Sometimes I Smile Because I Have No Idea What Is Going On

Sometimes I smile because I have no idea what is going on. I have to admit that I am learning Spanish, but here is the thing with languages; they are huge. Sometimes despite my greatest efforts I just can´t figure out what people are trying to tell me. Some of my students don´t quite understand that I don´t understand what they are telling me. One little boy in particular, Brayan (pronounced like my name), talks to me like I´ve mastered his language ten times over. I haven´t.

I think that I understand why babies will cry and carry on like they do. They can´t express themselves. I can tell people that I am hungry and when I have to use the bathroom which gives me a one up on babies, but I still have some dificulty in expressing myself sometimes. Not being able to express yourself is frustrating.

The expression that I am writing about isn´t the kind of expression of ones innermost soul, the kind that can only come from highly overpriced abstract art or music that bursts out of suburban garages and irritates neighbors. I simply mean that am stuck using primitave Spanish to say whatever I want to say. If I want to share a thought that includes an important word that I don´t know in Spanish then that means that that thought might need to go unsaid. That is frustrating and so I smile.

 

Hola, St. Ignatious fourth graders