| volcano eruption 11.27.02 |
| I like to ask people, �If you had a choice, would you rather be deaf or blind?� I always chose deaf because after two semesters of American Sign Language, I thought, �hey, this isn�t too bad. This is really fun. I love sign language�and if I were deaf, I can use it and I would still be able to enjoy the beauty of nature and still be able to see the people and sights around me.� But after being here in Brazil and experiencing the frustrations of not being able to verbalize my emotions and thoughts freely, I question my decision to take deafness over blindness, especially if deafness means being unable to freely voice my opinions, unless I�m fluently conversing with other people using sign language. This entry kind of piggy-backs on the entry about bad genes. Maybe it is because it�s PMS week and I�m easily irritable or maybe it�s because I�m starting the countdown to return home and know that I will not have to deal with language barriers when I get home�whatever the case is, I�m starting to really look forward to the day when words will be able to spill out of my mouth freely without having to think about which verb tense to use and what is the exact translation for this certain word. Don�t get me wrong, I love, love, love languages and Portuguese is extremely beautiful and I want to keep it up, but the frustrations of being a new speaker are getting to me. Today after lunch, we were in the lobby, hanging out, and K. reminds us all (for the millionth time) that she is leaving this job soon. Another woman says, �Melody is leaving before you are and she hasn�t said anything about it.� (For the record, anyone in touch with me knows that I'm well aware of my departure date and have spoken a lot about it.) K. says, �But Melody is shy. I�m not.� I may not be outspoken about many things, I may describe myself as an introvert, but the only time I say I'm shy is when I am trying to get out of doing something I don�t want to do�and even then, I�m joking about being shy. When I�m with a group of strangers and I�m the quietest one, it is not because I�m shy. I simply don�t like being in the spotlight and sometimes I don�t have anything to say and would prefer to sit and listen. So shy I am not. If you ask my closest friends and my family, they may even say, "Mel? Quiet? No way!" And then another girl who works right by me said that when I am at my desk, I am soooo quiet. And then every so often, you�ll hear this outburst of noise from my area�when I was trying out different chairs, you�d hear my chair falling all of a sudden (from a high level to low), and now, the noise is most likely me slapping my monitor as it often gets fuzzy or me swatting my fan which doesn�t start turning until 15-20 minutes after turning it on. You know us quiet people�we have everything bottled up inside and you never know when we will erupt. In other words, don�t mess with us. And that is how I feel when it comes to communication here�I feel like there are times when I want to erupt and today is one of them. Oh how I love it when my parents and M. make their weekly phone calls�or when I talk to my roomies and I can speak freely with them because they are so fluent in English. But when I�m with people here and they are chattering around me, I want to join in. I really do. But with my broken Portuguese, I�d break up the flow of the conversation. One-on-one is better�but group ones are hard. When they talk about something that I have something to comment about, I start to form a response in my head, and by the time it�s all worked out, the topic has passed. So I discard that sentence and catch up on the new topic, sometimes coming up with a late response, discarding that and so on, until I just decide to tune the whole conversation out. Then that is the point when someone makes a sympathetic comment about how lost I look. ARGH, I want to scream when that happens! I�m tired of looks and comments of pity. I�m tired of people talking about me right in front of me like I can�t understand or like I�m totally incapable of speaking. I know they have no idea how I am feeling, and they would never do anything with the intention of hurting me�yet there is no way around it. Oh I want to just let it all out and let out a flood that explains that I am NOT shy, I am NOT timid, I am not a little girl who can�t take care of myself, I had an independent life back in my own country, I can talk, I can talk a lot for that matter�.oohhh� I don�t expect people to speak English with me. I�m in Brazil. I�m in their country. I will speak their language. I feel so bad for the people in the States who are in the same position as mine�unfortunately, we Americans are nowhere as welcoming, friendly, or helpful to foreigners as Brazilians are. Americans treat non-English speakers like they are dumb, like they are incapable of anything, just because they can�t speak English. Who knows what they want to say�maybe they will tell us that they were well-respected professors or doctors in their home country. Maybe they will tell us that they had a large house and held leadership positions in their churches. But all we see is that they can�t speak English and that they are working in low-paying jobs just to afford rent for a tiny one-bedroom apartment in America. Oh how I wish the language of love could always be spoken more loudly and fluently than the language of our tongues. |
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