Losing My Voice

I can't really trace it back to a specific time or place.  It's been happening for a while, now, but it's been in the past six months that it has accelerated beyond my control.

I remember mocking TOH for once, while on the train out to New Jersey - to Elizabeth for a pilgrimage to cheap chests of drawers and bookshelves at IKEA, I think, but I could be wrong - for exclaiming at all the "soccer fields."  It was hilarious and ridiculous; it was a story to tell our families and friends of the Americanisation (-zation?) he was undergoing, while I remained pristine, the intact Londoner.  I think I really believed that would continue; that I would live here without being touched by it - at least in this respect.

Of course, words crept in, here and there.  That was inevitable.  It's impossible to make oneself understood otherwise.  Phone calls can be particularly painful, with my clipped, cold accent, long vowels, and Old World vocabulary.  Then there would come the joshing - it's you who haven't moved on, US of A, with your language that's closer to ye olde English of the Pilgrims - we've evolved.  We use a preterite, where I come from - that's what I learnt. 

It's like a steady form of memory loss, this erasure of my identity, my tongue.  Is that British?  What is the word for that at home?  Is it the same?  Explaining the nuances of "quite"; substituting it with "pretty."  Where would I emphasi(s)e that word?  Where does that stress come in?  Ad-DRESS.  AD-dress. 

Shop.  Store.  Boots.  Cleats.  Football.  Football.  I mean football.  The one where more than two players actually use their feet.  I mean NFL.  College Football. 

August, 2013.  I am in a cab, heading home from the supermarket.  That's home-home, not Brooklyn-home.  I have two homes.  My mum got back from a hospital stay a few hours ago; I have picked up provisions.  The cab driver asks me where I live.  I'm taken aback, but then I realise - it's because I clearly don't live here anymore.  US?  Yes, nine years.  He speaks with a thick Indian accent; he moved to Britain in his late 30s and, despite being in his 50s now, he struggles with the language still, a little - he started learning it too late.  He struggles with certain words ("Well, 'mumble' means...") and with my accent.  I get to my destination, and he takes my shopping across the street for me.  I leave him a tip; he doesn't realise that I have left, lost, a little of my soul, my heart, a sense of myself, in his car.

Some things stick.  Pronunciations.  Quarter.  Water. 

Tomato is the real kicker, the one that I avoid saying if I can, at all. 

I used to slip into my accent - myself, the person I still think I am - like a comfy slipper.  With British strangers; with family on the phone; with friends in the pub at home.  Now, I struggle.  I can't remember what I sounded like.  I can't drink full British pints; I order halves.  The voice is unnatural, forced.  Even when surrounded by people from home, I don't sound like them.  It used to irritate me, my inability to keep my accent - I would become Bristolian-light if with people from the West Country; Brummie in Birmingham; and flatten my vowels with anyone north of Leicester.  My accent ever was a bastardized thing, with East and West Midlands parents, Sarf-East London roots, and for much of my childhood, a desperate need to not sound Sarf-East, my telephone voice for work (terribly home counties and nice), my reclaiming of London for university, my Yorkshire partner.  Sometimes people from home couldn't tell which part of the country I was from.  But it was me; British me; original me. And for some reason, it's much harder to accept that there is, indeed, NYC me mingled in how I speak.  Tipping; clothing; demanding good customer service; good summers, with free parties and concerts and outdoor activities; expecting 24-hour cheap public transport and cabs.  These things are all easily part of me.  But not the voice.  Please not the voice.

I still say London when people ask where I'm from.  But it is increasingly hard to sound like it.

Rythsys

Cornwall is officially beautiful; it feels steeped in mythology and legend. It is very, very different to the rest of the country, and feels as if perhaps centuries haven't really gone by.

When I was teaching English in Barcelona, we did a special day about language, somewhat a sensitive topic between Catalans and the rest of Spain. The Catalans particularly go on about Catalan being an older language than Castillian; it is incredibly important to them to have history anchored before that of Spain, to be authentically in their geography. Another teacher and I - he was an Aussie - did a special session on the "other" British languages and aboriginal languages from Oz. So I learned about the different groups of Celtic languages - the "p" ones and the "k" ones, the grouping into Manx, Gaelic and Scot, and Welsh, Cornish and Breton. The traces of Cornish names we end up with are glorious - Trescothick, Trethillian... and they could only come from Celtic origins.

Identity through language is particularly intriguing to me and, I think, incredibly important, having lived in Barcelona and now seeing the debates here over whether or not it is discrimination to force people to speak in English. Moreover, it is fascinating given that I speak an almost ubiquitous language, yet there is some primordial patriotic nerve within me that feels some twinge of frustration when it turns out that people are learning Americanised phrases and that my language is becoming obscure, useless in comparison. So in a small sense I do feel that a part of my identity is threatened by having continually to translate, to not be understood unless I modify how I speak. Which does, in some sense, change me. When I was getting near fluency in Costa Rica I would think differently, because the language and structure means that you think a different way. My dear friend Xopo wrote yesterday a beautiful post about the blurring (or not) of national identities through language, and I will not attempt to write anything on that topic. Chatting with another friend the other night, whose relationship is conducted in his language but not the native tongue of his girlfriend, it did bring home an appreciation that someone's language does help to define who one is and, in a way, I can understand people's sensitivities about a nation's tongue - be it those Mexicans who refuse to speak Spanish to Xopo, or those Anglophone Americans who are upset with the prevalence of Spanish.

For me, living in Barcelona, I never really felt accepted by those locals who tried to engage me in the gym and were disappointed at my stumbling Catalan and far more fluent Castellano. Yet Catalunya has a far stronger power and autonomy than any of the other nations that have been gobbled up by Britain, and so that desperate clinging onto language and locality can seem far more important yet far more futile. Which leads to desperate measures. Which is how I started on this topic - some bloke from the National Cornish Liberation Army has attempted to threaten Rick Padstow and Jamie Oliver out of Cornwall. Now I know those Jamie Oliver Sainsbury's adverts were annoying, but still... So a desperate measure, but probably not a desperately successful one. And young rich outsiders will continue to buy up property and turn villages into ghostly echoes of their former selves. Not quite the shadows of Aciman's imagination, I presume.

Todos dedos y pulgares...

I always love the fact that in English we have different words - entirely - for fingers and toes, whereas in Spanish, they use the word dedos, like digits, I suppose. Things like that I find endlessly fascinating about language - why do we Anglophones need the different words? Therefore, no se preocupen, queridas - ya tengo mi dedo entero, sino menos un poco de piel... por la segunda vez. Y me imagino que no sea correcto este título - como se dice este frase, esta expresión en español?

Something that really doesn't require words is this. I'm glad he pled guilty, and being a non-death-penalty supporter, glad he won't be executed. But still... I just want to know what motivated them to do this; what happens to you to make you become such a monster?

Holla!

Thanks to all the suggestions for dealing with Derek/Mookey's crazy ex - I believe the most common has been some variant on water bombs/hoses/glasses of water. Luckily that didn't have to be addressed last night, but I'll be prepared from now on.

I have realised that I haven't yet shared my own hollaback-style experience from a week or so ago. In fact, just over a week ago when I went to collect my parcels from Fedex. I was wearing a skirt suit, which was stupid because they always ride up - seriously, if you know how to prevent this, I'd love to hear from you - and I went to collect the beautiful beautiful machines. On the way down the street, got the obligatory whistles/unintelligible comments from males lazing around doing nothing. Then, on the way back, carrying more boxes and weight than really sensible/possible, I got more and more. It was in Spanish - because it was safe? That I wouldn't understand? Just general stuff, but I was tired, hot, grumpy, and wondering how on earth to get home with things that were (as it felt at the time) the same bodyweight as me. And I think that's what really made me annoyed - I was clearly struggling and clearly not supposed to understand the general comments on my legs/tits/arse. So, I turned round, looked at them, and told them to, well, go and have intercourse with themselves. In Spanish, obviously. And you know what? IT WORKED. I am normally a fan of non-aggressive solutions, but when people are being rude to you in a language you're not supposed to understand, sometimes the shock factor is helpful.

Yay me.

Wish I'd taken a photo, but as my arms were full, I'm sure you'll understand.

This Too Shall Pass...

My time here is basically over. It's hard to credit. Nevertheless, no choice there. It really is over.
Thank you to all who have accompanied me on the journey from stuttering white person to fluently rambling spanish speaking slightly less white person.

Thanks to crazy lady at spinning who really has been showing too much breastage lately (seriously, how can they be supported in that outfit?), the old gurning woman in Arenal who admired my body rather too lasciviously for my liking, the little gap in the bathroom wall that always appeared to be a giant spider ready to pounce on me, the guy with dreadful puby curls who is very sweet in más por menos, and the sweet ginger lady with the amazing freckles who looks after my bags for me there... and the sweet squeaky girl and the other lovely women who provide me with cheap fab food at the facultad de derecho at the UCR - Fordham, you should take note - other law schools like feeding their students nutritious, tasty and affordable food.

It Comes Before A Fall

I am wont to feeling pleased with myself. I can't help it. Despite the complete hideousness of astrology, I like to blame it on being a Leo. Laziness, failure to take responsibility, egotism - yes, you may accuse me of all these things and more, reasonably accurately.

However, today I have a very good reason to do so - I have a monster seventeen page document, in Spanish. My doing. We went through it this morning, and you know what? It wasn't too hideous, cringe inducing. Given that my Philosophy of Science supervisor used to sit and read aloud our essays, I know how to deal with the horrors of hearing your gauche, inaccurate (laziness again!) and horrible turns of phrase repeated genuinely ad nauseam. After the horrors of legal writing this year, experiencing more red pen than an insecure law student's psyche should have to deal with, I am accustomed to the corrections and while the pain of immense quantities of tracked changes on word continues to cause suffering, it's better than the scarlet biro.

Of course, there were several phrases where I thought, "ooh, that sounds great - I AM clever." Then I realised that the author... well, "No. Fui. Yo." (This is also the translation of Bart Simpson's most famous phrase, "It wasn't me".) Still, if I have achieved nothing else this summer, I can now lay claim to being able to write fairly well a legal document in Spanish. I am learning so so so much - I have already absorbed much more than I thought about a week ago when I started panicking over what on earth I was going to write. WOWSER.

I think my mother was telling me off in my dream last night in Spanish. Not bad - did you know you could do that, Mum? Well, you can.

And enjoy the pictures of the flores and dragonfly (libélula en español) from Mayela & Ricardo's garden in Punta Morales. Yes, Lianne, owe the plant porn idea to you. However, I do find the flora here incredibly interesting - everything is so bright. At the UCR there is an incredible, convulvulus type plant, which isn't covered with white flowers but RED ones. Extraordinary.

Going to do myspace updates, by the way, so please check out the stupefying embarrassment as I try to do "yoof" there.

Easy Peasy

I am nothing if not a simple soul. You have no idea what pleasure it gave me to bring my mac to work today and actually use that, rather than the PCs here. Sorry, windows folks - and goodness knows Mr. Gates, your work on AIDS is incredibly generous and important - but it's the shizzle. Sorry for using that word, too. I'm so white.

I also caved to pressure from Lolamonster and got myself Adium and lordy be, it has changed my ENTIRE chatting experience. Googletalk, AIM, MSN - all in one little programme. But the best, best best thing about it - every time I get a message, Hobbs dances. That's right my friend, Hobbs. And if I appear to be lazing around and not online, he starts snarling and roaring towards me. My goodness I am in LOVE with this thing.

Just to let you know, this photo is where I spent my birthday.

Huzzah.

Now if I can stop my friends deserting me in droves for other law schools I will be the happiest bunny around. Particularly as I am incredibly proud of myself for having produced twelve - yes, twelve - written pages of Spanish documentation for my project. Written originally in Spanish, not English. It may well be horrible Spanish, but it's done. Now that I am dreaming in Spanish, I feel like things are coming together, things are so much more instinctive now. It's an amazing feeling. It also explains some of the horrible English on the page - see previous entry and "I had reason", which is a direct English translation of the phrase meaning "I was right". Oops.

La Tortilla Ha Vuelto

I love that phrase, have ALWAYS wanted to use it.

Point being, when I was a child, I hated Mel Gibson. And now, the nutter has proved why - that I had reason and it wasn't just because I was bored with my mum watching Tequila Sunrise for the umpteenth time. It's all down to gut instinct, it appears - and my bowel was spot on.

Veal Always Have Paris

Oh Happy Day indeed - T-minus 6 days until M arrives. Huzzah! Why else is it a good day?

1) Viejo verde means, apparently, dirty old man. So there you go.

2) I didn't have to watch smallville last night as I was being kept company by a very fab person instead.

3) The cucaracha has not returned.

4) I am about to eat some queque.

Mountains out of molehills

I'm not sure what the Spanish equivalent is of this phrase, so I'll leave it, I think, in English. Ah, according to diccionarios.com, it's hacer una montaña de un grano de arena - to make a mountain out of a grain of sand. How beautiful. The Spanish word for molehill, by the way, is topera. Before I get distracted about language, the point of this gabbling is that my friend has just got back from a trip to his homeland after ten years' absence. That is just beyond my comprehension, it truly is. I live in countries where my culture is still fairly similar, the differences are minimal - so complaining should, therefore, also be. Yet I moan about the four weeks every year that I get with friends and family and how rushed I feel. Perspectiva, como siempre, is the most important thing to make you realize just how lucky you are.

Sin embargo, I owe thanks to those of you who have commented on my post yesterday on migration. You can, of course, comment on the website (for goodness' sake, WHY OH WHY DOES NO ONE POST ON IT???), but I appreciate the comments nonetheless. I suppose I feel I adapt to places, I am happy in them - I'm not pining for home all the time. But my identity - in my head, at least - is so strongly based in my being from London. The rolling green hills of Albion and much about the place I do love, but a lot of missing it comes from extrañando a family and friends who are there. But even if they weren't there, I'd miss London. It's the same for me and Barcelona - I knew almost no one there, and I still get pangs for it.

Anyhoo, self-pitying aside, onto language. It's extraordinary, what we have as the same, and what we cannot translate. Phrases, and so on, that make sense in one language - e.g. volver la tortilla - but not in another (return the omelette? No, our equivalent is the tables have turned). To get the hang of something is, apparently, to catch hold of a wave in Spanish (at least, according to the fifth Harry Potter). I like that. It will do me in good stead for next weekend when I go to the beach. This weekend, I shall explore San José (apparently it won't take long), and do some washing. And read, read, read on the Tico identity. Wundebar.

New Spanish learnt: chimar=to rub (as in a blister) in CR, but to hacer el amor en Guatemala; queque=cake. ¡En serio! Every day, something new. I feel as if I'm regressing at the moment, speaking in pidgin occasionally, but I'm surviving - managed to buy a subscription to the pool so will actually have to go to justify the expense. Fabulous. Tomorrow morning, in the blue. 8am.

El Feo y El Feisimo

Well, England are through past the group stage, although Lord knows we don't deserve it. It´s por dicha, nothing more. However, the Ticos were sin dicha and are out after a 3-0 loss to Ecuador. Unsuprising given Ecuador´s Qualification Standing and results, but still, sad. Although after hearing everyone in the other offices slag off England, I´m not as sorry as I could be. And certainly not that sorry that I only watched the last half hour - sounds as if we were indeed diabolically bad in la primera parte.

Anyhoo, not much more to report other than I have learned several more things about the world and myself today. Namely:

1) The full title for Mexico is actually the United Mexican States.

2) The full title, even better, for Paraguay is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. What exactly is "oriental" about it? I´d love to know... answers on a postcard please! (or, of course, email or comments will do!)

3) My sense of direction, combined with my memory, is a good thing for a young rubia (or macha) indeed. This morning had a wobbly moment when my landlady, bless her sweet nature, DID NOT KNOW WHERE THE NEAREST BUS STOP IS. How is that possible? But people here don´t really seem to know where anything is, just where something is relative to something else. But I pieced things together and got to work, on my own, caminando, having been shown the half hour journey once. I rule.

3a) Following on, self-reliance is an extraordinarily powerful emotional - at least, the realisation that you can get by and do something in difficult circumstances. This morning I asked for directions - something I HATE doing and certainly in another language and it was empowering and uplifting to know I´d done it and now had the knowledge that meant I could get to work. Not much, but something. Ladies, don´t always rely on everyone else to get you around. Please.

3b) When you ask directions, LISTEN to what they say. I.e. to the difference between "ya se paso" (please forgive lack of accents here - haven´t worked those out yet) and "ya se pasa" - the latter being what the driver told me i.e. "it´s coming", not that it had just gone. DUHBRAIN. Listening always important - don´t ask a question unless you´re prepared to hear the answer...

4) Tica cerveza, according to both my guidebooks, is best represented by Bavaria. However, I was distinctly unimpressed by my first encounter with said beverage in its "Gold" variety, but am prepared to be convinced by repeated consumption.

5) It doesn´t always pour down by lunchtime in SJ in the rainy season! I wish it would, however, it´s very very very sweaty here, which doesn´t make for happy Grace. Furthermore, I may have to walk home given my promise to myself that I´d only catch the bus when the weather dictated. And it´s fair to surmise that, on a day like today, the bus would be miserably humid and so does not demand I get myself on its un-airconditioned self. I would be saving myself a massive 200 colones by not taking the bus (roughly 40 cents, 20p, 35 cents in Euros for you international folk unfamiliar with this noble currency), too. Looks like it´s the long trek home for me. Huzzah. Then a night in with a dvd on the racism Nicaraguanses experience, reading about the Tico mentality, and possibly Scrubs, too. Ricky Martin would be proud (and if you don´t get that reference, you have NO BUSINESS READING THIS BLOG). I thank you.

Ya estoy aqui!

So I´m here, in CR - all very strange and disorienting at the moment. Things I have already learned:

1) The people here do not believe in street numbers, but useful addresses like 100m north and 100m west of Burger King. Seriously.

2) They are as obsessed with the football as us.

3) It is scorchingly hot in the mornings, rains for three hours in the afternoons then is cool and bearable.

4) How to say the time in Tico - not the same as Spain. Falta cinco minutos para las tres, por ejemplo.

5) I really am bad at Spanish. But am getting by. Not sure how long I can play the knackered & jetlagged card. Oops.

6) We start work early but, more importantly, finish early!

7) You need to read your watch the right way up and try not to get up at half two in the morning thinking it´s half seven. Oops.

8) You can get a great meal of frijoles y arroz and plantain stuffed with tomato and cheese for less than two bucks. BRILLIANT.

LOVE IT. Apart from not having a clue where I am - I need a map. And soon!