The Hang of Things

The other day I was visiting with a friend in Cambio Puente. She was telling me a story and halfway through it, I was jolted by an insane thought: 

“Wait a second…she’s speaking Spanish. She’s speaking Spanish and I can understand her.”

Her voice began to fade as I celebrated my victory.

            “I think I’ve done it. I think I’ve become…fluent.”

A little later I realized that I didn’t know if the entire time she had been telling me a story about herself or a friend of hers. She kept saying estaba which can mean herself or also someone in the third person. I think.

            But hey, at least I knew she was talking about something that happened in the past, right?

After that we were talked about our pets and I'm pretty sure I said something like, “I have remembering…when I am children…I am many dogs.”

So maybe I’m not fluent just yet. But at least now I’ve learned to say other things besides the three different ways to apologize.
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            Other than that, I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of things…sometimes literally.

For the past week we’ve been weighing and measuring children in Cambio Puente. Since my coworkers discovered that I’m strong enough to hold the scale suspended with a kid hanging from it, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last five days.

Honestly, I’m just grateful to have a job that makes me feel useful, and if it means holding babies all day, so be it. Normally it would take two people and a broomstick for the girls to weigh a kid, but with me they’re able to hook on the small seat to the scale, put the kid in, badda-bing badda-boom: 13.4 Kilos.

Sister Sarah Lennon, one of the Incarnate Word Sisters in San Antonio told me once she heard that my friend Cathleen was leaving, that I shouldn’t worry because there would soon be another “Cathleen” to take her place. She was right. One of the head nurses of the program, Diana (don't let it fool you, it's Dee-ah-nah) has been really helpful over the past week. While making our rounds from house to house she’s been helping with my Spanish.

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She also has done a lot to help me feel included and a little more independent. One afternoon she gave me the map, pointed out the houses we needed to visit and waited for me to lead the way.

“Pero–” I started to say.

She interrupted me with the “I don’t want to hear it” shrug.

We didn’t get lost once.
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On Wednesday, as I said goodbye to the team outside the Clinic in Chimbote and made my way home, sand crunching in my shoes from all the dust in Cambio Puente, I realized that I had made it through an entire workday without speaking English, and I did alright.

It has been difficult, but now that I’m at this point—I knew it would be possible, but now I can really feel it—I’m able to relax a little more and enjoy everything going on around me.

I’ve made it over that first big hurdle, and even though I know there are going to be more, right now, I’m just really glad to be here.
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