todo sobre mis madres

I was worried and not very hopeful about my real mother and my Spanish mother meeting. Considering they differ 15 years in age, two feet in height, are culturally completely separate, and do not speak a word of each other’s language, I did not give the encounter much hope. I knew it had to happen, because I did want them to meet each other, and because I wanted my mom to try real Spanish food.

True to her word, my señora fed us an arrozita (affectionately rice, aka paella), with saffron, shrimp, plenty of mussels, and choco (cuttlefish). The afternoon started off rather unusually with my mom and me sitting at the table eating and my señora yelling at a repairman in the kitchen. When she finally sat down, she started yelling at my mom too, I suppose thinking that if she talked louder she would get her point across the language barrier to my mother. My mom reacted by waiting for my translation and trying to answer in Spanish with a good, or a yes, or a no. Once the two got the hang of talking through me, well I think it worked pretty well. Conversation was flowing between me and my señora, and then to my mom, and then through me again. Translation is interesting and I think I did a pretty good job… better than the translators in Morocco who took a whole paragraph in Arabic and boiled it down to one word in English. We got her talking about religion, Semana Santa, and the flamenco dress (gypsy dress, as she calls it) that the family used to own. She pulled out her bag of photos and was showing my mom members of the family and friends, using words and pointing, with my mother understanding every word.

Language is an interesting phenomenon, a great divider and a great unifier. But it doesn’t have to be anything, because even if two women don’t speak a word of the same language, they can still get along.