How do you wake up?

No, my English has not gotten that bad (although it is nearing that point).  But, in my years of learning Spanish, I’ve found that there are simply some words and phrases that don’t do as well in one language as they do in the other.  Those of you that have spent any amount of time living in another country and learning the language can attest to this.  Those of you lucky enough to have grown up bilingual I think would also be with me.  If you still aren’t sure what I mean, read Junot Diaz.  It’ll start to make sense.

Ask my parents or any other poor soul who has had to suffer through a skype date with me on one of my bad days.  I will have moments where the first word that comes to mind is in Spanish, and after minutes of awkward silence where the person on the other end of the lense thinks, this is it, all that sun has finally gotten to her, say goodbye, I return to the world of language with a quizzical look and launch into a ten-minute explanation as to why I decided not to use the word “gossip” when it clearly would have worked there.

I’m sure all you dual-tri-cuadri (anyone beyond this is my hero)-lingual people out there have your favorites.

One of mine: ¿Como amaneces?

Or, How do you wake up?  I’m not sure why I like hearing this so much from people, but I have to argue that we don’t have something in English that matches it.

What about “how’d you sleep”?  

I knew you’d say that.  Great, ask how I slept.  But what if I slept well and woke up a little iffy?  Or slept poorly but I’m still ok, happy to be out bed?  Hm? Really, there’s so much more than just how I slept.  I woke up, too!

Wouldn’t a simple “good morning” suffice?

You would think it would.  That’s nice.  Pleasant.  But I can say good morning to anyone.  Asking you how you woke up shows I care about you, and that’s even more pleasant.

There’s something else I should explain.  “Amanecer” is also the word for dawn.  
 

The first time I heard it I was a bit confused—another pitfall of learning a second language are the mix-ups that come from direct translation.  How do I dawn?  I…um…I dawn just fine, thanks.  Yeah, I’m dawning fine.  I am dawning! Yes, dawning, me, just like the sun!  It all felt a little strange to say at first. 

To give you a better translation, como amaneces is more like “how do you greet the day.”  It’s a look forward, not a revision of your last 7 hours in a bed.  Now isn’t that beautiful?  How can you not say “bien” to “how do you greet the day”? I didn’t think so.

Below are a few ways we use the word around here:

Amencí dormida— “I dawned asleep,” or  “I slept in.”

Amenció lloviendo—“It dawned raining,” or “It was raining in the early morning.”

Fueron a la fiesta y amenecieron alli.—“They went to the party and dawned there,” or  “They partied until dawn.”

Perhaps this has given you some insight as to why it gets harder and harder to speak one straight language.  There really aren’t enough words in either.  

Que amanezcan bien.  Dawn well!

New life, old life.

Beetles continue to skid onto my bed as they lose their way mid-flight thanks to my feeble attempt to keep mosquitoes away with my volunteer’s tiny fan blowing on me full blast.  I enjoy the creature comforts of a transient third year volunteer—a functioning air mattress, a host who shares her quinoa (imports!) with me, and the free mangoes and familiarity that I miss so much from my days in a town where everyone knows me.  

Life in the Chitropolis is different.

I have been in my “new site” for a little over a month now.  Chitre, Herrera’s provincial capital, is a bustling city in the most country sense of the word (I'm reminded of the Oklahoman ag-town where I went to school), but I can now say I live in a place with a McDonald’s, a humble but decent mall, a KFC, a subway, a movie theater, several casinos, discotecas, bars, and air-conditioned supermarkets where I can find (yes!) dark, leafy vegetables and many kinds of fancy cheeses.  Hello, America light.  I have a flushing toilet (after about twenty months without one).  Tile floors in my house.  An oven and a blender.  A gym.

Don’t get me wrong, Macaracas was modern.  We had a couple of restaurants open past six at night that served things like roasted chicken, pizza, and sandwiches.  There is a discoteca that opened on holidays (of which there are never enough, segun mi gente), big names at our bailes, people with plata, cars, blackberrys.  Jovenes that seemed continually dissatisfied with everything they had and in search of more and more instant gratification.  We had development.

But in the same glance that you’d see new Hondas and Hyundais rolling around you’d see them stuck behind a cattle drive on the outskirts of town.  You could walk to a mill a few kilometers away and smell the sticky-sweet aroma of boiling sugar cane while floating in a cottonwood-littered river next door.  You could hear the neighbors sneeze and fight and love and still walk over to their porch the next morning and sit for two hours like nothing had happened.  You could visit three houses in one day and come home four pounds heavier, coming down from a serious sugar high with a bag full of something from somebody’s tree.  

Those first weeks were phone calls from my friends: “we’re making the cookies you taught us to make,” or “I made that thing you like to eat so much,” or “we went to the river/beach/mill and you missed it.”  And then the weeks just kept coming, and somewhere between Panama City, Penonome, and the offices of the ministry of education I grew farther away from Macaracas.  The phone calls slowly stopped coming, the Azuero fair happened and I was relegated to bumping into mi gente and awkwardly reminding them that I miss the place that I consider myself to be from.  Suddenly the boisterous, arms-open, smiling people that I knew were just conocidos, acquaintances from back-in-the-day.

As I whined about this abandonment to a former volunteer friend of mine (who is also Colombian), he replied with "latinos are sensitive like that, we won't put ourselves out there if we think we're gonna get rejected.  Call your (host) mother." Because that's how it is.  You ask your friend why she doesn't talk to so-and-so anymore, and it's ella se fue (she left), ya no me habla (he doesn't talk to me anymore), or no sé, tengo tiempo que no sé de él  (I don't know, it's been a while since I heard from him).  

I call and the excited voices on the other line always start with a regaño:  Estabas perdida (you were lost), ya no te acuerdas de nosotros (you already don't remember us), or my host mother's personal favorite, ya te olvidaste de los pobres (you forgot about the poor people already, eh? You in your Chitropolis).  And then, I ride the bus to my site on the way to visit the volunteer with the air mattress and the quinoa, and I run into teachers and secretaries on their way to work at my old schools.  Warm greetings, giant smiles, no bitterness expressed, just how is your family, and we miss you, and the kids ask about you, and so glad to hear you're doing well, when are you visiting?  I have half a mind to get off the bus and follow my teacher into school, postpone my visit for the next day.  

My inner gringa says no, stick to your schedule, and I stay on the bus.  I like the city, I remind myself.  No inter-american highway of kids running circles through my house, neighbors who can't hear me sneeze, internet 24-7, blessed anonymity.  

But they've gotten me with their sudden 180 from regaño to cariño, just like they always do, and like a puppy in training I can't get enough of sudden doled-out love.  I know what I'm missing.  And I know I won't stay away for much longer. 

Hasta mañana.

Hasta mañana, which we learn as “see you tomorrow,” and whose literal translation is “until tomorrow,” is the Panamanian way to say goodnight.  It also is used in the sense that we learn it in the states.  So here, instead of saying good night to someone, we say “until tomorrow.”  It’s both an expectation and a goodbye, as if trusting you will all wake up to face another day.

“Hasta mañana, sweetie,” says my neighbor to her kids as I step shivering out of my cold shower behind the house.  Everyone next door is getting ready for bed, as am I, since it’s just past nine o’clock and we all have school in the morning. Hasta mañana, squeaks back little Dona in her tiny voice.  Hasta mañana, mamá, says seventh-grader Daniel.  

I recognize their voices as if we were standing in the same room talking while I shake out my sheets for bugs, hang up clothes I’ve strewn about in my frantic rush to change into shorts and a tank top after walking home from school in long pants and a button-down shirt.  We live on top of each other, practically.  Their bedroom walls and mine are only a car’s width apart—I know this because Donny’s red truck fits snugly in between our two houses.  Once, I sneezed while getting ready for bed and my neighbor shouted “bless you” from inside.  

Hasta mañana, chimes little Dona again as I turn off my light.  I hear their fans switch on, and then only distant sounds of dogs yelping and buzzing crickets, the occasional squeak from the geckos crawling up my walls, and a rooster who feels the need to make sure everyone should know he exists.  I close my eyes.  Hasta mañana, I think to my neighbors.

….

And then shuffling.  And a curious murmur.

….

Dona, déjà eso! Leave it alone, Dona.  Dona squeaks something unintelligible back.  José, get in bed! José replies with something along the lines of “I’m going,” which means he’s probably messing with something in the kitchen.  I open one eye.

José, I told you not to touch the fridge! 

I hear the distant sounds of aaaeeeehhhhh.

No.  No you’re not going to--

AAAEEEEEEEHHHHHH.  It comes through the concrete walls as if they were sheets.  

Dona squeaks something again.  No!  You don’t have to be up!  Go back to bed!

I remember how I don’t want kids yet.  I am so tired.

RRRRrrring.  My neighbor answers.  Hello?  Hello? Aaaah, where were you, I was trying to call you.  I need you to send me that thing you told me you would send me.  And the family? Where are you? What are you doing? What do you mean they have a quiz tomorrow?  Daniel!  A ten minute long rebuke commences.

I am too tired to grumble.  I hope for someone to call me, too, so I can say “hey, I’m really tired, in fact, too tired to talk, I really need rest.  Call me tomorrow.” My friends do not sense my desperation from their cozy, noise-free homes up town.  

Dona, déjà eso!  Squeaks.  And you, stop crying!

Duermense, carajo! I think of a semi-controversial children’s book that made the New York Times bestseller list earlier this year.  

And then, somewhere between the shuffling and the whining and the rebuking and the excuse making, all I hear again is crickets, geckos, dogs, the rooster.  

Whether the noise has stopped or whether my brain has hit a threshold, I don’t know.  But at least it’s safe to close my eyes again…hasta mañana.

Poco a poco.

I sat in my hammock reading one afternoon after school and my seven year old neighbor waltzed up to my porch.  Can we play, he wanted to know.  “No,” I told him, “I’m a little tired and relaxing from a hectic school day.  If you want to read with me, though, you can grab a book from inside and join me.”  I keep a small box of story books in Spanish in my house in an effort to encourage kids to read on their free time, knowing this is a bit of an uphill cultural battle.  However, since the other kids on the street had been interested, I knew Jose felt comfortable walking in a grabbing a book from the box.  He sat down on the porch next to the hammock and began to lazily flip through the pages.  I noticed he wasn’t looking at the words.  “Jose,” I said, “you have to read the words.  Why don’t you read out loud so you can practice?”  He shrugged.  “Es que no sé.”  I don’t know how.   The words vibrated between my ears.  You don’t know how to read and you’re seven?  This seemed like a catastrophe.  How could he not know how to read?  Jose had bounced around for the last year between two fighting parents who eventually separated and his grandparents’ house (my neighbors), where he usually stayed when neither of his parents could take care of him…which was beginning to be more and more often.  Perhaps last year, his first year of elementary school, was lost in the chaos of a breaking home.  Maybe he never learned because there was no one at home helping him.  I sat down next to Jose on the porch and tried to help him sound out the words, to no avail.  “Poco a poco, Jose.”  Little by little, just try, you’ll start to see the pattern.  He would stare back at my blankly and shake his head.  He simply didn’t know and had no idea how to begin.  I was at a loss.  

In the following days, as I mulled over Jose's reading abilities and those of the other kids in school, the reality hit me.  New books in Panama are very expensive relative to the budget most households have to manage.  Adults to do not read because of the lack of available literature, and kids do not read at home both because their parents do not like reading and because there are no books.  I remembered my time as a young reader in kindergarten.  My parents read to me ever since I could remember and I have such fond memories of reading that I never imagined a kid could feel otherwise about books.  Then, while complaining to a friend about how my neighbor couldn’t read, my friend corrected me.  “He’s what, in first grade?  Of course he doesn’t know how to read.”  Again, I was abashed.  I knew how to read by the time I was five.  “You learn to read in first grade here.  In kindergarten all kids learn how to do is trace letters and recognize them.  You have to do that before you read.”  So Jose wasn’t behind.  He was normal.  It turned out I was up against a much bigger monster than I thought—the system.

I have been working for over a year trying to get the kids I know interested in reading.  Thanks to a jump-start in the form of a donation from the U.S. Embassy, one of the two public librarians and I began hosting story hours in the library and inviting the small students from the elementary school.  Over the past year, attendance has fluctuated and the story hours have morphed but they have kept on, and my moment with Jose reminded that what we are doing is huge, even if most of the time it is small. A couple of months ago we started encouraging the kids at story hour to draw about the stories we read to them, and then encouraged them to help us read the stories.  One Saturday, as we closed down story hour and the kids made to leave, one asked, “Can I take this book home with me?”  He wanted to draw more.  I paused, somewhat shocked.  “Of course you can.  They’re for taking home.  Tell Jenny and she’ll tell you when you have to bring it back.”  A chorus of replies sounded.  “You mean we can take these home?!”  It had never occurred to me to explain to the kids that this was how the library worked.  I assumed they just knew.  Almost every kid at story hour that day checked out a book.  Finally, after a year of rocky starts, Jenny and I realized we had clumsily stumbled on a formula that worked.  Poco a poco, I thought, and I thought of Jose.  

The flood of kids in and out of my house is continuous but they have not lost interest in the books.  Each has his or her favorite, and the other day Eduardo, who everyone calls Pipe (pee-pay) even hid a book under my fridge so no one else could read it.  Even Jose’s two-year old sister comes over, puts her hands all over the books and mimics what she sees the older kids do.  Jose slowly began to bring home work that would lead him to reading.  As the months passed, I listened as his grandmother (who is my neighbor) painstakingly drilled him on phonetic combinations.  

It is now October, and a few days ago Jose’s silhouette appeared in my doorway.  “Chelsea, que haces?”  What was I doing?  I was on my way out to the porch with a book.  “You want to listen to me read?”  he asked.  Of course I do, I said.  Jose marched proudly to the book box and grabbed the book The Little Tin Soldier.  He curled his knees up, balanced the book on them and began to sound out the words, realizing that what he read corresponded to the pictures.  His little sister shuffled in and grabbed a couple of books, too.  She plopped down on the ground and opened a book upside down.  Her grandmother called her from next door, clearly worried she was trying to grab something breakable.  “Dona!!  What are you doing??”  Dona, in tiny voice, squeaked back, “studying.”  Her grandmother looked at me and smiled.

Poco a poco, I thought.  And I let Jose’s shaky words and Dona’s made up ones fill up my porch.