En el Camino / On the Road

I'm a little over a week and a half into a journey to find my Spanish-speaking self in the city of Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico. 

A little background...

My grandparents are from Mexico and spoke only Spanish at home, my mother's first language is Spanish, all the kids on the block and probably two-thirds of the migrant farm-worker town I grew up in spoke mostly Spanish, and yet somehow the language planted itself firmly in some dark recess of my mind rarely budging but for the occasional curse word or foul phrase (gracias abuela!). What started as major shame for being a brown kid in a wider white world, eventually turned into a shame for being a brown person unable to respond and converse in Spanish with the ease and fluidity that came so naturally to everyone around me. For as long as I can remember I've experienced wells of panic and barbed-wire knots in my stomach when confronted with the expectation that I should be able to order a bowl of menudo in a restaurant without stuttering incomprehensibly. After all, how could it be that someone who actually enjoys eating chili-infused cow stomach soup isn't able to ask for a second bowl in Spanish? That's just weird. 

The shame and dodging of awkward situations came to a screeching halt when I decided to take a week long vacation to the beautiful beach town of La Paz, Baja California Sur this last August. It was time to (wo)man up and squeeze out as much Spanish as I could without hesitation or remorse for trying. The result? People thought I was... errrr... how to put this delicately... uhm, people thought I was s l o w. No, but seriously. Someone was kind enough to tell me that I presented, at least physically, as obviously Mexican and my accent is dead-on so when I stare blankly at the store clerk who asks if I want my beer and chicharrones double-bagged, or say things like, "I enjoy the many food betrayals of this area," or accidentally tell someone that I'm romantically attracted to their blind, ailing grandmother, it's weird. Just weird. 

I was recently granted an amazing mid-life-crisis style opportunity to choose a new path for my life, so I've decided to seize the moment and head south for proper Spanish lessons and immersion. All kinds of things happen when you leave your bubble - in fact, it's where all of life's greatest possibilities arise so here I am, on a road that I hope leads not only to an ease in speaking the language of my people, but to things I don't yet know. Vamos a ver.

Around the corner from my homestay in the neighborhood of San Felipe del Agua