Saturday, August 27, 2011
Enjoying a view of the mountains on my walk home from class
I bounce forward as a passenger pushed their way into the seat behind me. Its 9:06 on Saturday morning August 27th. I am seated in 19C, watching the other passengers board the plane around me. I’m surrounded by a mosaic of languages: Spanish, English, French, and Creole intertwining with each other as my fellow passengers file by.
“Mama,” a small girl with a head of cascading brown curls and mischievous smile tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Mama, ¿adondé vamos?”
“A Miami, mija.” Her mother looked down at her tenderly.
“Ohh,” the little girl crooned, comprehension dawning on her small face. “Me-am-ee.” She said the word slowly, over emphasizing each syllable – Miami, my first step before flying to Quito this afternoon.
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I am a jumble of emotions: excitement, nervousness, uncertainty, contentment, anticipation. What awaits me in Ecuador? I hardly know. I will meet Sofía at the airport and then… then the world will be in Spanish. Voy a vivir en el mundo hispano, en américa Latina. The words come rather quickly. All week I have been trying to move rusty cogs, coaxing my brain into remembering the many verb conjugations and vocabulary I have picked up over the years. I love Spanish. The language is so melodic and interesting with sounds that tickle my ears – the growling gre in tigre, the hopeful je in viaje. The pronunciation comes quite naturally now, although I distinctly remember plodding slowly through words in my sixth grade Spanish class, over pronouncing syllables, my tongue and brain working hard to create unfamiliar sounds.
My first Spanish class began as most do. Señor Torres greeted the class in his Columbian accent and walked around the room asking and repeating questions until we all started to understand the pattern. ¿Comó estás? ¿Comó se llama? People answered nervously. Es-toy bi-en. Me lla-mo Mea-ghan. Many English names seemed out of place in Spanish answers. The interplay between native and foreign, comfortable and unfamiliar confused minds and mouths, leading to pronunciation that was somewhere between the two languages. This gray area was not the place to learn. We had to dive into Spanish, enter a red river, the color of a burning sunset, flowing quickly and unpredictably. Students were transformed. Molly became Margarita, James became Jaime, and Harry with his strange combination of letters picked up another name entirely – Raúl, Hernesto, or another Spanish name that to Harry was quite new and exciting.
As for me, I switched from Tori to Victoria, saying the v with a Spanish softness that almost made it sounds like a b, bic-toria. I loved that my name translated so naturally. It bodes well for people with the travel bug like me. Victoria is like Maria. Both woman could be introducing themselves outside the snowy Kremlin in the cold streets of Moscow, at a decadent wine tasting in Tuscany, or at the feet of the giant Cristo Redentor in Río. The names work across continents, languages, and time, allowing the namesake to move smoothly across borders and find connections in new places.
Earlier in the flight, I had introduced myself to Eduardo, a friendly young Colombian, excited to be going to Bógota, home for his 29th birthday. When his mother arrived a few minutes later settled down between us in seat 18B, he introduced us.
“Mama, this is Tori.” She smiled but looked confused by his quick introduction. He repeated by name slowly, “Tor-ri.”
Grasping my name, she turned to me, “Mucho gusto.”
I thought about this introduction as out place rapidly approached Miami and made a decision. Me llamo Victoria. It makes sense. These four months, this semester in Ecuador is basically an extended Spanish class anyway. Why not translate my name?
Posing near the breath taking mountains at "La Mitad del Mundo" -- The Middle of the World
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