Cena Final

      Rebecca's flight comes in at 8:30 p.m., so Silvia, Enrique, Cherie, Rebecca, and I gather at 9:30 to have some wine and cheese and the home-made macaroons that Rebecca brought. Finally, I can lean on my fluent-in-Spanish wife.

            Juan is still not home from working in the capitol so I'll never find out how he really feels about queers. Silvia, on the other hand, has been wonderful, asking about Rebecca, helping me to plan this get-together.

            The topic soon moves to immigration and Rebecca uses a lot of technical legal jargon that I miss but I'm able to make my point that the plot to use private prisons to house immigrants is exploitive, greedy, and evil. It's all pretty choppy. "Privada," I say. "Dinero," I say. "Mal," I say. But I get my point across.

            I'm really happy that I'm not just ordering a beer or asking for street directions--I'm participating in a full-speed adult conversation in Spanish.

            Sure, I'm a minor player. And I miss a lot. I miss at least 40% of it. I totally miss the part when Silvia tells Rebecca that she had invited me to the baby shower during that very first phone call. I missed it then, and I miss it now, with Silvia saying it right in front of me. 

            Then Cherie mentions that I talked to Antonio for a long time on his last night. What did we talk about, she wants to know. This is when I realize that although Antonio's Spanish was better than mine, he had always kept his conversations with our host family polite and simple. I retell his first- communion story and everyone laughs hard, shocked by how different my version is from Antonio's vague, courteous telling which omitted any mention of head trauma or neck braces.

            I'm on a roll, so I break out a story Antonio had told in conversation class. "How do you say out-of-body experience?" I ask Rebecca in English.

            "I don't know," she says. "Give it your best shot."

            "Una vez, Antonio salió tu propio cuerpo," I tell the group.

            "No," Silivia says in disbelief. Cherie just starts laughing.

            "Es verdad," I say. I somehow indicate that Antonio had told his tale of astral projection during a discussion of ghost stories, but the conversation moves too quickly for me to tell how Antonio's mom had taken him to a healer in a cave (at least I think it was a cave) who said he had shoulder pain because a spirit was inhabiting that part of his body, and that night he'd somehow floated above his own body and, from his position near the ceiling, had watched himself sleeping below in his bed. 

            The conversation moves on and I struggle just to catch up. I'm still a hack who stutters out fragments and mistakes. But I'm beginning to understand other people. To know them....in Spanish.

Error

  In another class conversation with the teacher Karen we discuss the good and bad love relationships we've had. I tell her about the on-and-off nine-year affair I had with a married woman when I was in my twenties. "Fue un error," I say.

            Karen starts laughing really hard, bouncing up and down in her seat. My phrase isn't quite right, but I have no idea how to say that although I don't really regret the affair, it's not something I'd ever do again...but I can't even think about this because Karen is laughing harder at this than she has at any intentional joke I've made. I have no idea why she finds it so funny.

            "Un error," she repeats and shakes her head, chuckling softly.

Arma

         In a one-one-one conversation with the other Spanish teacher Karen we discuss gun ownership in the U.S. versus that in Mexico where it is illegal.

            "My brother once gave me a handgun one Christmas as a surprise," I say. Usually my liberal friends meet this statement with concern and a series of questions, but Karen's just flashes a huge smile. "What a wonderful brother," she says immediately.

De Jefe

            During a phone conversation with Rebecca, I call the capital of Mexico, "De Jefe."

            "Did you just say 'De Jefe,'" she asks. "It's D.F. De Efe. for District Federale."

            "I know," I say, "but I said 'De Jefe' by accident one time and now I'm thinking I like the phrase as slang, " of the chief" for the "capitol,"

            "I think you are just covering up for getting it wrong," she says.

            "No, I'm starting a trend," I say. "You'll see someday."

Comunión

       It's the weekend and Antonio leaves to visit his first host family in Puebla to celebrate their daughter's first communion (or confirmation--I always get them mixed up but the girl was about twelve) with a big party.

            At breakfast, Antonio gives me only polite answers, so I hit him with the real reporter questions as soon as we leave the language school for our walk home. "Was there a live band?" I ask.

            "No, I think that's too expensive. I think that's only for weddings," he says. "But let me tell you what happened: In the middle of the party, a big storm struck and the wind knocked down the canopy above us and downed an iron pole that hit the little communion girl right in the head and her little twelve-year-old boyfriend tried to rescue her, but her eight-year-old brother just ran away and everyone made fun of him for that later. The whole party fell apart and the family went to the hospital and all the guests went home and the next day the girl showed up with a neck brace on and all she wanted to do was open her presents finally but she had trouble seeing the presents with that neck brace on so she had to hold them up to her face and her parents got upset with her because it looked like all she cared about was her presents instead of talking with any of her visitors because she was holding all of the gifts up to her face like that."

            As we walked, he told me about the whole trip, how the family talked him out of buying a bus ticket in advance and insisted on taking him out to breakfast in a nearby town known for its Italian immigrants and great Italian food, and how he then had to pay a bunch of extra money for a first class ticket to avoid traveling in the "madrugada," which is how I learn the term for "middle of the night," and as he tells me this, our Oaxaca host family's house comes into view, and I feel this surge of happiness. Instead of feeling sorry for the little girl in the neck brace, I feel elated because I have understood this whole story, a sustained tale in Spanish for a nearly twenty-minute walk. Poor kid... but lucky me. 

Gran Cañon

  In conversation class I describe how a rainstorm in the Grand Canyon opened up a series of new waterfalls from the canyon walls one time when I was backpacking there with my dad. Juan, our teacher, asks me about how dangerous it is in the Grand Canyon and I tell him that people die there every year.

            "What do they die of?" he asks me. "Dehydration?"

            "Yes," I say, "but mostly from small airplane accidents."

            He and Antonio refuse to believe this, so I tell them I will bring the research to our next class. Then I tell them that I think that there was this guy in the eighties who killed four people by pushing them off the edge of the Grand Canyon. Antonio gets more excited about this topic of a serial killer/pusher than he has about anything we have discussed the entire week. "How was he caught?" he wants to know. "How do we know he did it on purpose?" "How many years was he sentenced to?"

            The next day I bring in the research and cite it in carefully practiced phrases. I was right about the small planes. According to Michael Ghiglieri's book about deaths in the Grand Canyon, 379 of the 683 total recorded Grand Canyon deaths were due to small plane accidents.

            But I was wrong about the serial pusher. He did kill four people, but he only pushed one person off the edge of the Grand Canyon. His third wife. After the authorities nailed him for that, they reopened the case of his first wife's death. As it turns out, the pusher had killed his first wife and two kids and then staged the scene so it looked like his wife had commited the suicide/murder.

            I also tell Juan and Antonio about the guy who committed suicide in the Grand Canyon by jumping out of a helicopter mid-tour. He fell 4,000 feet and it took fifteen park officials to recover his body parts.

            And then I tell them about the dad who pretended to fall off the edge of the Grand Canyon to make his eleven-year-old daughter laugh. This all backfired and he actually fell to his death.

             "What do you think of Arizona now?" I want to ask.

            But that would be a bad idea...unless I could use the usual ploy. The nice thing about Arizona is that whenever someone in Arizona does something idiotic, you can usually point out that this person is not originally from Arizona. This is because, although there are some people like me who were born here, the majority of the adults are people who moved here from some Minnesota or Michigan in the 70s and 80s... or California in the 90s.

            I tell Antonio and Juan, "The last guy who just fell off the edge of the Grand Canyon and died in March 2014--He was from Texas."  

Chonies

            I try to drop off my bag of dirty laundry at the lavanderia I've been going to for the last three weeks, but the young woman at the counter tells me, "No ropa interior."

            "Que?" I ask, and she tells me they will not wash my underwear.

            It is moments like these that force one to truly evaluate the condition of one's undergarments. I try to envision the crotch of each pair of dark-colored Jockey bikini briefs I have handed over. I'm mostly certain that my chonies were free of skid marks or other bodily evidence. What's the problem, then? What's wrong with my underwear? Why won't they take my underwear? Is it because they know I'm a lesbian and I have lesbian underwear? Is this all because I'm from Arizona?

            I move to take my whole bag of laundry elsewhere, but the lavanderia girl stops me and says they will wash my underwear this time. Of course they don't want to lose the sale altogether--my hardball bluff has worked and I'm going to get my underwear washed one last time, by God.

            At comida I tell Silvia what happened at the lavanderia. "Is this normal?" I ask. Silvia gets the look on her face that she gets when she honks at some laggard driver in traffic. She's more pissed off than I am. "Yes," she says, "if they have a sign posted. You should tell them if they don't want to wash underwear they need to post the sign."

            I really want Silvia to tell them this for me. I'd love to walk into the lavanderia behind Silvia when she is all pissed off and speaking rapid Spanish.

            Instead I end up washing the next batch by hand. I hang seven pairs of underwear to dry in my bathroom. With the Oaxaca humidity, this takes nearly three days. 

Dulce

I go to the corner store that is decorated with birthday balloons and piñatas, hoping to buy a birthday card for Silvia. The late-teen or early-twenties girls at the counter tell me that their store doesn't sell such a thing as a birthday card for an adult. And the grocery store didn't even have a greeting card section. I settle for a candy bar that says "Feliz Cumpleaños" on the wrapper and doesn't look too juvenile. 

            Then one of the girls tells me how she wants to travel to the U.S. but feels she has no chance. We discuss some options when she says suddenly, "You know English. Please translate this."

            She hands me a piece of paper with words written on it in neat pencil print, "let me love you."

            "Oh, are these from a song?" I say.

            "No," she says. "It's from a guy."    

            I'm not sure what to tell her. First of all, I don't know "let" or even "allow" in Spanish. And then there are all the nuances. Maybe this is just some innocent guy trying to quote song lyrics or lines from a movie. Or maybe this is really the equivalent of "Let me fuck you." I need to know more about the guy. If he's cute, maybe she should just go for it. I wish I knew the Spanish word for "cheesy" so I could find out whether this guy is a total cheeser or someone she actual likes.

            Instead I say, "Es similar a 'te amo," pero...no." I don't know how to say "not quite." I promise them that I will come back one day with a better translation, and I decide this would be great homework for me and I also decide that I should take Antonio to this store because the girls are cute and right around his age, but, for some reason, I never actually do either.

La Pelicula

        I want to see the movie Maleficent which is called Malefica in Mexico. And I want to see it dubbed in Spanish, which is why one student decides not to go. "You're going to be miserable," she says. "It's better to see it in English with the subtitles."

            So it ends up being just me and Antonio. The tickets are nice and cheap, only five dollars for 3D. Even though Antonio's Spanish skills are stronger, he prefers to let me buy the tickets, pick out the seats, and ask directions to the correct theater.

            "Are you sure you want to see the dubbed version?" he asks me right before I pay for the tickets. "I did that during my first few weeks in Puebla and I was lost through the whole movie."

            I insist on the dubbed version. If no one is actively correcting or harassing me, I have a high tolerance for confusion. I like watching movies on planes with no headphones. Elf was actually better that way.

            Malefica is anti-Disney but it has enough Disney cues to make it very easy to follow. Although the movie's content is not quite right for children, its structure is perfect for them. And it is perfect for me, with my bad Spanish. I feel like I get about 65% of the dialogue and the stuff I don't get is lost anyway under all the images pushing along the story. It's a weird movie and I enjoy it, though the 3D could have been used to greater advantage.

            Antonio is even happier about the movie than I am. When we walk home discussing it in Spanish, I say, "La ex-novia y la hija del Rey matan él juntas. No príncipe. No boda. Es diferente."

            "Esto es porque me gusta la pelicula," Antonio says. "And best of all," he says, in Spanish, "for my first time, I understood every single word." He pauses and he has this beaming smile on his face. "Gracias a ti," he says.

Teléfono

     I ask my fellow student Karen, "Did you hear Antonio's story about the Swiss student's experience in Guatemala where she saw a group of robbers shoot and kill the bus driver and she and all the passengers were stuck out in the jungle? Do you think she actually saw the shooting or that she just heard about it? "

            "Oh, is that what she was talking about?" Karen says. "She has that Swiss accent and she told me something about a bus in Guatemala and I could tell I was supposed to be impressed or scared, but I didn't know what she was talking about."

            Since the story had originally been told with a Swiss accent to a Korean student who later spoke it with his Korean accent into my untrained Irish/German American ear, I have a feeling that I am never going to get it quite right.  All I know is that Antonio is thinking about taking Guatemala off his itinerary.

Monte Alban

I'm following the tour guide's Spanish as well as I can when he asks me, "Entiendes?'
I reply, "Mas o menos."
"No," he says, laughing, "I asked 'where are you from?' De donde vienes?"
If only he'd spoken into my good right ear instead of the bad left one, this would have been a question I would have understood. But now it's too late. When the tour guide says, in Spanish, that he can speak to me in English, "Puedo hablar contigo in Ingles," or something similar, I understand him perfectly, but immediately five young Mexican tourists yell at me in heavily enunciated English, "He can speak to you in English!"
"Gracias," I reply.

El día nuevo

When I used to write profiles for ACORN I could get even the most reticent interviewee to open up because I'd ask the right questions. The first morning after I decide to turn things around, I ask Antonio at breakfast, "What's the strangest thing for you about Mexico?"
Nothing, he insists. I really like it here, he says.
So I try again. "What is something you like about Mexico that is very different from Korea?" I ask.
"The food," he says, finally.
I had tried several times to tell Antonio that there are Korean tacos in the U.S. but each time he had looked at me like I was a liar or a mental patient. Now I ask him whether they have Mexican food in Seoul.
He tells me that there is one area in the city where all the foreign food restaurants are located, English pubs, Italian bistros. The way he describes the area makes it sound like it is not some organic neighborhood created by immigrant communities, but something more planned, a kind of outdoor, overgrown food court.
"And it's dangerous at night," he tells me. "If you're going to get robbed in Seoul, that's where it would happen."
I've just gotten more out of Antonio in five minutes than I have in the entire two weeks put together. Maybe I've found the solution. I have to interview Antonio.

lógica

After comida, I go to my room and start digging up the fear I know is somewhere under all this anger at Juan, at Antonio. Being pissed off is my usual defense, but if I don't want to be miserable for the next two weeks, I've got to work this out. I'm new, I'm vulnerable, I feel stupid when I'm being corrected all the time--this is what's really going on. I talk to Rebecca and she says, "You've got to look at Antonio as a blessing. If there was some American living there, you'd just speak English all the time."
But how to deal with him insulting me to my face? Well, I rationalize--who isn't a dick at age 24? When I was twenty, a friend and I were given a generous ride-board car-ride from Portland to Seattle, and we showed our frumpy 40-something driver our appreciation by mocking her musical taste for two hours straight. We all suck sometimes. And a world without dicky 24-year-olds would be a gray cold place with no punk rock and no skateboard tricks.
Maybe Juan is actually right, I decide. Maybe I am the one who isn't talking enough to Antonio. I had somehow decided that having him around was going to ruin my whole Mexico experience. I had decided that a kid young enough to be my son was my nemesis. Yeah--I'm kind of ridiculous when I'm scared.
And how to deal with Juan himself? I decide use the tactic I use when dealing with petty, competitive, or snotty writers in the literary community. I just say fuck 'em and focus on putting the right words down as well as I can and as much as I can. Juan wants me to speak more Spanish? Then I will speak more Spanish. Isn't that why I am here? I'll interrupt, I'll over-talk, I'll over-share. I'll put the Spanish first. Watch out, Oaxaca, here I come.  

No Me Gusta

The day before the class period that ended with me wanting to choke my Spanish instructor, Antonio had asked me what my teacher's name was and whether I liked him. He had used a different verb than "gustar" and told me how the father of his host family in Puebla told Antonio to use this other verb when referring to his preteen daughters. "It's an important difference. Entiendes?" Antonio had said and I agreed, that, yes, it was an important to use the right kind of "like" when telling a man you like his young daughters.
So instead of ever answering the question, I had talked grammar with Antonio.
Now, during comida after the class period when Juan told me I needed to speak more, I decide to answer Antonio's question. "My teacher's name is Juan," I say. "And no, I don't like him."
Enrique, Cherie, and Antonio all just stare at me, open-mouthed.
What the hell did I just do? I would never sit down to dinner in Arizona with people I know casually and suddenly announce that I don't like a person. This kind of public shit talk is never cool, even in bad Spanish.
But then, out of nowhere, right when I am feeling weak and meanspirited and kind of dumb, Antonio says in Spanish exactly what I have specifically requested my wife Rebecca tell me when I'm suffering through some bout of depression.
"Maybe tomorrow will be better," Antonio says.

Necesitas hablar mas

It's my second week of class and all the students disappear except for me and Antonio. The good news is that I now have private grammar lessons, the bad news is that I'm put in conversation class with Antonio. My nemesis. The corrector. The kid who has called me fat and accused me of not working hard enough. Great.
I argue that I shouldn't be in class with Antonio because he's too advanced for me, but the teacher Juan insists that conversation class is for all levels.
I give it my best shot and at first, it seems like all is well.
We play a game in which Antonio and take turns describing movies while the other person guesses the title. I stump Antonio with Spiderman and he describes this Korean movie about a giant fish monster that captures a girl and pulls her down to his underwater lair. I'm really getting into it. I make a buzzer sound and try to guess the title even before Antonio puts the multiple choice options on the board: "Giant fish!"
We soon determine that Antonio's monster is not really a giant fish but a giant salamander. Antonio is being kind of quiet and boring about it, so I push him with all kinds of questions. "Is the girl a little girl or a teenager?" I ask. "Does the giant salamander have hands?" I ask.  "Is he a salamander with a heart of gold, or is he just evil?"
I'm really having fun. I'm just wishing that Antonio would talk more, and play a little. This is why I am astonished when Juan stops talking and gives me a serious, steady stare. "Molly, come on, you need to talk more," he says.
What? If anyone needs to talk more, it's Antonio. It doesn't help that Juan and I have had that initial "Don't tell anyone you're from Arizona" conversation. Is that what all this is really about? Is he just being a dick to me because I'm from Arizona? I'm already speaking three times as much as Antonio and I'm supposed to speak even more. What does he want? For me to do ALL the talking?
"You really need to talk more," he says again.
I feel trapped in an unfair judgment. I feel unseen. Hasn't he seen all this talking I've been doing? Rage flows through my body as I glare at Juan. I have a certain violent urge that I fight to control. Despite all my cultural confusion, even I know it's not kosher to choke your Spanish instructor.
I stare at my notebook and try to cool down.
Juan says, "Okay, let's switch the topic to stereotypes. What are the stereotypes about Mexico and Mexicans?"
Oh great. The guy who thinks I am an Arizona bigot is asking me to identify Mexican stereotypes. Never mind that true Arizona bigots pass laws to make sure everyone around them speaks English so that they never have to take a Spanish class in their lives.
I feel trapped. If I put forth some negative stereotype it's going to sound like I believe it. Even positive stereotypes sound ridiculous. What would I say? That Mexican families have more fun? What the hell am I going to say?
"That's a dangerous question," I say.
"No, it's not," Juan says. "Come on, we're all friends here."

Chapulines

I figure the best way to bounce back from sickness is to eat the grasshoppers. Silvia's sister Cherie and her husband take me out to dinner to cheer me up post-sickness, and I layer the little red-chili covered bits into a tortilla with a little guacamole. They taste like fake bacon bits, but a little woodier. That's probably the legs.
Later a hotel owner will defend the eating of the grasshoppers as environmentalism. Instead of spraying poisons on their corn, they use nets to catch the grasshoppers and just eat the pests.
Later Rebeca and I will tell Silvia about the time I ate a cricket on a cracker at the insect museum in New Orleans as part of an exhibit on alternate food sources. Silvia will be completely offended by the idea that we consider eating a cricket and eating a grasshopper to be similar. "Crickets are black," she'll say. "Grasshoppers are green." She'll look at us like we are crazy.

El Acuerdo

Rodrigo and Antonio are looking at me like I'm crazy, or like I'm an idiot, or both.
"But you said 'yes.' You said you wanted to go to the movies with us," Rodrigo says.
"Oh no," I say. "You didn't buy me a ticket, did you?"
I thought back to the previous conversations about Malefica, the movie with Angelina Jolie. What question did I think I said "yes" to when I was accidentally saying "yes" to an invitation?
That I knew the movie they were describing? That I liked movies in general? That I think Angelina Jolie is hot?
It was my understanding that Rodrigo was going to the movies with a female friend and some cousins. I wasn't even sure whether Antonio was invited but it would have been awkward and none-of-my-business to clarify that matter. I figured the twenty-somethings were getting together while I had been invited to dinner with the fifty-somethings and had accepted.
"You didn't understand what you were saying 'yes' to?" Antonio asks me.
"No," I say. "I mean, yes."

Las Correcciones

When I was ten, I got my hands on some standardized tests that identified me as smart and I immediately started acting like an asshole. I corrected my mom's pronunciation of certain words, corrected my dad's fuzzy memory of past events, corrected my brothers' spelling. I caught every verbal slip and jumped in with my fix. I was so smart.
And while my adult interactions with the products of suburban child-rearing indicate that this type of behavior is acceptable or perhaps even encouraged among the higher- income set, in my family it was considered very rude, bordering on monstrous. My farm-boy dad and registered-nurse mom tolerated the corrections for a day or so, and then down came the hammer.
One day I corrected one of my mom's casual mistakes and she just glared at me. Though I was past the age for spanking, I had the distinct feeling that my mom wanted to slap me across the face.
"It is rude to correct other people, and you will not do it."
"Never?"
"Never."
In that moment, I stopped correcting people. Even into my adult life, I have followed the rule religiously, ridiculously. I'm always being asked by friends, "Why didn't you tell me to turn left and not right?" "Why didn't you say something?" "Why didn't you stop me?"
I just shrug.
So, for me, one of the hardest parts of learning Spanish in Mexico is the constant correction.
If I manage to get the past-tense verb out correctly, I inevitably use the "you" form when I mean "I," and someone corrects me three-words into my thought. If I get the past-tense verb and the conjugation right, then I use the wrong "to be" verb, ser instead of estar, and again, I get stopped before I say what I want to say. I use "quince" when I mean "cinquenta." Silvia is pretty good about letting me finish a sentence, but Antonio likes to stop me one word at a time.
I feel like my listeners are judging me as stupid or slow. I feel like they are losing their patience with me or getting bored with me. I start wondering if I'm just not good at this language-learning thing. It's painful. I'm tempted to just clam up.
I realize at some point that my mistakes in Spanish match my bad communication habits in English. Not bothering to pronounce a word correctly if I think it's too long. The old habit of not naming people or things specifically enough because it wasn't cool to do so in my central Phoenix neighborhood. The constant numerical mixups that are becoming more frequent as I age.
I know that what I need to do is talk more. I know I need to stop caring what my listeners think of me, to stop making up my little stories about their judgment. But I can't do it.
I know what I need to do in order to learn is to just jump in, to shoot into the pinball machine and bounce off these bumpers of mistakes and just keep rolling. I need to just absorb these corrections and use them, but instead each one feels like a painful impact that stops me in my tracks.  

Picky Eater

I've never been a picky eater. If you handed me a plate, I'd eat whatever was on it. Except mussels which I'm allergic to, or pickled pig's feet. (I'd have to guess that if I were in one of my exuberant moods and someone I really liked handed me unpickled pig's feet, I probably would've eaten them).
Anyway, in my normal life, I've always been an open eater and a big slob, the total opposite of OCD.
Getting sick changes all this for me.
I buy two bottles of hand sanitizer, one to carry around, one for my bathroom at home.
I'm terrified of lettuce, tomatoes, ice, and even ice cream.
Back home I was the kind of person who had to steel my nerves to send back a dish at a restaurant.
Not anymore.
Cook's feelings be damned, I am now guarding my stomach with a paranoia so irrational that it borders on....right-wing patriotism.
I'm a gut-nut.
A one-woman-intestinal-militia.
If someone tries to hand me anything green or salad-like, this Sergeant Slaughter voice in my brain grumbles, "Nothing's getting in here but cookies, motherfucker."
Finally, I have a great excuse to eat nothing but processed, pre-packaged junk food.

Despues

I take the cipro and some other stuff the doctor prescribed, miss two days of class, and sleep for two more after that. By Saturday, I've worked my way up to bananas and saltines. I eat very slowly now, and as I do, I realize that mealtimes with my host family last a lot longer than I had previously thought. Before I was sick I was always the first to leave the table, and I figured that everyone else left about five minutes after me. Now as I linger and chew slowly and drink lots of water, I realize that Silvia and Antonio have been spending twenty more minutes talking and eating. It's this great chance to relax, hang out, practice my Spanish.
I've given up my Estado-Unidos busyness so I can be human again.

Miercoles Negro, Parte Dos

I arrive late to class and my stomach feels a little weird, and I think it's just nervousness over the ATM card. The teacher Karin and the classmates Karen and Miles give me an enthusiastic greeting which makes me feel like less of a fool for losing the card, and after class I have a Coke for lunch and we go on this field trip where we watch a potter make a black-clay pot from scratch. San Bartolo Coyotepec. Pretty amazing.
I have bananas and saltines at comida, just in case, and sure enough, about an hour later, the trouble starts. Silvia tells me that my face looks gray and offers to take me to the doctor. I refuse, but then go into the bathroom and have a bout of diarrhea with blood in it. Feeling dizzy and weak, I lie down on the bathroom floor. The tile is cold against my back, so, at first, I think the chills are just from that. But even after I get up, the chills continue, until I'm shaking.
Silvia catches me in the courtyard and tells me the earlier we go to the doctor the better, because the lines will be shorter. I agree and then retreat into the bathroom for the "both ends" experience, adding puking into a garbage can to my list of new and weird talents.
Soon Silvia and I are sitting in the small doctor's office adjacent to a pharmacy. I've got a plastic bag at the ready and I'm trying to tell Silvia about the clay workshop my class visited but I keep getting the name wrong. "Cual?" she says. "Que?" "No entiendo." We're killing time with constant miscommunication.
A wave of nausea and cramps hits me. "?Hay un ban~o?" I ask.
The pharmacy assistant opens a door to...a set of thirty gray, concrete stairs. I start my way up at a steady pace, hoping I'll be quick enough to get there and slow enough to avoid jarring my intestines too much. My sandals slap against the concrete. Slap. Slap. With each footfall, I say a little prayer to Saint-I-Don't-Want-To-Shit-My-Pants.
Please.
Please.
I open the door to a grimy, gray bathroom with no soap or toilet paper, but since it has a toilet not already filled with anything disgusting, I'm delighted to  be there.
I do my thing, and I'm just about finished, when I hear Silvia calling to me that the doctor is ready to see me. I can't lose my place in line. Damn it. Down the stairs. Down the stairs. Same little prayers.
The doctor tests my two days of Spanish classes by asking me my date of birth and known allergies. I answer him, puke into the plastic bag, answer, puke. He palpates my belly, announces the usual case of "turista." He says, "I'm going to give you an injection now."
He's speaking Spanish, but I understand him instantly. I look down at the floor which is coated in a gray film. The baseboards are lined with quarter-inch ant-ridges of dirt and other particles.
I try to say, "I'm not going to let you give me an injection because your floor is dirty," but it comes out as, "No shot. Dirty floor."
I'm being rude to his face, but I don't care.
"Now, why are you afraid of the injection?" he asks.
I use non-verbal communication now. I hold up one finger. I open up the plastic bag with both hands. My body shakes. I puke.

Miercoles Negro, Parte Uno

As I get ready to leave my room for breakfast before my third day of Spanish class, I realize my ATM card is missing.
I go into the dining room, tell Silvia and Antonio what the deal is, and ask if either of them will go with me to the cash machine. Silvia's got a ton of cooking and cleaning to do, and Antonio has breakfast to eat and class to get to. Maybe it's too much to ask. I'm confident I can muddle through the search for the card on my own, go back to the grocery store where I probably left the card in the machine, etc... but someone with better Spanish could help me work out the nuances, the social finesse and patience that always get me the inside scoop and the better deal back home. Antonio looks at me like I'm crazy to ask.
If the situation were reversed, would I do it for him? Probably. At times I truly enjoy jumping into other people's problems as a means to forget my own. Unfortunately, thus far Antonio has only been good for 1) correcting my Spanish 2) commenting that I'm not learning Spanish quickly enough or working hard enough 3) interrupting to comment, "I don't think so," when I refuse a second helping at comida and someone asks if I'm on a diet. Because of the language barrier, the little bastard has been getting away with calling me fat.
"Fine," I say, "just tell me how to say I left my card." I know it's "salir" if a person leaves, and that "llevar" is to take someone somewhere or to wear or for takeout food, but...
"Dejar," he says. "Say, 'deje mi tarjeta.'"
At least he gives me that.
At the store, the security guard pulls out a long list of lost-and-found items, catalogued by date and area of the store. It looks very specific and organized. Maybe the old Chedraui is going to come through for me, I think. Maybe this grocery store will finally make up for having a name that's so hard to pronounce.
But no luck.
At home Silvia and I debate whether the card comes out before or after the cash. I'm certain that it comes after, that the outdated Chedraui machine is just like the ATMs of the 80s and 90s that suck your card in. I manage to call my bank via Skype and cancel the card, and luckily I have a second card to use.
A few days later, I go to get some cash with the other card and pay careful attention to when the card comes back out of the machine.
Yes, it does come out after the cash. And then as the card sticks out of the machine waiting for you to take it, a loud bonging noise sounds off, and a little disco light above the machine starts spinning around and flashing.
Apparently I had been so caught up in protecting my PIN and checking for fraud gadgets on the machine, I had ignored an entire circus.

Dos Hombres

It's breakfast time and Juan is delighted that he now has Antonio to talk to. "What's your favorite sport," Juan asks.
"I don't really like any sports," Antonio replies.
It's no surprise to me that Antonio is not a jock. It may be cultural prejudice, but I have already interpreted many of Antonio's mannerisms as effeminate. His hands fly up to cover his mouth when he giggles. Stuff like that.
"But your favorite sport is chasing the ladies, eh?" Juan asks.
Antonio gives an emphatic, "Si."
Juan winks. They laugh together.
They delight in the understanding that they are both authentically male.
They seem happy.
And relieved.

Crawl, Pecho, Dorsal, Mariposa

So I find out that my host family's 24 year old son, Rodrigo, goes swimming every night and ask him to take me twice a week. I've got my goggles and I'm all ready to do my usual half-ass crawl slash dog paddle thing and we get to the pool and it's just madness, six people in a lane at a time just going nuts with the perfect crawl, muy rapido, the water frothing white, and I'm thinking how am I even going to get in there and is this what free swim is like in Mexico, like everyone is all casual all the time all day long about everything, but now, at the pool, they go fucking nuts? This is when R tells me that this is actually a swim school and they are not going to let me free swim until I take a test.

 Luckily he also tells me that the crazy swimmers are the school's best team. I'm thinking the teachers will just make sure I can float so they don't have someone drown at their school, but then R. tells me that I need to show them I know four strokes. I remember the four strokes vaguely from high school, and he preps me with the names in Spanish: Crawl, Dorsal, Pecho, Mariposa. The coach comes over and tells me to take off my chuclas...my sandals a word i just learned...and he makes me do my half ass crawl and then the backstroke and doesn't even let me try the other two before announcing that I will now be in "Grupo Naranja." Right up to this moment, I had been thinking I was going to be able to trick them somehow so they'd just let me swim. But no. Now I'm in a Mexican swim class. The Orange Group.

This beautiful man in a Speedo, Jaime, soon has us all doing this thing where we swim by kicking only with our bodies turned completely sideways and our heads still straight ahead as if in a crawl. "No muebles tu cabesa," he tells me.

"Estoy tratando," I tell him.

Then I remember why I always do a half ass crawl...from the time I was a little kid, I always hated swim class. So uptight.  So specific. Tiny adjustments and perfections when I just wanted to move.  

I have a moment with the two friendly chubby girls in the class as I pick out the words and motions that let me know they think Jaime's demand is ridiculous too. "Es imposible," I say, and I think they let me laugh with them a bit.

The best part comes when Jaime is demonstrating the body movement for the mariposa. This beautiful man with this tight little ass is pretty much fucking the water and I'm supposed to watch this. Actually, I've been ordered to watch this. He was pretty stern about it.

Hmmm. The Orange Group. Not bad. Not bad at all.

De Arizona

It's my first day of Spanish class, and I keep mixing up the question about how long I've been in Oaxaca with the question about how long I will be in Oaxaca. I decide to just start giving everyone my arrival and departure dates just in case.
I take a proficiency test which is whisked away from me before I am really finished and suddenly I find myself in a class studying the subjunctive. I keep up with the conjugation charts pretty well and soon it's time for conversation class.
The other two students in the class are given the chance to ask me questions about myself, and a women named Karen asks, "Apoyas los immigrantes?"
"What's 'apoyas'?" I ask.
"Do you support the immigrants?" Karen asks in English. Everyone starts snickering.
I feel heavy. Tired. It's that feeling I get every time Arizona does something stupid and a whole load of judgmental horse shit is suddenly heaped on me and all my fellow Tusconans. You know, the Facebook cheap shots full of snark and self-importance and liberal disdain. Only this isn't Facebook.
Worse yet, Juan the teacher joins in.
"I wouldn't tell people you are from Arizona," Juan says. "Just tell them you are from the United States."
I try to explain that lately Arizona is often at the mercy of a handful of idiots that gain power temporarily and that the good people usually can beat them back eventually, but, unfortunately, my Spanish 102 vocabulary fails me. And by the time I think of asking about how well Mexico is supporting its immigrants from Central America, the moment has passed.
I feel angry. It's a helpless anger, similar to the times I've felt like people aren't seeing me, but are seeing just some chick or some lesbo that they've already made up in their heads. This feels as unfair as sexism or homophobia, for sure. Yeah, I knew it would be weird coming out as queer in Mexico. I just never thought I'd be asked to be a closeted Arizonan.

Antagonist

After the baby shower we arrive back at the house and I'm glad when I realize that Lucy and her husband (Silvia's son) Juan Carlos want to come in and hang out. I'm still all happy about connecting with the folks at the baby shower and I'm ready to tell the rest of the family about my chicken dance, but Silvia's husband Juan meets us at the door and says almost immediately, "The new student is here. He's from Korea and he speaks perfect Spanish."
There is this quiet moment and I feel everyone is looking at me like I'm the annoying woman who speaks only broken and constantly incorrect Spanish.
Juan Carlos defends me. "At least Molly can talk a little," he says. "Some people come here and all they can say is 'hola.'"
"Yeah," I think. "You tell 'em, Juan Carlos."
The new student Antonio walks into the room and we don't get to talk about the baby shower at all. Everyone talks soccer. I catch snippets. "Se rompio." One of Mexico's best players broke his leg and won't be playing in the World Cup.
I had spent most of the day feeling elated that I could communicate more clearly in Spanish than I had ever been able to.
Now I'm getting this familiar defensive feeling. It happens to me when I climb out of my little crab shell sometimes. There was a group camping trip when I was feeling all bonded with everyone and then four new people showed up. A New's Year's Eve party one time when the same thing happened. It doesn't matter who the new people are. I always dislike them.
Antonio is a quiet kid, twenty-four years old. He picked the name Antonio because no one can pronounce his Korean name.
I don't really see Antonio at all, though. Instead I see an intruder out to ruin my Mexico experience. A competitor. An enemy.

Adele

In the car on the way back from the baby shower that Adele song comes on, the one with the line, "never mind I'll find someone like you..."
Lucy asks me what the words mean. Here's my big chance to explain the song to her, and then whenever she listens to it from now on, she'll have more than just a tune. She'll understand the emotional content of it too. "Ella--" I begin...
"Wait," Lucy says. "Ella? You mean that the singer of this song is a woman?"

Baby Shower

The buttons that are passed out for all the guests to wear feature the words in English: Baby Shower. We are gathered at Silvia's sister's house and the party is for Silvia's daughter-in-law, Lucy. No alcohol served. Long tables. Folding chairs. About 30 of us. My kind of casual crowd, everyone in jeans.
We play a game of Loteria which is pretty much a bingo game, except all the squares are filled with baby items, and the answers of "stork," "rattle," and "baby bottle," are answers to quiz questions, so I'm learning plenty of vocabulary. They tell me in Spanish that when you win you are supposed to yell out "Loteria," so when I get my four across, I put my arms in the air and yell out "Loteria" right as Silvia's 80-year-old mom does the same.
Then blank cards and pens are passed out for a new game. We've already written down best wishes for the baby, so what now? Monica, the woman next to me, says, "I'm going to make Lucy paint her face with lipstick," and then scribbles something down on her card.
I want to play to win, of course, so I'm trying to figure out how to top Monica's strategy. How far should I take it? Would it be out-of-bounds to make the honoree strip off her clothes? Is repurposing some item of feminine paraphernalia required? I could really get myself in trouble here.
I try to ask these questions in Spanish and finally the thirteen- year- old yells at me in English that if Lucy can't guess the giver of a gift, then she would have to perform whatever embarrassing action the giver had written on the card.
Okay, I think. And since I'd just learned the word "Hen" in a previous game, I write, "baile como una gallina."
I didn't think about what would happen when Lucy did guess the giver correctly.
After a few rounds of gifts, Lucy pulls out my repurposed Aveda bag and reads it aloud in English, laughing. Then she gets to the "Howdy from Tucson" onesie and starts pointing at me and laughing.
I employ my usual strategy of crouching behind the taller person in front of me.
But I am caught. The English gave me away.
This is how I end up dancing like a chicken in front of thirty Mexican women I just met. I do a few circles, flapping my elbows up and down while everyone laughs.
It feels surprisingly good, the flush of embarrassment, the energy of it. I'm finally communicating.

La Primera Noche

My plane arrives in Oaxaca and I go through customs. The English lady who sat next to me on the plane had told me the part that said "maletas faltas" was for indicating checked bags, and though that didn't seem quite right to me, I followed her lead because she'd been to Oaxaca before. The inspection officer who is about to search my bags looks at the list of 2 "maletas faltas" and gives me a questioning look and says, "dos maletas faltas," and I suddenly remember a day in Jackson Heights when I was popping a letter in the mailbox and this man hanging out on the corner said, "falta, no completa," and then that letter got returned four days later because it had no stamp on it. "No maletas faltas," I say, "tres maletas aqui," and the guy starts taking my stuff out of my bags. 

The host dad, Juan, a sixty-seven-year-old white-haired man helps me get my luggage into his car and we talk a little bit and I'm able to get it across that this is my first time in Oaxaca and he gets it across that he hasn't traveled much because he has six sons. It's a pleasant conversation and he strikes me as friendly, earthy, kind. 

We get to the house and meet Sylvia, Juan's wife, who is in her fifties. I break out the "I love my abuelitos" t-shirt and they love it. They especially like the Arizona socks I give them with images of saguaros and roadrunners to which Juan says, "Correcaminos," and "Meep-meep." Sylvia goes into the kitchen to get the tea, and I break out the chocolate chip cookies I brought. Juans asks, in Spanish, "You made these?"

"No," I say, "mi esposa."

"No, tu esposo," Juan corrects me.

"No," I say, "esposa. Es una mujer." 

Juan's eyes widen. He stretches his arms out straight in front of him as far as they will go and digs all of his fingers into the kitchen table. He clenches his eyes shut and takes a long, deep breath. 

Sylvia comes in and says, "Who made the cookies?"

I say, "Mi esposa."

"Tu esposo," Sylvia says. 

"No," Juan says, "su esposa."

Sylvia nods slowly and says nothing. 

Muerto

So, I'm sitting on the floor of the Tucson airport on the day of departure for Oaxaca and charging my Ipad when I decide I probably ought to pull the address of my host family off my email and write it down.
My suitcase is filled with some gifts that I hope will be right for the family. I called ahead and in my limited Spanish asked whether they had children in the house and learned that a grandbaby was on the way. Somewhere in a blitz of Spanish words, I had also caught the word "muerto."
Now I'm sitting here in the airport hoping to God a baby didn't die. In the suitcase I have an "I heart my abuelitos" toddler shirt. A "Howdy from Tucson" onesie. Maybe the husband died? Mrs. Pacheco did sound like an older lady.
I open the email and begin to write down the address. "101 Huerto Limonares."
Huerto.
The word for orchard.
I chuckle softly. What I thought was an obituary was simply an address. Although I had enjoyed walking around with the mystery in my head, I was worried the whole time that the answer to my big question was going to be a somber one.  How will I react in Spanish? I'd wonder.
I'm now the proud owner of a nifty little mistake. A good omen, I hope.

Notes on Foolishness

I'm in Mexico and I'm fucking up.
Chronically, constantly, from one second to the next.
It's quite possible that I've always made this many mistakes in a row,
and that every social interaction is peppered with mishaps,
but here in Mexico, as I try to learn Spanish, each pie-in-the-face
hits me in slow motion, and there's a kind of beauty to it.
Back in my regular life, I had been working on admitting my faults,
accepting myself, the usual middle-aged quest for a little bit of peace
in a hectic world. Judging from the NPR segments on failed start-up CEOs
who are now sought-after potential employees because they "know how
to fail well," maybe, as a culture, Americans are ready to accept some
humility too. Accepting failure, analyzing it, not being so afraid of it that
you hide under the covers...I'm interested in these ideas.
I'm studying Spanish which is something I have wanted to do
since I was sixteen and gave up on, since I could not
 (and still can't) roll my r's.
I gave it up because I knew I would never be perfect at it.
That idea was certainly a mistake in itself.
Everyone here has an accent. The other day I made the Australian
guy say the word "mermaid" three times before I got it. And he was speaking English.
So I hope to fill this blog with my mistake stories.
And, in that spirit, I'd like to let my words fly out a bit more freely
than I usually do. I'll do one super-fast draft on paper and then edit only as I retype.
Consider this blog a toast to foolishness and buffoonery of all stripes. Call it the manifesto of the
klutz. Cheers!