“Speechless” Graffiti in Gijon

Communication is at the core of connection. Without the ability to communicate, we feel at the very least frustrated, and at the worst, completely distraught and even isolated. Toddlers on the verge of talking often throw temper tantrums when they can’t make themselves understood. If you’ve met the Instagram sensation Bunny (@whataboutbunny), the black and white doodle who communicates with her owner by pressing a talking button board with her paw, you know that even smart dogs struggle to communicate sometimes. In fact, Bunny’s impressive communication skills have prompted other dog owners like @bastianandbrews to post videos of their own more opinionated and less skillful dogs smacking the button that says, “Dinner, dinner, dinner” or “Treats!” repeatedly to make their wishes known. My husband Rocky, who is highly skeptical of any “talking dog’s” abilities has never-the-less admitted that he thinks he sounds a lot like Bunny when he tries to speak Spanish: Me hungry food. Me outside go. Nothing is more humbling than learning or relearning a foreign language as an adult. While I may be a little more conversational than Rocky at this point, I also make my share of mistakes.

Last Friday, we finally received the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccination. Registering for the vaccination a month earlier, first involved talking my way into the Centro de Salud, the health center. The woman guarding the front entrance was determined to only allow those with an appointment to enter. I had tried for weeks to get an appointment but no one would answer the phone. Encouraged by another ex-pat who had gone through something similar, I steeled myself for confrontation and managed to convince her that I needed to enter the center without a prior appointment. From there I was shuffled to the back of a long line; then to a small office on the second floor and then back to the same long line where I had started. When I finally got “registered”, the woman wrote our names and phone number down on an unlined piece of notebook paper with several other names scribbled on it. An hour long registration process had ended with what looked like a piece of scrap paper!  I did not have high hopes. Thankfully, after a few follow up calls and emails, we finally got our vaccine appointments.

We arrived at 6:45pm for a 7:15pm appointment. When we saw the line though, we wished we had arrived earlier. The line snaked back and forth on itself five times in the parking lot of a sports pavillion before arriving at the entrance. Had we each recieved a number upon arrival it probably would have been 799 and 800. We prepared for a long wait. When we first got there, I asked the older Spanish couple in front of us if they were the end of the line. Once they confirmed that fact we found out that their appointments were for 7pm. From the looks of the line, no one would be on time that night. Rather disappointing since we had heard the line was ten minutes long earlier in the day.

Since I had started a conversation with the couple, the friendly woman continued to chat with me. I didn’t notice right away but her husband seemed to distance himself from her and did not continue to engage with us. Rocky who was standing behind me also tuned us out because the lady was speaking very quickly and he could not follow it. She had my undivided attention because I had nothing to do but wait. A retired nurse, she had gotten a call recently asking if she could come back to work to administer vaccines because they were so short handed. She had declined because of a hearing problem that was aggravated by every one wearing masks. Thankful that she had shared her hearing challenges early in our chat, I tried to talk loudly and look at her directly. After awhile though, I found myself just nodding and smiling from behind my mask. There was no need for me to participate in this conversation…she had plenty to share without my input.

First, I heard about the village in Leon where she is from and how there are only four residents under 65 years of age who still live there. One of the 4 youngsters went to Madrid for work and returned with COVID. As a result, the entire pueblo (village) had to be quarantined. They managed to contain the virus and no one died as a result. Many of the pueblos outside of the cities have to rely on doctors and nurses to travel to their village periodically because they do not have medical facilities or personnel on site, she explained. Most of the older residents do not drive and therefore, medical staff also have to be sent to each village now to administer the vaccinations.

After she filled me in about the vaccine roll-out, I got to hear her opinion on every other topic; hair color, people in wheelchairs, young people, her sister’s husband, her neighbor etc.. Occassionally her husband would interrupt her mid-sentence, admonishing her, “Many people do not share your opinions! You should not talk so loudly!” The stories finally ended two hours later when mercifully, it was my turn to get vaccinated.

My Spanish teacher, Cristina, taught me later that there is a Spanish phrase that describes this woman perfectly. “Hablaba por los codos.”  (She talked through her elbows.) It is used to describe someone who talks non-stop without really saying much. To her credit, I actually learned quite a bit from my long-winded “friend” and had a chance to practice my comprehension skills but the phrase still fits. We definitley did not exchange phone numbers!

After our long delay to get into the pavillion, we discovered there were only two people vaccinating all of those people. Obviously the shortage of vaccine administrators is real. On another note, the man who vaccinated Rocky looked exactly like Bernie Sanders. Made me giggle to think about it. Oh, so that is what Bernie is up to now! Maybe I was just delerious from the firehose of monologue that had washed over me for hours.

On the walk home, I thought about how grateful I was to the government of Spain for making sure that foreginers could get vaccinated. Then I contemplated the chatterbox and realized that the poor woman was also struggling with communication, but in a different way than we were. She had plenty to say but not much of substance. I’m guessing she does not feel “heard”  in her life. Clearly her husband had gotten used to tuning her out. Maybe losing her hearing had made her compensate by talking more or maybe she’d always filled every quiet moment with her own voice.

Since arriving in Gijon, Rocky has made great strides in communication in Spanish. He goes to Spanish classes, quizzes himself with his flash cards and dutifully does his homework. The first morning we were in Gijon, I had to order his coffee for him. Now he goes to the store by himself, he orders his own meals and beverages and greets people on the street. Until yesterday though, I still had to make appointments for him to get his haircut. He was determined to change that. We role played a few times at the kitchen table and he practiced what he would say. His plan was to stop at the barber on the way home from his Spanish class to set up an appointment. Nothing could stop him now.

After class yesterday, he left the school at the same time as our teacher, Cristina. They continued to chat easily while walking and discovered that she lived across the street from his barber. Rocky said good-bye to her and explained that he was going in to get an appointment. He tried out the sentence he had been practicing, on her. She thought it would work but offered a suggestion for a better way to say it. Then, because she is exceedingly kind and always goes out of her way to help us, Cristina offered to go with him. He was faced with a dilemma. Suddenly his resolve to do it himself waivered. It would be nice to have some moral support, he thought. They entered the shop and his barber, Nacho, greeted them warmly.

All of a sudden, Rocky froze. If he were in a Marvel Comic, he would have turned into an giant ice cube, frozen with his mouth open and no words coming out. All of the words he had practiced, the suggestions that Cristina had just made five minutes ago, even the long ago Spanish basics he learned in high school simply vanished, leaving Rocky standing in front of Nacho and Cristina unable to say one word. Determined to help, Cristina started to prompt him but it was too late. Once the freeze response kicks in, it’s too late. There is no turning back.

In the 35 years that we’ve been together, I can only remember this happening to Rocky one other time. He had taken six weeks of sailing lessons in Redondo Beach, California where we lived. His final requirement was to complete a solo sail. On the day of the sail, the only boat available was a 35 footer, which was substantially bigger than the one he had trained on. Not wanting to delay, he accepted the boat. He prepared a very romantic gourmet picnic and we set sail out of Long Beach Harbor intending to sail for a bit then drop an anchor and enjoy our yummy lunch and some wine.

Sadly for Rocky, his first mate was completely inexperienced at sailing. We headed out into the busy harbor on a gorgeous day, excited for the adventure. Not more than ten minutes from the dock, Rocky discovered he’d need a little help from me to keep the sailboat going the right direction. The harbor was suddenly very busy and there was a large ship heading our way.  Noticing the trouble ahead, I yelled, “Honey, tell me what to do to help you!” Rocky who is one of the most intelligent people I know and never at a loss for words, was suddenly SPEECHLESS. The ship captain was now honking the horn very loudly. Rocky, still unable to vocalize, handed me a rope to hold onto. I grabbed it with my bare hands just as the wind caught hold of the sail. Holding on to the end of the rope while the rope tried to yank out of my hands, I felt my feet lift off the deck and saw myself heading overboard head first. Miraculously, Rocky grabbed me by my shorts and pulled me back on the boat just before my head hit the water. Surprisingly, my automatic response was a string of expletives I don’t think I had ever said before in my life. Grateful to be back on board, I demanded that he turn the sailboat around and head back to the dock. We anchored at the dock ten minutes later and tried to enjoy our now-not-very-romantic picnic there.

Fast forward three decades to the barber shop in Gijon. The stakes were considerably lower. After all, Rocky just needed to get an appointment to have his hair cut. No lives were at stake. There wasn’t even a gourmet picnic involved. Or the possbility of romance. Unfortunatley, the freeze response is it’s own crazy captain. It can show up anytime you are under stress. He not only was attempting to get an appointment for the first time but he was trying to do so in front of his Spanish teacher! All I can say is that given the choice between his stress reaction and mine, we should be grateful he was speechless. If he’d shouted every expletive he’d ever heard instead, he might have had to find a new barber… and a new teacher.

As they say in Spanish, “Poco a poco” or little by little, we are learing how to communicate better. And with better communication comes an opportunity to deepen our relationship with people we meet here. In yoga yesterday, my teacher, Eva, started talking about the psoas. Until then, I didn’t know that “psoas” was the same in English and Spanish. When I mentioned it, Eva laughed and said, “you learned a new word today!”  She knows I collect new words and phrases to add to my vocabulary and that I like to practice them. She added, let’s see how many ways Jeni can work the word ‘psoas” into a sentence for the next few classes. She pretended to be me, “Oh Hi, Marga. How are you today? How is your psoas?” “Any trouble with your psoas, Gemma?” Later when she said something about her bi-cep (Bee-sip), I said again, “That sounds like English as well! We say bicep! (Bye-cep!)” To which she added, “now, I’m learning English!” I know Eva is rooting for me to understand more of what she says in yoga. We feel Cristina’s constant encouragement in our Spanish classes, as well.

We may still find ourselves Speechless in Spain, from time to time, but hopefully we will never be accused of talking through our elbows!

Author’s Notes:

In August we are heading to Bordeaux, France and in September I’m leading a hiking and yoga retreat in Asturias. Do you prefer to adventure from the comfort of your couch?  Or do you want to join me on a real life adventure? Find out how on my website: http://www.globalyogatrips.com

Want to learn more about the Spanish phrase, “Hablar por los codos” (To talk through your elbows)? Check out this blog post: https://blogs.20minutos.es/yaestaellistoquetodolosabe/de-donde-proviene-la-expresion-hablar-por-los-codos/