Learning Spanish
“Buenos dias, mi amor.”
I told my live-in Venezuelan boyfriend that I wanted his help learning Spanish. I love Spanish. How wonderful it would be for him to whisper his deepest thoughts and desires to me, in his mother tongue. “Deseo estar siempre juntos. Muchos besos y abrazos.”
We could exchange gentle morning pleasantries, over coffee, and cultivate our palates with the Mediterranean diet, the lost secret to health. But even though I’ve taken the pressure off us, both, by making a 10-year plan to learn it, he refuses to help me with my project. Why won’t he teach me Spanish? What’s the point of having a sexy Latin lover, fluent in the language of love, if he won’t teach it to me?
I want him to speak Spanish to me, in long intimate conversations, from morning ’til night. I want him to take me traveling, on wonderful adventures in the Spanish-speaking world, but he won’t even introduce me to his mother. He could, at least, translate their simple phone calls. I try to listen in, but he barricades himself in our bathroom phone booth. How can I learn his heritage if he won’t share his relatives!
If you want to learn a language the best way is to immerse yourself with some locals, in their country. Mexico would be the natural first choice, being closer than South America and just as affordable. That would be a glorious place to be Latinos, together. Except it’s really not safe.
Everybody knows somebody who’s been kidnapped there. Well, not me, but I know someone who knows someone. Especially in the North, where all the drug battles are. We must end this war on drugs and open the borders, so peace-loving, soulful and kind-hearted Mexicans can come up north, to Manhattan and teach me Spanish. If the U.S. would send Mexico a whole bunch of solar panels, they could export energy, stabilize their economy and leave their poverty behind. Less poverty, less violence, more love and I could go visit. Let’s be neighborly, America!
I’ve heard the safest place to go is Pueblo, in Central Mexico, but it’s still a big risk. Gangsters there are ruthless. They love to kidnap foreigners for the ransom and probably think all Americans are rich. I’d be a prime target, even with my mere pennies in the bank. I am poor! Yo soy pollo. Pobre. And who would they call to pay my ransom? My mother in the nursing home? She can’t even get her eye drops in. My sister? Omg! My poor sister! She’s got 4 stepkids to keep out of jail. My boyfriend? I think he’d secretly be relieved. I don’t want to be a sex slave but maybe my handsome kidnappers could teach me Spanish, while my boyfriend decides if I’m worth the ransom. Now that would be language immersion. And once I learned enough, I’d make my escape.
I heard of a Mexican man who jumped from a third floor window and broke his pelvis, but somehow managed to escape his kidnappers. I guess, just in case, I could bring my running shoes, and maybe a tiny, collapsible, blow-up mattress, so, if I had to, I could hook up a chain of bungee cords to the refrigerator handle, to lower myself out the window, to the mattress. As long as no one steals it and it doesn’t bounce away, that mattress could be handy. After my successful escape, I’d return on humanitarian missions, speaking fluent Spanish, as a volunteer for the Smile Train, maybe even go to Nicaragua or Panama, and help them with their solar panels.
In the meantime, I told Juan Pablito he could start off just teaching me sex words, trying to motivate him to help me out with the rest of the language, so, eventually, we’d be able to have more substantial conversations. Como grande y hermosa! Hermoso? But he refuses to multi-task for me. He says if we’re having sex, we’re having sex — not a language lesson.
I love Spanish music but he cringes when I put it on. Childhood overload, I guess. The only Spanish I hear from him is when he speaks to other people — the waiters at our favorite Mexican Restaurant, the deli counter guys, and the cashiers at the movies. We do NOTHING latino, together.
Oh, every so often he speaks to me in Spanish, usually after I correct his grammar or ask him to wash a dish, but it’s very fast and under his breath so I don’t really get what he’s saying. What does “coño” mean?
Ten years might not be enough. Necesito un maestro de espagnol con mucho pacienzia y dieci anos!!
Ten years, or maybe twenty.
***************
