New words, new connections

Day 31 of 31 at TWT!

When I pull into a parking place, the 12 year old shyly waves out their front window and I laugh as the 3 year old starts jumping up and down. Someone opens the door and I put my hand over my heart, grinning. "Salam Alaikum!" 

"Hello ma'am!" "Salam!" "Hello!"

I take off my shoes and settle on the couch, knowing that hot tea and a plate of nuts and dates is coming. It's familiar and cozy. "The other day, my 3 year old said she wanted to go to Afghanistan again sometime!" 

The oldest son interrupts me and they all shake their heads. "Oh no, not go to Afghanistan!"

I giggle. "She meant coming here! She loves visiting your family!" 

They laugh, eyes wide. "Ohhhh, THIS Afghanistan! Yes!" 

We all laugh together, and I think back to my first time visiting them. It might as well have been a real trip to Afghanistan! I'm so used to working with my EL students from around the world at school, but a visit to the apartment of a family I'd never met, from a culture I was not familiar with, was a whole different exprerience.

-

Salam alaikum. Name man Jennifer ast. Salam alaikum. Name man Jennifer ast. Noticing too late that I was sweating, I turned down the car heater despite the frigid temperatures outside. Don't point with the finger; use a whole hand. Take off my shoes. Eat anything they offer. Salam alaikum. Name man Jennifer ast. I'd spent most of the morning studying the Afghan cultural information and Dari phrases included in our Welcome Team materials, and I didn't want to forget it all on the drive across town to meet the family! I tried to remind myself who all the family members were too, but I found I'd already forgotten most of the unfamiliar names from our spreadsheet. 

I took a few deep breaths as I pulled up to the address and put on my mask. Curtains at the front window swung around and some curious faces peered out above a couch. Salam alaikum. Name man Jennifer ast. 

Grabbing the bags of masks and kids' art supplies, I started to knock tentatively when the door swung open.

"Salam alaikum!" I put my hand over my heart just as I'd practiced. 

Their faces lit up as their hands went over their hearts too. "Salam alaikum!" "Salam!" "Hello!" 

"Please, ma'am, sit." They motioned to the couch with open hands and I sat. 

"Name..." Now I wasn't sure if I remembered it right. "...man... Jennifer... ast...?"

"OHHH! You speak Dari?!?!" Their eyes flew open wide. 

"Oh, no, just a little," I held up pinched fingers, "for you!" 

"Oh, very good! Very good!" So many wide smiles and bright eyes. 

"Look, tomorrow is a special American holiday about love. I brought crafts!" I started digging out craft supplies that were snatched by small fingers before I could even finish explaining. Suddenly, I looked down at my feet. Oh no, I forgot to take off my shoes! I scrambled back to the doorway to shed them on the doormat. 

Digging back in the bag, I found Sweetie's example Valentine card. "Here, my daughter made this for you!" I showed them a picture of Sweetie and pointed back at the card. "This is what we can make together!" 

"Ohhhh, beautiful!" "Very good!" They crowded around as the dad, who knows the most English, exclaimed, "She write 'I love you!'"

"Yes! It's a holiday about love and friends!" 

He put his hands over his heart. "Oh, beautiful!" 

The 12 year old and 6 year old immediately dove into the supplies and started making their own cards, then handed them to me. "For your daughter!" they declared proudly.

They asked their dad to write their names on their cards, and as he streaked the smooth lines of Dari across, he asked "Your daughter name?" When I told him, he wrote it in Dari too, then painstakingly formed the English letters "i lov you" in the middle. 

"You are CRIS volunteer?" the dad asked as the kids colored and cut.

"Yes, I'm a teacher with some of the other volunteers you've met before."

"Ohhh teacher, very good! In Afghanistan, my job is help American soldiers. We love Americans, very nice. So we come here with SIV. I am so..." He paused, searching for a word, then just put both hands over his heart with gratitude shining in his eyes, "... to America for bring my family here."

Suddenly, the door swung open again and their cousin, who has lived in America for several years, entered. "Salam alaikum!" I put my hand over my heart again, and she smiled. 

In the flurry of Dari and pointing at me and the cards that ensued, I could clearly catch that they were explaining that I'd spoken to them in Dari and brought the craft supplies. "I love you!" popped up interspersed with Dari as the dad proudly pointed to the card Sweetie had made for them. 

By the time I left several hours later, there was a whole pile of cards to take home to my girls, and my whole family was invited for a special meal the next night. "Tascha kor! Tascha kor!" Thank you was certainly the most important phrase to learn when spending time with this amazingly sweet family.

Going to Afghanistan

Day 29 of 31 at TWT! 

"I wanna go to Afghanistan again sometime!" Rainbow Girl bounces in her booster seat. 

It takes me a second. Has she heard us talking about Afghanistan and figured out that it's a place? Then it hits me. "Ohhh! You want to go visit the /family/ from Afghanistan again sometime?!"

"YEAH! And RUN AROUND!" She leans toward me, lifts her chin and scrunches her face into her biggest smile.

I grin, remembering watching her and Sweetie frolic with the Afghan kids in their apartment when we first visited over a month ago. In their typical fashion, Sweetie put her hand over her heart and said "Salam" as I'd taught her, then immediately started trying to engage her 6 year old counterpart in a mutually unintelligible conversation about the pictures they'd drawn for each other, while Rainbow Girl initially wanted to stay in my lap. (It didn't help that her 3 year old counterpart kept toddling into the other room and shyly peering around the corner, even more uncertain of new things and people than Rainbow sometimes is!) Knowing how much Rainbow loves helping Husband cook, I'd tried to get her interested in watching the mom craft handmade bolani in the kitchen. We peeked as she formed soft dough balls and tossed them like pizza dough, then folded a potato filling into them.

One of the teens grabbed a couple of toys from the closet for the little ones and Rainbow scrambled off my lap. Soon, there was so much running and giggling it seemed like there were 10 young kids instead of 5, delighting in the universal language of play, dancing, and laughter even though they couldn't say any words each other might understand. Uncharacteristically, Rainbow even let the oldest teen girl pick her up and hug her! Between a smattering of English words, gestures, photos on our phones, and Google Translate, the teens and adults all talked about how cute they were, which kids gravitate towards mom or dad, and what we like to do.

By the time we were saying "tascha kor" ('thank you') and miming that the girls needed to get to sleep, both Rainbow and Sweetie were already asking when we could play with them again. 

I'll never forget the way their 6 year old squealed when she caught sight of the playground equipment the first time we took them to a park. "YAY!!!!" she screeched from my backseat, and they all ran around again, climbing and sliding together, both 6 year olds ending up with arms around each other on the walk back to the cars. (The family does not have a car yet, so as registered refugee volunteers, a colleague and I drove everyone from their family who wanted to go to the park, while Husband drove our girls to meet us there.)

Sweetie playing with the Afghan girl who's her age

When I told Sweetie that the kids were finally able to enroll in school after finishing all their medical checks, she noted, "But won't that be so hard for them? They don't know English!" She's met some of my students before when I've taken her to school events, but she'd never really spent quality time interacting with newcomer kids until we met this Afghan family.

"That's why I teach English to students who speak other languages!" I smiled proudly. "They'll have a teacher like me to help them! In fact, some of my friends are their teachers!"

Just a few months ago, I was reading about refugees and wondering what I could do to help (especially now that I teach in a part of our district that doesn't really receive them). Now, thanks the opportunity to be part of the district's welcome team in conjunction with our local refugee resettlement agency, my family has gained a whole family of new friends. It's an experience I highly recommend! 

Conexión tecnológica, conexión humana

(I write in Spanish on Fridays. If you don't read Spanish, feel free to experience the magic (and imperfection) of machine translation by pasting this post's url into Google Translate! And if you can write in a language other than English, join me next Friday!)

Write in another language on Fridays!

Day 18 of 31 at TWT!

-¡Mira, la otra estudiante ha llegado a la reunión! - Mi estudiante se queda mirándose a su imagen previa en la pantalla. - ¡Ingrésate!

Demora unos segundos más en silencio, y por un momento, temo que no va a hacerlo, que tendré que disculparnos... ella es tan vacilante, especialmente sobre hablar en la escuela (aunque no se niega a hacerlo por completo, casi nunca)... ¿realmente no aprovechará la oportunidad de conocer a otra estudiante que habla chino?... pero por fin, hace clic y escucho el sonido alegre que anuncia su llegada a la Meet. 

Me presento a la estudiante de la otra escuela, y se le presento a mi estudiante. - ¡Buenos días! Apagaré mi video y me pondré en silencio ¡para que ustedes pueden conversar! - Sonrío con los ojos sobre mi mascarilla.

Puedo escuchar la voz de nuestra asistente bilingüe diciendo algo en chino junto con el nombre de mi estudiante. El salón queda en silencio y los segundos se ponen eternos mientras ella permanece con la mirada fija. Otra vez, me preocupo. ¿Dirá algo? ¿Debo decir algo para animarle? ¿Está contenta o no?

Por fin, oigo su voz baja, hablando en chino. Miro de soslayo hacia su mesa. No se ha cambiado la expresión de los ojos.

Pronto, escucho más palabras chinas, y más. Y por fin, los ojos se arrugan y brillan en la manera que esperaba, con la chispa preciada de felicidad que veo con tan poco frecuencia. 

Siguen conversando después del principio de mi clase y no me importa. ¡O sea, me alegra! ¡Lo logramos! ¡Están divirtiéndose! 

Más tarde, le pregunto - ¿Qué tal la reunión con la chica china de la otra escuela?

Me queda mirando, y casi empiezo a preocuparme otra vez. 

- ¿Te gustaría hacerlo otra vez?

Se asienta con la cabeza, y veo que la chispa más escasa se ilumina los ojos otra vez. 

- ¡Bien! ¡Lo arreglaré con la otra maestra!

Antes de 2020, no nos hubiéramos ocurrido nunca el idea de utilizar la red para conectar a unas estudiantes de distintas escuelas que hablan un idioma poco común en nuestro distrito escolar. ¡Cuántas oportunidades perdidas! Hay algo único que brota con el idioma nativo. 

The girl and her mama

Tuesdays at TWT!

 "Can we read girl and her mama?" Rainbow places a chubby little hand on my knee and gazes up expectantly, locking her blue eyes onto mine as if she's trying to channel maximum cuteness.

"Ummm, which one?" There are way too many books that fit this description.

"Girl and her mama! It's new! It's a present..."

"Ummm..." New? Is there a story about a girl and her mom in one of the most recent issues of one of their Spanish magazines? I want to figure out what book she wants, but I can't come up with one...

"The name is a song?" She crinkles her eyes.

"OH! Yes! Your Name is a Song! I got that for Sis for her birthday! You want to read Your Name is a Song?" I got that for your sister because her name is beautiful and often mispronounced, but sure, of course!

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" she squeals in increasingly high registers as she hop-gallops in place in excitement. I pull her onto my lap and she runs her tiny fingers across the front cover. "There's the girl! And mama!" She spins halfway around to gaze up at me again with that crinkly smile. "Like Mama and [her name]!"

"That's right, honey bun, just like Mama and you." I give her a squeeze and kiss her hair.

She loves the cover & all the illustrations! <3

Settling back against me in her floppy reading position, she narrates the wordless first pages herself. "There's the kids, playing. There's the girl. She's not playing." Then she happily points out whenever the mom and girl are together, little finger shooting out in delight. "There's the girl! There's the mama!"

When the names come, she tries out the first few, grinning and wiggling as if savoring them in her mouth as we tap our feet to their rhythm together. "Olumide! Kotone!" She smiles when I pat her chest and tries out "Ahlam", then giggles when I poke her in the belly for Ngozi. 

The singing part gets her cackling and squealing as we sing "Miizzz Annnnnndersonnnnnnn," Bawawawab!", and "Kooooraaaaa Jalimuuuuuso" together. 

After we read it, she demands to see the video of the author pronouncing the names, which we'd watched after the first time we read it. "Hear the names, on Mommy's phone?" She tries out a few more names as we listen, and often interrupts to ask, "The girl? the girl?" When Kora Jalimuso comes, I point it out and rewind so we can hear it again.

That night, as she talks herself to sleep in her crib, I can hear her trying out names from around the world. "Bilqisss! Ju-long!"

And a couple mornings later, when I can't quite figure out what she's saying in a singsong voice in the monitor, I'm astonished when I realize that she's singing, "Koooraaa Jalimuuso" to herself. 

Nearly every day since, she's toddled over at some point to ask again. "Can we read... the name is a song?! It have the girl and her mama!"

And every time we read it, she interacts with it in nearly the same way: loving the pictures of the girl and her mom and connecting them to us. (One day, she even points out to me that the girl and her mama have matching flowers on their bags!) Trying out the new sounds in her mouth. Dancing and wiggling, smiling and giggling. Delighting in the rhythm, the musicality, the pride, the joy, and the beauty of kids of different colors and names with different sounds. 

Definitely music to the ears of this mama and her girl. 

Kora Jalimuso's name song moment!
(the explanation for this name in the back matter just takes it up another level!)

Thank you, Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, for such a beautiful story honoring and lifting up the children (like my students and Rainbow's big Sis) who are tired of their names getting "stuck" in others' mouths. Thank you, Luisa Uribe, for bringing so much beauty into the illustrations, from the vibrant body language to the matching flowers my 2yo noticed before me, the hair details, and the whispered thread of"salaams" stretching between the girl and her mama's mouths before school. I'm grateful to see my girls delighting in a book that is so rich in so many ways. 

Ride in the car!

Day 29 of 31 at TWT!

Sun streams through the windshield, making Rainbow Girl's hair in the mirror seem lighter than it really is. It's chilly today, but it looks deceivingly beautiful as we zip along the country roads, taking the long way home, as always. For most of last year, she hated the car (probably because the only place we went all spring and summer was to the doctor to get shots!), but in the fall, she suddenly decided riding in the car was so fun that she didn't want to get out, loudly yelling "I don't WANT head home!" when we approached our neighborhood. Suddenly, she would screech "YEAH! RIDE IN THE CAR!" when I said it was time to pick up one of Sweetie's free school lunches for remote learners, and one of our sanity-saving winter activities became driving around for an extra 20-30 minutes on any day the lunch is something Sweetie likes. 

Just a few minutes from our house, we can zoom along safe, fun backroads with rolling hills, gorgeous views, and few other cars. One minute we're gliding past wide-open, placid farm fields, and around the next bend, we're winding through wooded areas where long, gated driveways lead to mansions we can barely catch glimpses of. On one of our favorite routes, we even sail past the historic, well-preserved farm where the namesake of Sweetie's school, a freed slave, became the first Black farm-owner in the county and hid escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad. Just down the road, we peer at the reservoir that now covers the riverbank caves where the escaping slaves would hide until the farm owners rang a bell that signaled safety, and we think about the courage of all involved.

When we're not contemplating history, the girls balance singing loudly along to their playlist, looking at books, and looking out the window. With her musical car mirror, Rainbow Girl can see out the front windshield too, even though she's rear-facing, and I love seeing her little finger in my rearview mirror, pointing into her mirror at something we're approaching. "LOOK!" she'll screech, "DIGGERS!" (Both girls are in love with construction vehicles of all kinds.) Or I'll see her holding up a book, tiny finger on a picture, declaring, "A rabbit! Look, a rabbit!" or "I see Brown Bear, Brown Bear!"

She also loves to introduce each song by shrieking her special nickname for it when she hears the first few notes. For example,"How Far I'll Go" from Moana is "Pig!" because she likes watching for Moana's pig friend to appear in the music video during our YouTube playlist dance parties. "For the First Time in Forever" from Frozen is "Quack Quacks!" or "Duckies!" because she loves the little family of ducks that waddles by Anna at one point in the video.

In the car, it's astonishing to see how much she's memorized each video as she narrates her favorite songs by describing what happens in the video, exactly at the right moment in the song, announcing when Moana "dives in the pool!" in "I am Moana", or when Elsa shoots off ice fireworks in "Some Things Never Change".

Even better, she narrates the Spanish ones too, and while I know she just has the songs and their videos memorized like the English ones, she's also connecting the Spanish lyrics she's learning to the pictures in her head from the videos, and starting to learn what some words mean. I'm so proud when she declares, "Nariz means nose!", "I like melon!" or shakes her body at the correct times when "Hormiguita" comes on in the car. (Sweetie loves to help by tickling her in the correct body part as the ant crawls around!) Or when she tells what each letter does in "La Ronda de Vocales": "He bring a present for her mommy! He eats! He rides her bike!" (At just over two, she's still working on English too, and one of her more adorable explorations right now is pronouns that don't always agree with themselves.) 

Sweetie, who loves to be Elsa, mostly asks questions about the sights and helps make sure her little sister has the right book or her water cup... until the Frozen songs come on. Then she's fully focused on singing every word at the top of her lungs, making Elsa-ice-power motions with her hands (sometimes copied by Rainbow). 

I'm glad we'll be able to start enjoying more time outdoors and using the car to really go to parks (and eventually more normal places), but these winter car rides have been a fun way to get out of the house and yard while still being safe at home together!

"Hormiguita (Ant)" is one of our favorite songs, and I'm so grateful that there are amazing YouTube channels like La Gallina Pintadita with high-quality visuals (and sing-along lyrics for my budding reader) so I can give them access to a whole wider range of Spanish input! Before I discovered this and curated a playlist, Rainbow Girl (with her aversion to new things) was not a fan of me trying to use Spanish. Now, not only does she love Spanish songs, she's gleefully starting to use Spanish to communicate, just like her big Sis and Mommy!

Little language learners

Day 28 of 31 at TWT!

"Manos!" Wriggling her hands, Rainbow Girl proudly smiles up from the changing table with her biggest squint-eyed smile. 

"That's right! Manos are hands!" I lean close, touching my nose against hers, and start singing, "La la la, las manos a lavar!" 

She giggles, holds up her hands and wiggles them some more, and joins in. "La la la, las manos a lavar! A lavar!" Then she tilts her head up in that squinty proud smile and half-shyly murmurs, "Muy bien!" 

"¡Muy bien!" I agree, "¡Buen español!"

I think of how she asks for "más leche, por favord" (I can't get her to stop adding that extra d sound, but on the bright side, it's super adorable!) at every meal, sometimes adding, "Más means more!" or "Agua is water!" in a firmly declarative tone. 

Or how when Sweetie asks for leche or jugo at breakfast, then chooses between "de uvas, de manzana, o de frutas," Rainbow often interjects "jugo is juice!" or "manzana is apple!" (or sometimes, not as correctly, "uvas is juice!")

Sometimes I wish I'd spoken to both girls in more Spanish all along, but that would have been so much work that I just really haven't had the mental energy for, especially coupled with how hard it was to find quality Spanish children's books (we have some, but not nearly enough!), and both girls' early arrivals to the world. Moreover, there's truly something special about speaking to them in my first language, using the same silly little English phrases and family colloquialisms that my parents used with me. 

So I'm content that I'm exposing them to Spanish in a way we all enjoy, even though that means they're not bilingual... yet. (After all, with the exception of a little Spanish club I attended in kindergarten, I didn't start learning Spanish until middle school.)

Being home with them this year has given me the opportunity to build more Spanish into our daily routines, and that has certainly paid off, although again, I'm disappointed that I haven't had the capacity (perhaps the most useful phrase I've learned during the pandemic!) to do more. But they are learning to understand and speak more and more, and even more importantly, they're learning that languages are fun. I love hearing Sweetie say, "Mommy, I'm so glad you're teaching us Spanish!" out of the blue just as much as I love hearing them ask for something they need en español or sing a Spanish song.

(As I was drafting this, I heard Rainbow screech "Agua! Agua!" several time to Husband downstairs!)

Best of all, they're learning that we choose our words carefully (even Rainbow now knows which books Daddy can or can't read to her, often announcing "That's in Fpanish" or "That one's in Enguhlish!"), that how we speak is part of who we are, and that there's more than one way to be in the world.

Fé, en un mundo pesado

 

Day 26 of 31 at TWT!

Fridays!

I blog in Spanish on Fridays. If you don't read Spanish, feel free to paste this post's url into Google Translate and experience the wonder (& imperfection) of machine translation!

-El mundo pesa mucho ahorita.- He escrito estas palabras demasiado veces durante la semana pasada. (Y las semanas, meses, y el año entero antes.) Las he escrito en varios comentarios que he dejado en los blogs de otros participantes del desafío de marzo, en respuestas en Twitter, y en mensajes a mis amigos. Y las he pensado, dentro de mi mente, mil veces más. 

La verdad es que siempre ha sido pasado el mundo en que vivimos ¿verdad? Es cierto que han existido siempre las problemas que amenazan a derrotarnos ahora. La violencia, el odio, el racismo, el egoísmo... estos no son novedades. Quizás nos pesan más ahora porque estamos viviendo todo esto Y esta pandemia, como si el virus fue un peso más de lo que podemos cargar?

Desde niña he soñado con crear un mundo mejor. Recuerdo mis intentos en primaria a crear un club sobre el cuidado del medioambiente, los juegos imaginarios de parar la guerra que inventé con mis amigos, la recogida de comida que organicé para el grupo local de gente indígena. Recuerdo que tanto me angustió la historia colonizadora y violente del cristianismo que casi no quería confirmarme cuando acerqué a la edad típica de la confirmación en la iglesia metodista. (Lo hice por la presión social y también porque estaba segura que creía en Dios, aunque de veras, en el momento, no estaba segura si quería ser cristiana, sabiendo todo lo mal que hicieron los supuestos cristianos durante dos mil años... pero por suerte, me encontré con Cristo más tarde y ahora sé que ser cristiana no tiene nada que ver con lo que han hecho otras en el nombre de Jesús, sino lo que hago yo en mi relación con él.)

Por toda la vida, he sido muy empática, muy sensible, con emociones muy fuertes, hasta sentirme fuera de lugar con los otros niños (y aún mucha gente ahora), porque me preocupa tanto este impulso a cambiar el mundo. (Un día de primaria, llegué a casa y le dijo a mi mamá que -Mis intereses son distintos que los de mis compañeros.-) He deseado tanto un mundo con donde la gente se cuidaran, no sólo los familiares y los amigos, aún no sólo los conocidos, sino todo el mundo cuidándose, los unos a los otros. Un mundo donde todos cuidarían de la tierra, del impacto de las acciones ahora y en el futuro. Anhelaba un mundo donde cada persona se sintiera que le importara, de verdad, a alguien más. Un mundo con menos odio, menos descuido, y más amor. 

Por eso, cuando por primera vez escuché la canción Fé por Maná, la llamó mi atención de inmediato. -No puedo entender este mundo como es...- Era como si cada letra de la canción fuera escrita directamente de y para mi corazón: -...El mundo puede cambiar, / sólo hay que intentarlo. / No hay que odiar, / hay que amar...-

(Para Uds. que no entienden esta canción hermosísima, aquí hay una traducción al inglés.)

Mientras crecía, he llegado a entender que tengo muchos privilegios, que el mundo es mucho menos pesado para mí que para muchísimas personas. Y aunque siempre me han molestado mucho las injusticias, y he intentado luchar, hay mucho más que puedo y debo hacer, aunque sea difícil e incluso incómodo. 

Entonces, cuando me siento desanimada o desmayada con el estado del mundo, con lo mucho que hay que hacer, con lo pequeño que parece el papel que hago, ésta es una de las primeras canciones que pongo a escuchar. -¡Fé! ¡Dame fé! / Dame alas. Dame fuerza...-

Y sé que la fé que busco viene en varias partes: fé que Dios está trabajando siempre, sí, pero también fé en mi misma para seguir adelante, fé en las personas que me apoyan, fé que aún si me siento un poco sola a veces, hay mucha gente alrededor del mundo que desean lo mismo que yo. (Y recuerdo que muchos de ellos son Uds. que leen esta entrada ahora, mis -amigos- de blogging y Twitter, y les agradezco mucho.)

-Hay que amarnos como hermanos. / Tenemos el valor para darnos más amor, yo sé... / Hay que intentar, hay que intentar, / no hay que perder la fé- 

Gracias por intentar conmigo. ¡Adelante, con fé!

Corazones abiertos

Every Friday!

Day 19 of 31 at TWT!

(I write in Spanish on Fridays. If you don't read Spanish, feel free to paste this post's url into Google Translate and experience what it's like to read a machine-translated text!)

El viernes pasado, cuando iniciamos el viernes multilingüe para la comunidad Slice of Life, fue una experiencia mágica. 

Había gente que escribió en su primer idioma, tanto como gente que escribió en un idioma aprendido que ha formado una parte integral de la vida. Eso esperaba, y me alegró mucho. 

Lo que no esperaba fue que también habían personas que escribieron en una lengua bastante nueva para elles. Que algunas personas tomarían esta oportunidad para demostrar lo que pueden hacer con un idioma que todavía están aprendiendo. (Pues, es cierto que todes estamos aprendiendo nuestros idiomas todavía, aún los hablantes natives, porque no es posible terminar de aprender un idioma, pero ya sabes...) ¡Qué valentía! Escribir en público en un idioma nuevo es algo bien temible. (Pues, escribir en público es algo bien temible, ¡y punto!) 

Me encanta tener los viernes multilingüe como inspiración para desarrollar mis habilidades de español, porque sé que necesito seguir practicando para mejorar. Pero también porque el español es algo importante de quién soy. Y aún con los años que llevo estudiando y utilizando el español, tengo miedo de equivocarme, de no decir algo en la manera que lo diría un hispanohablante nativo. Y me cuesta mucho más tiempo y esfuerzo escribir una entrada en español que en inglés. 

Por eso, no tuve la menor idea que, viendo la invitación del viernes multilingüe, habría gente con menos experiencia utilizando sus idiomas aprendidos que lo tomaría como una oportunidad de practicar y demostrar su orgullo en el proceso de aprender otro idioma. ¡Qué asombroso! Me disfruté mucho leer sus entradas y dejarles unos comentarios de apoyo. 

Y además, había gente que no se atrevieron a escribir en otro idioma, pero escribieron sobre su proceso de aprender idiomas o unas experiencias interesantes que tuvieron a enfrentarse con otro idioma en alguna manera. Aún para estas personas, los idiomas tuvieron un impacto en sus vidas, y querían tomar esta oportunidad del viernes multilingüe para describirlo, para pensar en el poder de los idiomas. 

¡Qué maravilla!

Yo quería crear un espacio para las personas que viven en más de un idioma, con corazones que latan en varias lenguas. Porque si vivimos en más de un idioma, ¿por qué escribir nuestras historias en sólo uno? No sabía que iba a despertar a muchos corazones más de lo esperado, que aún las personas que apenas empiezan a conocer otro idioma sienten su poder, su llamada. 

Porque conocer otro idioma no sólo significa saber otro grupo de palabras para describir las experiencias de la vida, sino conocer otra manera de vivir. Aprender otro idioma significa abrirse los ojos más, y eso abre el corazón también. 

Pienso en la versión bilingüe de la canción "Wavin' Flag" del Mundial de 2010, que me sorprendí con sus versos en español, porque no son una traducción exacta del inglés. Las letras en español enfocan en el sentido colectivista del equipo, mientras las letras en inglés son más individualistas. Sin conocer el español y ver los partidos de este Mundial en español, yo no hubiera escuchado esta versión de la canción. Y sin entender ambos idiomas, no habría notado esta diferencia, y no hubiera pensado en las diferencias culturales que, a propósito o no, llevaron a estos sentidos distintos en las versiones. ¿Si entiendes español y inglés, notas cómo cambia el sentido, del uso de "me / I" en inglés y "nosotros" en español?

Me gusta la versión en español más, porque para mí, los eventos como el Mundial y los Juegos Olímpicos son una celebración del sentido colectivo de la humanidad, además del patriotismo de las naciones. Somos orgullosos de nuestras naciones, sí, pero podemos estar orgullosos también de ser humanos, todos juntos, y podemos celebrar que a pesar de las diferencias, hay más que nos une que lo que nos divide. 

Y es cierto de los idiomas también. Los idiomas pueden dividirnos, pero también pueden reunirnos, si nos abrimos los corazones. 

Magical words

Day 13 of 31 at TWT!

As soon as I push the play button, Sweetie's eyes pop open so wide that I'm reminded of gazing into them when she was a baby. Her mouth drops open with upturned corners in a cavernous amazed-smile as Terje's lyrical Estonian pours out of my phone. 

"It sounds like Spanish!"

"No, it's totally different," I chuckle. "That's just because you only know a little bit of Spanish right now. It just sounds like a language you don't understand!" 

"Is this the list of names?" she's remembering my quick recap of some of the multilingual slices when I was so excited at dinnertime. 

"No, that's the Farsi one! We'll listen to that next. This is Estonian. She's describing the fierce wind and thinking about spring coming soon."

Her mouth is still slightly agape when it ends, so I ask if she wants to listen again, and she nods. 

Rainbow Girl toddles over. "Can I see that?" 

"There's nothing to see, but we can listen. It's Estonian, from the country of Estonia." I push the replay button, and we all let Terje's rolling words wash over us. This is sooooo coool. 

"Now can we do the Farsi one?" 

"Of course!" I find Nawal's slice and hold my phone down so they can see. "Look, she wrote the Farsi words with our letters, then down here, she wrote in Farsi with Arabic letters! They go from right to left, so they'd read them this way." I slide my finger across my phone. "Isn't it beautiful?" We look at the picture too, then I press the play button and Nawal's voice jumps into our family room. I try to follow along and notice the beginning of the list of terms of endearment. "Here! This is the list of sweet names!" 

When Nawal stops reading in Farsi, I pause the audio and read the list in English. "These are things they say to show they love each other, like how Meemaw calls me 'Sweet Pea' or we call you "Sweetie" and your sister 'Sweetie Pie,' 'Honey Bun,' and 'Snuggle Bunny'!" 

We all giggle at "my liver", and Sweetie shrieks at "fire in my belly". "That's silly!" she cackles. 

"I like it!" I reply, thinking of all the different facets of love, and how well this list reflects them.

"Light of my eye" is my favorite, and when Nawal says it in Farsi, I immediately notice that it contains "noor", the Arabic word for light, even though I didn't notice that when I was reading the words! I remember my former student Noorulhuda's slice about her name, years ago. I love linguistic crossovers, like all the Arabic-rooted words in Spanish, and I wonder how close Farsi and Arabic are.

I'm usually a reader who prefers not to listen to audio, but there's something absolutely magical about hearing these writers' voices giving us access to the way their words are supposed to sound. 

I love that my girls are so interested in languages, and it's so special for them to hear these two that we don't have many opportunities to hear! I think I've only had one Estonian student and two Iranian students, and I remember them as we listen to their special languages here in our home on a beautiful Friday night.

I think of how both girls have learned to sing in Samoan and Tokelauan when we listen to "We Know the Way" in the car, and how we read about those languages when we learned the song, intrigued by what we were hearing, and further intrigued by Opetaia Foa'i's choice to include both languages in the song. And I think of the English lyrics: "at night we name every star / we know where we are / we know who we are..."

Knowing another language is more than having two sets of labels for a given concept. The words we use are who we are. Each language lives in us with the experiences that brought it into our hearts. I'm so grateful for these bloggers for sharing their words, these pieces of who they are, with us. And I'm in awe that I helped make this happen.

¿Creo en mi?

Day 12 of 31 at TWT!

Every Friday!

(I write in Spanish on Fridays. If you don't read Spanish, feel free to paste this post's url into Google Translate, and you can get a peek at how machine translation comes out!)

Me escapa el aire cuando se actualiza la página. 

- ¡Lo hicieron! ¡Hay varias entradas! ¡Y utilizaron la imagen! -

Relajan los músculos tensos que no notaba. Recupero el aliento. Me sonrío. 

Animada, echo un vistazo a los nombres, las descripciones, las pequeñas vistas previas de cada entrada. ¡Varias en español, una farsi, otra estonia! ¡Tengo tantas ganas de leer cada uno! Los músculos vuelven a ponerse tensos, pero del entusiasmo en cambio del estrés. Casi me río, pero de alegría, no por algo chistoso. 

Aunque en verdad, hay algo un poco chistoso aquí: mis dudas de la semana pasada. 

Casi no envié el correo electrónico a Stacey con el idea del Viernes Multilingüe. ¿Y qué pasa si a ella no le gusta el idea? (¡Gracias por el apoyo y el idea del Padlet, Stacey!)

Sudaba y temblaba de ansiedad cuando hablé con Betsy por Zoom para desarrollar un plan. ¿Y si mis ideas le parecen tontos? ¿Y si no le gusta el hashtag? ¿Y si...? (¡Gracias por la amabilidad y las ganas de poner todo en práctica, Betsy!)

Aún después de tanto apoyo, seguía con dudas. ¿Y si la imagen le parece ridícula? ¿Y si no quiere participar nadie? ¿Y si...?

Primero, unos correos electrónicos de gente que sí, tenían interés en escribir una entrada en otro idioma. Comentarios en el ejemplar mío en mi blog. Un comentario en Twitter por la mañana. Y en el Padlet, ¡entradas en español, farsi, y estonio! ¡Con la imagen que diseñé! ¡Lo hicieron! ¡Lo están haciendo! ¡Le gustan el idea! ¡Estamos escribiendo en nuestros idiomas adicionales! 

¡Ahora no tengo que escribir en español los viernes yo sólo, solita, después de la pérdida del Spanish Friday de antes! 

Estamos disfrutando, practicando, aprendiendo, demostrando. Estamos exponiendo otra parte importante de nuestros corazones. Estamos reluciendo en la belleza de los idiomas. Juntos. 

Y lo empecé. Porque tengo ideas buenas. Porque puedo empezar cosas asombrosas. Y debo creer en mí. 

(Esta canción tiene una importancia especial para mi, no sólo por las letras hermosas y poderosas, sino porque la aprendí de una estudiante mía como parte del último proyecto grande que dio a mi clase de principiantes durante la primavera de la pandemia, el mayo pasado.)