Overcoming the language barrier

Overcoming the language barrier

Why traveling in South America gave me a new respect for my parents

I'm looking at the clock for the third time in five minutes. It is now 11.40 a.m., good forty minutes after the expected time for our transfer to Cartagena bus station. I tense my shoulders and try to relax. Peter always tells me that I am too worried; that I am too cramped because of relaxed schedules and late transfers.

A few minutes later, our Airbnb host Nadia puts her head through the door. She says a few words. I catch enough to understand that she says that our bus drives off in 20 minutes. I already know that. She leads us out to the door and says that she will instead call a taxi. We wait below. Instead of waving a taxi, she speaks to two boys on motorcycles and then means to get in.

My eyes are wide. "En ESO?" I ask unsafe. "Si," she replies. She takes my little backpack and gives it to the first guy. She notices my concern, says "Tranquilo, Tranquilo" and gently pushes me to the bike. "Pero Es Seguro?" I wonder and wonder if it is sure when she leads me to the bike with my 13 kg bag on my back, a helmet that cannot be closed, and a stranger who wants to rush through the streets of Colombia. "Tranquilo," replies Nadia. "Pero -", my voice falls silent, unsure what else to say.

And then it starts, Peter as a passenger on one bike, I on the other. This is all that our mothers warned against us when we said we would visit Colombia. What if we are robbed, kidnapped or killed in an accident?

"As many of us, intelligence with eloquence. It was difficult for me to sound stupid and feel that way."

We meander through the streets and for a while it seems as if we are supporting ourselves twice and then triple. Did you do it to confuse us? Twenty minutes later we arrive at the train station and have enough time to get on the bus. In the end everything is fine, but when I sit down, I blame myself for my daring.

Why didn't I insist on a taxi instead? Why was I climbed onto the motorcycle of a stranger without a real helmet and with a weight of 13 kg on my back? The answer is: If you don't have the right words to protest, it is easier to fit out; You just smile and say ok.

My knowledge of Spanish is enough to cope with us in most tourist situations - order food, book and buy a room and buy tickets, albeit with breaks and mistakes - but there were cases in which I was missing: when a company was canceled at the last minute and I could not express how unprofessional they were, or when we bought a camera on the Panamericana could understand.

Because of the language barrier, everything is so much more difficult here. Each sentence must be digested, disassembled and translated into English. My answer must then be translated into Spanish and then passed on loudly. If I don't understand something, it will be a long and tedious process to do something.

We had expected that South America-a real backpacker country-would be much easier than the South Pacific, but in reality it was more difficult. So many of us do intelligence with eloquence; To be able to clearly express thoughts, ideas and arguments. It was difficult for me to sound stupid and feel that way. You have to benefit from the South Americans that they have always dealt with my broken Spanish graciously and always encouraged me in my efforts.

These last two months gave me a newly discovered respect for my parents. They came to England when there were no stronghold of Bengal Stand owners who sold goods on the Whitechapel Road, no series of Indian restaurants on Brick Lane, no interpreters and translators who explained medical care, school accounting, bank accounting or invoice payment.

You did all of these things practically without English. They wore the weight of feeling ignorant for years, not months, and they survived. They survived the rise of the national front, skinheads and uprisings, the fear and disillusionment of the Thatcher years; never being able to inform the "other side" about their feelings.

I only got a fleeing impression of how difficult it was, but it gave me a new respect, not only for my parents, but for immigrants everywhere who move to a country whose language they do not speak.

If you are one of you, I greet you. You are a braver person than me.

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