Running along the Estadio track in La Vega with an audiobook playing through my headphones, I almost stopped mid-lap. The narrator said, “I confused a lack of effort with a lack of ability…” This small line contextualized an important conversation I had with my roommate a few days before.
I live in one of New Hope’s four safe homes. My roommates are aged seventeen through twenty-four. The oldest is my boss’s daughter and, therefore, bilingual, and the second oldest roommate is also bilingual. Naturally, I have grown closer to these two girls since we work and travel together. Speaking the same language and being in a similar life stage (college or post-grad) also helps. The youngest three are in high school and only speak Spanish. In the past four months I have lived here, it has been more of a slow, steady effort to get to know them—this can be expected. It is also not beyond my notice that our schedules often conflict, so I only see them for a few hours every day since school began. However, we find our way through our contrasting schedules by using the time we do have together by watching movies, eating dinner together every night, and going for runs at the estadio now and then.
I am more quiet around them, especially during my first two months. This is partially because I was 1) nervous to speak my broken Spanish, and 2) I was unsure what to talk about with them. Hence, that was why I constantly turned on movies or offered to accompany them to the Estadio; when I wasn’t doing that, I tried my best to resist relying on my boss’s daughter, Helina, to translate for me. The result? When she wasn’t around, I stopped trying to speak Spanish and just kept quiet. (This method didn’t last very long. Admittedly, I was just so nervous to misspeak! What language teachers don’t tell you is how embarrassing learning to communicate in a new language can be.)
One night, something changed: Helina was gone on a trip, so I had no translator safety net. I ate dinner with my roommates, and we spent hours at the table after the food was cleared, laughing and telling jokes. The thing is…I understood what they were saying! I didn’t catch everything, but for the first time, I could actually participate in the conversation, having a stake in the jokes and stories using my words instead of just excessively analyzing and responding to body language. I waited three months for this.
One of my roommates, E*, told me in Spanish, “See! It’s better when you spend time with us instead of going into your room. When Helina isn’t here, it’s like you don’t want to talk with us!”
I paused for a moment because E was right. I was avoiding them. Not because I didn’t want to be with them but that I was not sure how to hold my own in Spanish. It must be frustrating to converse with me in Spanish, and I honestly thought my roommates felt that way because my Spanish was not improving fast enough. Really, only I felt that way, not them. I was just slowly giving up, confusing a lack of ability with a lack of effort, completely unwilling to wade through the difficulties of expressing myself in their language.
“It’s true,” I told E, “I am nervous to speak with you. I want to speak, but my Spanish is so bad. I think I annoy you. I speak like a little girl!”
My other roommates all laughed at this because there was some truth to it. I am literally learning how to speak all over again. My grammar and pronunciation are comparable to the four-year-old we have in our care here—she and I have some good conversations! E did not laugh, though. She had a very solemn look on her face and said, “No, you are not annoying to me. I want to know you! I want to speak with you! Practice Spanish with me any time.”
“Serio?” — “Seriously?”
“Sí! En cualquier momento” — “Yes! Anytime.”
I was so relieved, and I wanted to tell her, but I didn’t know the Spanish verb to say it. The best I could do was say “Yo quiero conocer tambien.” — “I want to know you too.”
Now, thanks to my audiobook, I see that I was confusing a lack of effort for a lack of ability. I am more than capable of becoming bilingual—I just have to practice…and I do! Ever since that conversation with E, I have much more grace for my mess-ups, and she and I have stuck to our promise of getting to know each other better. I have an open door to my room, and E often visits to practice Spanish and English after house dinner. As a result, I feel like my Spanish has improved quite a bit; what a difference that has made for everything! She even celebrated a birthday recently, and the New Hope tradition of waking her up with cake and a song, which sounds even sweeter now that I understand the words.
Another birthday party! They are SO fun!
Me and Helina in Ohio flying out at 4am after our last NHG x E-Women conference of the year!
Flying back to the DR! I had the best flight seat neighbors ever.
My sister got married!! Luckily, NHG already flew me to The States for the E-Women conference, so I was able to pop over to Nashville for my sister’s big day without it interfering with work too much.