TEFLees in Spain

Okay so it’s the middle of March now and I’ll admit that regardless of the zeal with which I started this Spanish learning spring, I haven’t gotten as far as I’d like to on my language journey. With classes back in full swing and various writing projects in the way (not to mention a continual enjoyment of Madrid’s nightlife), my list of excuses has grown in Pinocchio-type fashion into a nose whose cross-eyed end juts blurrily out of eye shot.

My Spanish shortcomings aside, I can at least be comforted by knowing that my friends are struggling right along with me. And not only is there comfort in this knowledge, but I can also take confidence in the fact that a few are even farther behind me in their bilingual quests.

Let’s take last weekend for example. A few friends and I were at a café eating tapas, and after a couple rounds or two my roommate went to inquire as to the whereabouts of the restroom. As he approached the waiter, digging down deep in his thin mental Spanish dictionary to impress our friends with his nearly fluent word choice, he imagined the scene play out in his head. He’d begin with a perfectly pronounced interrogative sentence whereby the waiter would respond with a smile, an explanation, and some supplemental body language. This of course would be followed by some friendly banter that’d end with him being successfully pointed in the direction of the toilet. And finally, to punctuate this encounter, my roommate would then issue to the waiter a hearty slap on the shoulder, wishing him luck in all of life’s endeavors.

The reality, as it turned out, was quite different. Walking up to the waiter, my roommate coughed out a nervous “Ahem,” to first grab his attention. Instead of answering with a helpful smile though, the frowning waiter’s thickly unibrowed forehead collapsed into a wrinkled “V” of impatience, aggravated to be interrupted on his quarter-hourly cigarette break. And, turning to blow out a final whoosh of feathery smoke, the waiter with his empty hand on his hip and an upward flick of the chin, spat out, “Digame.”

“Donde esta tus sueños?¨ he asked, the words rolling from his tongue with assurance.

Instead of responding with an amiable point of the finger or word of polite encouragement however, the waiter raised his thick eye brow, pursed his lips, and folded his heavy, hairy arms across his chest in confused thought.

“Los sueños?” my roommate repeated with waning confidence.

You could nearly see the light bulb pop up over the waiter’s head as the communication gap was bridged, and, in typical madrileño response, he muttered some mumbled mumbo jumbo fast as a fox, raised a fat fingered knuckled towards the back of the restaurant, and sent my roommate on his way.

After what I now imagine to have been a very confused bathroom break, my roommate returned to the table with a serious, pensive scowl, and as soon as he sat back down asked, “What’s the Spanish word for bathroom?”

I pointed to the sign over the restroom like a first grade teacher during a reading lesson, enunciating slowly, “As–e-os. Dude, seriously, how do you not know this by now?”

Ignoring my mocking Spanish superiority however, he answered my question with another. “Then what does sueños mean?”

“Dreams,” the whole table responded in unison.

My roommate’s face then reddened and his lips widened into a smile like a child learning a new dirty word. “I think I just asked the waiter where his dreams are!” he confessed with a laugh and a gulp of beer.

And sure enough, as I turned in the waiter’s direction, I could see him brooding in the corner by the exit - scratching his head, biting his nails, staring skyward, and wondering with soul searching solace where his long lost dreams had gone.