Stranger in a strange land

by Culebronchris

I really like Spain. I complain about it all the time, I am appalled by some of the organisation and behaviour, by the failings, by attitudes and sometimes even by people. I had very similar thoughts about the UK when I lived there. There is one big difference here though. Here I am a foreigner and I always will be. I know I’m foreign because, when it comes down to it my sympathies are with Drake and Nelson and because I can never remember which city Osasuna football club are from despite somehow knowing that Wolves home ground is called Molyneux.

One of the main things that marks me out as different here is that here I have become stupid. I can tell that people think I’m stupid when they speak to me in the tone of voice usually reserved for asking children if they believe in the Tooth Fairy. Good grief I have lived here for five years – I’d have to be hiding in a ditch not to have eaten rice once or twice. I even know that it’s a mouse that carries away the teeth here and not a fairy. I do know though that I will never be able to have one of those slightly drunken conversations about whether the Spanish equivalent of Pilot, Bucks Fizz or Black Lace were the worst pop group of all time. I don’t share, and I never will share, that wider culture built up through years of simply living through it all.

And then of course there’s the radio. Why, when the alarm comes on does it speak to me in foreign? Oh yes, because I’m a foreigner in Spain.

It grieves me how poor my Spanish is. No matter how hard I try to learn vocabulary, decline verbs and jot down useful phrases I still fall apart when I have to speak Spanish. People tell me that a few mistakes are all part of the fun, that it’s all about communicating, but it’s not, at least it isn’t for me. I can go to Elda train station and with two fingers, the word Madrid on a bit of paper and a back and forth motion of my arm I can get two return tickets to Madrid. I understand that people buy chickens by clucking. However, my birthright is Shakespeare and Marlowe and Enid Blyton. I want to say what I want to say, to mould language to my will and I’ll be damned if I’ll be reduced to flapping my arms.

I got involved in helping someone from the UK, brand new to Spain, to get a new clutch for his car. He had never met me before, didn’t know what I was saying in the garage and decided that he could assist me by miming clutch. He stood on his right leg and moved his left leg in a clutch-pumping sort of motion. I knew what he wanted and I could see the link between the action and his need. The garage-man on the other hand didn’t and couldn’t. He watched the action, turned to me, and asked if the man was dancing. Sometimes words are the only way.

I don’t actually have much trouble getting what I want using Spanish and not only in the places that give you a head start. Back at Elda railway station, you are hardly likely to be after that chicken. In the butchers, on the other hand they handle very few travel enquiries. Stroll into the Town Hall though and it could be anything from drains to a consumer complaint. I can do that, I can go to the Town Hall and get what I need. I suspect that I sound ten times worse than Colin Firth at the end of Love Actually where he goes to express his undying love for Aurelia in rapidly learned Portuguese but he got the girl and I can get the water leak fixed.

It drives me spare not being able to communicate fluently. I know that it can never be perfect. I was reading the (Spanish) paper one evening at home and the (Spanish) telly was on in the background. I suddenly heard a Brit speaking Spanish. Actually, it wasn’t a Brit it was Ian Gibson and he is Irish. He has lived here for years, he is an author who writes learned books in Spanish, but it took me fewer than three seconds, when I wasn’t even concentrating, to spot the pace and the rhythm as being like my own. I cannot do that with Rumanians or Norwegians but I presume that they too have a style to their Spanish that is a lot more than just accent. You just listen to a Spaniard say Hola and then to most Britons doing the same. We just don’t do it right.

But Antoine de Caunes and Bruno Tonioli do perfectly well with their funny accents and cadence so that shouldn’t be the stumbling block. Why then am I paralysed by my linguistic inability? I go to buy bread at Mercadona or Consum where I can pick it up off the shelf rather than go to the much more convenient bakery. No speaking required at Mercadona. That little pain will have to get a lot worse before I go to a doctor. I’d walk rather than try to get a bus if it would mean asking directions. Lots of it is about me, about a person who does not like to perform in public but I know that if you live in Spain and you are foreign you know what I mean and you have done something similar.

Did I mention that I really like Spain?

Ho, hum

Chris Thompson: male, fifty something, white haired and portly. Born and bred in Yorkshire, moved around a bit and then spent twenty plus years in Cambridgeshire. Liked Spain from the moment he got off the bus in Barcelona some 28 years ago. Upped sticks in late 2004 and drove to Santa Pola in a brown MGB GT co-piloted by Mary the cat. Currently lives alternately in Culebrón, near Pinoso in Alicante and Cartagena, Murcia with Maggie the teacher and a newer cat called Eduardo. Fighting a losing battle with Spanish. http://lifeinculebron.blogspot.com/