Adding New Skills

One of my massage therapist friends had a good bit of extra time on her hands when she first started her practice, so she picked up a Spanish book and taught herself to speak it.

My therapist friend has not used her knowledge of Spanish much in her day spa, but it has come in handy many times when out and about in Southern California, where the number of people more comfortable speaking Spanish than English is fairly significant. Learning another language was a good brain stretch for her.

Spanish is also good to know in a therapeutic setting, especially in medical massage, with many staff therapy aide jobs preferring bilingual.

Thus I had been thinking a bit about trying to learn at least survival Spanish, the kind that can help you find a fire exit or a bathroom. At the hotels where my day spas were located, most of the staff was more comfortable speaking Spanish.

I often sat at the large round table in the cafeteria where the house-workers had lunch, trying to follow as much as I could of the conversation, which went on at about 450 miles per hour. I picked up a few verbs and phrases with a little coaching, and felt a little more confidence in my language abilities.

My motivation was something else as well. During the height of the recession, I decided to limit the amount of time I spent banging my head against the wall trying to book clients. I needed something to stretch my brain, too.

If you have ever watched TV there are about 500 commercials on about 500 channels for a language immersion course on computer. I didn’t do that. I picked instead some cd’s that I could play to and from work in the car. Old-fashioned, yup, that’s me.

Months into my cd experience, I decided to try my Spanish out at the local Mexican restaurant. My mother-in-law orders in perfect New-Mexico Spanish all the time. I thought I would try my luck. The staff at Bahia’s is famously bilingual, slipping from English to Spanish and back to English with ease.

I carefully ordered what I thought would get me a combo with a little cerveza.

Our server looked at me in complete surprise.

Aha! She can tell I am speaking excellent Spanish, I thought.

After a pause, she leaned over the table and looked me right in the eye.

“WHAT?”

My mother-in-law explained, in Spanish, that I was trying to speak Spanish. We all had a good laugh. Me, my folks, the people in the next booth, the entire wait staff and the lady seating customers.

Despite much urging, I declined to repeat my order and pointed at the menu.