Things left unsaid

Today and last night I spent with three other people. One- my trusty friend and roommate, the quiet Ekson. He only speaks Spanish. Two- his cousin, Aldo, who is talkative, outgoing, and a bit of a womanizer. He speaks some English if you talk directly to him and very clearly. He loves to have a few beers and dance. Three- an English (as in England) girl named Laura who volunteers researching with macaws in the jungle (SO cool! ... she and Aldo work together). She speaks almost no Spanish.

Aldo and Laura communicate laboriously in English and poor Ekson, who is so quiet to begin with, is more or less unable to contribute. He and I chat some, but Aldo seems less interested in talking to him (like I said, womanizer). I am the only person in the four of us who more or less fluently speaks both languages.

Its funny ... the dynamic in groups of people when there is no common language. Frequently confusing and frustrating, you feel like there is SO much there that everybody can reach individually but nobody can all together, all at once ... even though you know that a group conversation, if you could have one, would last for hours. Instead, you communicate in bits and phrases- in translated words, glances, gestures, and infectious laughs. If simple card games (as the official rule explainer, I request simple ones) and a few bottles of beer in a cool bar can provide hours of entertainment for people who can hardly hold a group conversation, imagine what it would be if we COULD talk and joke fluently.

Sometimes I feel like because Im the only person who is following all of the conversations, Im the only person who knows exactly, precisely whats missing. I frequently translate between one language and the other anymore- and watch, every time, the other persons brighten up as they understand a subtly, an insightful comment, a goofy joke.

Sometimes I love to be the translator. In the middle of it all. Needed. Because it is so hard for my new friends to talk to each other, they frequently talk to me for a brain break. I love the attention and the conversation but every time I speak one language I feel guilty for leaving somebody out by not speaking the other. Today Laura and I talked for a long time about travelling (I needed a brain break). Because shes going a lot of places Ive already been, she had a long list of questions that took up the entire 45 minute drive back from Infierno (the native community). For 45 minutes we discussed living and travelling in the country of Perú in detail while the Peruvians themselves stared blankly out the car window.

Before now, Ive been doing a lot more of tourist travelling. Most all tours on the Gringo Trail (nickname for the white-people-traffiked Machu Pichu/Cusco etc travel plan) are given in both Spanish and English. Many people in tourist towns are bilingual (or are intently set on becoming so ... sometimes no matter how much better my Spanish is than their English, our conversations continue in English anyway), and most European travellers speak English and also their own language. In Aguas Calientes near Machu, I was talking to a German guy who told me (in English) that he was picking up Spanish as his second language ... when I pointed out that it was clearly his third (his English was very fluid) he responded that learning English was standard and it hardly counted. It has been rare, really, that Ive come across a group dynamic where not everybody speaks at least a decent degree of English.

But here, in Puerto, the tourists all pay hundreds of dollars to flock almost immediately to cush jungle lodges with bi and trilingual natualist guides. The people of the town itself are far less used to tourists lingering for any real length of time (if the language thing wasnt a hint, the stares I get definitely are). In staying with my Puerteño family, this is one of the first times since Ive been here that Ive been truly forced to speak Spanish. Even in Argentina, Ani and her mom (my family there) both spoke some English, so if I got really stuck we could start swapping languages to figure it all out. Mery was the only one who didnt speak much English, but even shed taken classes and knew some.

I think now, with these new friends in this past day and a half- how amazing is it that we all hang out together even though half the time we can barely talk to each other. Where exactly do we meet up in our shared grey area? When we have no real common language or even culture and way of life, we always seem to find something real to laugh about. What exactly, I wonder, are we all doing?