Habla Inglese

For more than 25 years, my wife and I have been visiting Mexico to escape the northern chill. Typically our trip was two or three weeks at a tourist resort surrounded by English speaking people. Almost every Mexican we encountered had some command of the English language. Communications was never an issue. For the last four years, we have been spending three months in Mexico in cities somewhat or very much removed from the mainstream tourist destinations. Almost every Mexican we encountered had little or no command of the English language and we were equally competent in Spanish.

The experts in these matters tell us that we will never get to know the real Mexico until we can speak the Spanish language with fluency. We will always be on the outside looking in so to speak. Heeding that advice, we enrolled in beginner Spanish lessons but after a month of spending the better part of the day cooped up in an overheated classroom with a dozen or so other incompetents, we had all the Spanish we ever wanted. I am old enough to know the steepness of my language learning curve. Besides, we were desperately missing our holiday in Mexico and over-taxing our brains. We had other ways of communicating with the people of Mexico and the results were much more fun.

Experience tells me that conversations relating to food are the most perplexing. If you are in a city like Morelia with a tiny expatriate population and very little tourism, the restaurants don’t cater to English speaking people at all. Menus are entirely in Spanish and the waiters are highly skilled if they can say “good afternoon”. One soon tires of ordering hamburgesa even though it is the only word on the menu besides Sol that we recognized. No problemo! We merely looked around the restaurant and tried to pick out something in front of another patron that looked appetizing and pointed. This worked so well we tried ordering from the menu without reference to the dining preferences of others..

We were in an outdoor café in a nameless city with good friends who were devoted to learning the Spanish language and had four years of training under their guayabaras. The menu was pretty basic but the word “pizza” stuck out like a neon sign. There were about fifteen different toppings and not one was known to us. It was agreed that we wanted pepperoni. The young waiter had a smattering of English and assured us we could get a pepperoni pizza. He must also have been an ardent listener of music videos since he said “you da man” as he left the table.

About half an hour and many Sols later our pizza arrived. It was a thin crust version which was my favourite. The pepperoni, however; had a rather unusual shape. It wasn’t round. It was elongated and lumpy. The first bite explained the difference. The pepperoni took the form of red-hot chile peppers.

A few years back, I was cruising the meat department at the Gigante in San Miguel de Allende. This little city is almost an English language bastion but all the products in the grocery store are labeled in Spanish. I was contemplating a frozen package of something called “pavo” when a charming gringa came alongside looking for chicken breasts. There were wings, legs, whole chickens and half chickens but no breast. She caught the attention of the butcher who greeted her with “puedo ayudarle” (may I help you). She said “ Pollo, por favor, BREASTS.” The butcher pointed to the array of chicken products in the display case and the lady kept repeating “BREASTS, BREASTS”. From the look on the butchers face, we were both able to read the universal language saying “lady I don’t know what you’re talking about.” In sheer exasperation the woman clutched her own breasts and said loudly “pollo BREASTS”. Without missing a beat, the butcher said in absolutely perfect English “Oh, you want chicken breasts. There are none out. I’ll have to cut them for you.” While he worked at the butcher’s table, I swear I could almost see him grinning through the back of his head.

While in Merida. I was in the beverage department of Wal-Mart perusing the six packs and was asked by another gringo if I knew where they kept the straws or if I knew the Spanish word for straws. Negative on both counts. It was obvious that this man was also a graduate of beginners Spanish since she posed the same question to a nearby senora. This time however, he used his limited Spanish and said to her “quiere straws?” instead of “quiero straws.” In translation he said “do you want straws” rather than “I want straws.” There was no sign of understanding on the woman’s face and so the man reverted to mime. He held his fingers in front of his lips and proceeded to make exaggerated sucking noises followed by the same question “quiere straws?” Now the senora in question had a pretty dark complexion and I swear she almost turned burgundy. She fled back to the other end of the aisle and related the sordid story of the gringo and his proposition. As she fled down the aisle, I definitely saw a wide grin through the back of her head..

So to all you devotees out there who insist that we spend the rest of our lives studying Spanish, I say bah humbug. I am having a heck of a lot more fun just being plain stupid.