A Lesson in Fear

For those who assume that my three months in Spain are a paradise of carefree sun and relaxation, let me assure you that this is far from the truth. I have an annoyingly odd level of Spanish comprehension. My accent leads people to believe I know far more than I do. Granted, there are tons of words and phrases that I´ve picked up via osmosis thru the years that have made the transition to Spanish easier, but at the same time, without formal instruction, things like accents, indirect objects, connectors (besides, still, although) are foreign objects, and trip me up with regular frequency. Although I think I´m mastering the three main ways of formulating hypothesis for events that are either happening now, happening in the recent past, or happening in a concretely older time, I still have to ask for pepper at the grocery store as ¨the opposite of salt.¨ See, annoying, right?

Class therefore is an anxiety provoking ordeal, where panic sets in with each new twist of the unending mountain pass. Last week for example, we were forced to do word problems, MATH word problems, in SPANISH.

¿¿¿Math! AND Spanish! ???

Why don´t they just blindfold me as well? or have me solve them while padlocked in a submerged safe?

Spanish Math Problems? Who am I, an Einstein-Houdini hybrid?

Gimme a break, and gimme back my dictionary, while you are at it.

My other biggest problem, aside from general cluelessness, is my fear of vosotros. In the U.S., or at least in Texas, vosotros (or the informal version of ¨you guys¨ y´all, essentially) is not really taught. It seems that the whole informal tenses don´t really fly in Mexico, and my Spanish one teacher in 10th grade went to great pains to illustrate this for us.

First of all, she explained that we wouldn´t even be learning the vosotros form, and that we should black it out in our textbooks to avoid the temptation of referring to a group of people in an informal fashion.

Then she told us a story about a drunk kid in lock up in a mexican prison who mistakenly used the ´tu´(informal) tense when speaking with his jailer. Well, this would end up being that kids LAST mistake, because, according to my Spanish 1 teacher, the cop shot the kid.

Now its not as gruesome as something from the movie ´Touristas´ but, it was plenty enough to have me swear off the informal tenses, for good. I didn´t want to be that drunk kid in a Mexican prison...at least not the one who used the informal tense.

My teachers here sense my lack of comfort with the vosotros tense and revel in terrozing me with all of the vosotros questions in class.

Add to all this concern the developments of today, the entrance of my new classmates. Classes here run on a weekly basis, and every week students come and go, and sometimes even the teacher rotate in and out. Today we got two new students in my class: one brazilian and one russian.

The Russian is named Katrina, and is studying Math and Physics in college. I think she said she was 23. Well, our teacher made a big deal about her studying such tough subjects and asked her what she wanted to do when she graduated. Did she want to be a professor? Katrina laughed and said, no, I hate kids, I could never teach. So, the natural follow up was, so what DO you want to do? Her out of nowhere, record scratching as the needle is pulled off the album response was ¨I want to build weapons for Russia¨

WHHHHHAAAAAAA?

Next question: And, why are you studying Spanish then?

Actual and further jaw dropping response ¨we have lots of Spanish speaking customers to sell to¨

THAT IS AWESOME

This girl is slight, weighs maybe a buck five has giant glasses and a ghostly pallor, but she OWNED the room. We really couldnt get off the topic of her future employment for the rest of the day. My question ¨¿porque hacer guerra y no amor?¨went unanswered, although the teacher did bother to correct me: ¨haz el amor, no la guerra¨

Now, I´m not a 100 percent sure she´s legit because why on EARTH, if you actually WERE building bombs for Russia, would you go around blabbing about it? For the street cred? I kind of bailed her out on another question that would´ve helped determine her legitimate claim to Russian Arms Maker. When asked by the teacher, what was the strongest bomb she was studying, I blurted out ¨¡es secreto!¨ which Katrina quickly agreed with, ¨si, es secreto¨

Well, there went TODAY´S lesson. I spent the rest of the day wondering about her life, and marveling about the high stakes world I was entering.

What if I piss her off, will she be even more encouraged to build giant bombs? what if she gets to know me and realizes, hey, we´re all not so bad, and maybe there is another way? And, maybe most importantly, has she SEEN White Knights, with Mikhal Berishnikov and Gregrory Hines? What did SHE think of that daring fusion of different (dance) worlds?

Forget about tenses and questions of formality, my performance in Spanish class could now CHANGE THE BALANCE OF WORLD POWER. Great, like I need the extra pressure.

Having a Russian Arms Dealer in my class, is just another notch in my belt. I´m actually surrounded by spies. I know it, its cool. My first year of law school roommate who mysteriously vanished from a highpaying corporate job for two years, and then came back speaking fluent German and hightailed it back out of the states the second the JD was pressed into his hands? SPY.

The best friend since 5th grade who speaks fluent Arabic and travels across the globe meet with foreign scientists and government officials for weeks on end? SPY.

Hell, the woman who is now renting my apartment, who actually WORKS for the state department, who has a husband studying in Afghanastan, and who speaks Chinese, Russian, and Derka Derka Muhammed Jihad? SPY. SPY. SPY.

I joked in class today that all of her tests are going to come back with perfect scores on them, but there is a hint of concern there. I don´t want my experience tinged by the presence of hostile forces. I don´t want to have to temper my humor or my comments, for fear of further encouraging her along a path of death and destruction.

I don´t want to facilitate global conflict, but I still couldn´t help answering for her today in class.

We learned how to express repent in class today. (Arrepentirse). When the teacher asked Katrina how you say ¨regret¨in Russia, I pounded my fist on the table and said ¨there IS no Russian word for regret!¨

Sorry, World.