in a language that's not my own makes me more vulnerable. And if I switch "on" and really listen to what people are saying, which I try to do most of the time, I sometimes "feel" what they are saying even more easily than I can pick apart individual words. And when I'm in this space of "feeling," everything hits me deeper.

Recently I was in an interview with a boy, deeply addicted to drugs. He was uttering something like, "I've tried to stop, but I can't." Exactly what he uttered evaporated for me after I heard it, but the meaning behind the words felt like a physical punch, especially as they crossed the table and hit the boy's mother, who was trying, trying, trying to contain her own sea of emotions.

It's as though I'm watching the words acting on the people saying them and receiving them. And hours after the meeting, the feelings stick to me and become something I must ponder and untangle and make some sort of sense of before I can free myself from them.

And, when I am tired, Spanish words sometimes come to mind quicker than Portuguese ones. This is funny to me because right now, with both languages rattling around in my brain, speaking Spanish is difficult. When I'm tired it's hard to pronounce Portuguese without sounding like I'm swallowing words. Sometimes I do really feel like the words are fighting me, trying to jump down my throat exactly as I'm trying to push them out of my mouth. I'm certain that my vocabulary has improved since I've gotten here, that I'm speaking less Portuñol and more actual Portuguese. But I also feel less confident at times, wondering if perhaps it's because I realize how much more there is to learn, how much more there is to understand of this beautiful, melodic language.

I think that we exercise different parts of ourselves with each language that we speak. I'm curious to pay more attention to how I am when I'm speaking English vs. Portuguese vs. Spanish. Right now I seem to enjoy it most, after long days in Portuguese, when I'm talking with A. and our conversations weave in between Portuguese and English, with Spanish sprinkled in every once and a while. Perhaps that's why Spanglish has always felt so comforting. Maybe I just don't like to choose between one thing and the other but to mix it all together into an interesting, ever-changing concoction.

So, a Tire Walks Into a Bar....

Borracharia
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

It's true that Spanish and Portuguese have a lot in common. But as this photograph illustrates, they are definitely not the same.

This Brazilian tire is advertising a Borracharia:
Borracha [tire/rubber] + ria [an ending put on to a word to convey some sort of speciality store] = a store that will change your tires

So, why am I getting into all of this?

Well, because every single time that I see a borracharia, usually when I'm on the bus, I laugh. Sometimes out loud. Yup, that's me, the easily amused foreigner, chuckling to herself as she looks out the window.

You see in Spanish, borracha does not mean tire.

Borracha (or borracho, depending on gender) means drunk.

So in Spanish, which follows the same ria = speciality store logic as Portuguese, a borracharia would be something like a "drunk-ery", ie a place to go get drunk. I kind of like the frankness of the statement. Why go to a bar when you can get straight to the point and go to a drunkery?

My goodness, there are a lot of drunkeries all over Brazil...or conversely, one could imagine that when the bars close in Spanish-speaking countries, there are quite a few tipsy tires rolling through the streets.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that I spend my time musing over...

Weather Report

Toxic Rainbow
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

The guy who works the early morning shift at the hostel is from Uruguay. We usually exchange greetings in a kind of Portuñol whenever I'm passing through and either picking up or handing him my room key.

"Everything good?" I'll ask in Portuguese.

"Everything's good," he'll respond in Spanish.

I always enjoy talking with him because I know that if I unintentionally throw some Spanish words into the mix he'll still understand what I'm trying to say.
The other day it was overcast when I was leaving. I was carrying my laptop in my bag and didn't want it to get wet. So I asked him, "Do you know if it's supposed to rain?"

"Hmmm," he said, "The answer is always here in this newspaper. Let's take a look."

He flipped through the paper, glanced at a map of Brazil dotted with suns and clouds over different cities.

"Nope," he said, "It's definitely not going to rain today."

"Good" I said, "Because I'm carrying enough stuff as it is. But you know how it goes, if I don't bring my umbrella it will rain. If I do, it won't."

"Funny how they call umbrella guarda-chuvas in Portuguese, isn't it?" he said, "I mean 'hold-water'? Hopefully, it doesn't do that!"

I went to the computer lab at the university and typed away at something until lunchtime. Then I looked out the window and saw that the streets were wet.

It was raining.

I started laughing. The hostel was in the opposite direction of where I was going, but still it was worth it to go back and grab my umbrella.

As I neared the hostel, I saw the Uruguayan walking down the street heading in my direction. When he saw me he pretended to hide from me, to pull his shirt up over his face.

"I wanted to avoid you," he said, "You probably want to kill me don't you!...Luckily, you're not that wet yet."

"Just watch," I replied, "Now that I'm going to get the umbrella, it's going to stop raining."

And of course I was right. It stopped raining 10 minutes later.

Now every morning when I greet the Uruguayan we have a good conversation about the weather. "You better bring your umbrella, just in case" he warns, "I don't want it to be my fault if it rains on you."