Checking Out

Marlo loaded his stuff into the van before his 7 a.m. tee time.

The codeine has provided sleep. The prenisone is offering morning energy. I finish emptying our room and slip a note under the tip Marlo has left on the table.

“Gracias por limpiar nuestra habitacion y por las conversaciones en Español” (Thanks for cleaning our room and for the conversations in Spanish).

I close the door, check out at the lobby, and sit poolside in the sun, waiting Marlo’s return.

Then, as I’m making a second trip to the lobby to drop off a second room key I have discovered  in my purse, I meet her one last time.

She has found the note. “Gracias” (Thanks), she says, and gives me a warm Latino hug.

"Tal vez nos vamos a ver una a otra el año proximo" (Perhaps we’ll see each other again next year), I say.

As she disappears through the resort doorway, I regret that I do not know her name.

Perhaps, next year. . .

Trusting Remedies

This afternoon Marlo had recovered from his flu enough to golf. I was still languishing in our resort room. The maid knocked and entered.

“Ya estoy enferma, pero tu puedes limpiar la habitacion, (I’m still sick, but you can clean the room)” I said.

I rested.

She cleaned.

We chatted.

She told me her abuelita (grandmother) is an herbalist, and she offered me some remedies. She pointed to the bougainvillea outside the window and said that if I mixed three flower petals with boiling water and drank it, the brew would be good for my cough. A poultice of—if I understood her correctly—baking soda and tomato juice would draw the inflammation from my throat. And alcohol in my naval would draw out my fever.

I listened and nodded politely.

Would the abuelita’s recipes work? I did no online research.

Instead, tonight, I visited an urgent care center and received a diagnosis: Influenza A and bladder infection.

I’m sitting in my room with my own culture’s remedies—codeine expectorant, cipro, prednisone, and tamiflu.

For better—and perhaps for worse—when wounded, I retreat to the comforts of a familiar cave.

Trusting Remedies

This afternoon Marlo had recovered from his flu enough to golf. I was still languishing in our resort room. The maid knocked and entered.

“Ya estoy enferma, pero tu puedes limpiar la habitacion, (I’m still sick, but you can clean the room)” I said.

I rested.

She cleaned.

We chatted.

She told me her abuelita (grandmother) is an herbalist, and she offered me some remedies. She pointed to the bougainvillea outside the window and said that if I mixed three flower petals with boiling water and drank it, the brew would be good for my cough. A poultice of—if I understood her correctly—baking soda and tomato juice would draw the inflammation from my throat. And alcohol in my naval would draw out my fever.

I listened and nodded politely.

Would the abuelita’s recipes work? I did no online research.

Instead, tonight, I visited an urgent care center and received a diagnosis: Influenza A and bladder infection.

I’m sitting in my room with my own culture’s remedies—codeine expectorant, cipro, prednisone, and tamiflu.

For better—and perhaps for worse—when wounded, I retreat to the comforts of a familiar cave.

Spanish—and Judgment—at a Phoenix Resort

Our first day of an Arizona getaway, at noon, we were sick abed with flu. A maid knocked. Marlo staggered to the door. I listened from the bed.

“Habla Ingles? (Do you speak English?)” he asked the maid.

“Solo Español, (Only Spanish)” she answered.

He croaked out a few Spanish sentences.

“Estamos enfermos. (We are sick)”

“No necessita limpiar el cuarto. (You don’t need to clean the room.)”

“Pero queremos toallas limpias,” (But we do want clean towels.”

The next morning, I manage to stagger to breakfast with our fellow vacationers. Between coughing spells I narrate yesterday’s incident.

One tablemate says she doesn’t understand why, in a position like that “they” don’t master some basic English.

I take exception,too fast and too dogmatically, I’m afraid.

“After struggling through learning Spanish as an adult, I have more sympathy for that,” I say. “Learning a language is slogging hard work—and not everyone has that capacity. . .”

Nicaragua is still teaching me to sidestep cross-cultural snap judgment.

 God grant me the grace to offer the same to people from my own culture.

That’s taking me much longer.