Do you Know the Muffin Man?

The muffin man? The muffin man! Do you know the muffin man, who lives in a small town in Spain?

I do not personally know the muffin man, but I have met him once.  For spring break, I went with my friend J to stay at his family's house in a small town in rural Zamora, Spain.  When  I say small town, I mean a town with a population  slightly larger than my graduating class in high school. Knowing I'm a city-slicker, J was concerned that I wouldn't enjoy my stay in a such tiny town surrounded by nature. I, on the other hand, was looking forward to relaxing in the country, taking walks and reading books.

The town

The first evening, we took a walk to the nearby train station and some of the surrounding countryside.  Looking at the fields and flowers was worth the freezing cold we had to deal with.

Don't worry. This section of track was no longer in use.

The next morning, as I was trying to force myself out of the warmth of the pile of blankets on my bed and into the cold air to start the day, I heard a long, low whistle. Knowing that we were relatively close to the train station I assumed that it was the morning train alerting us of its presence.  When my friend awoke, I excitedly told him that I could hear the train whistle.

"No, you didn't," he replied.

"Yes. Listen, there it is again."

"That's not the train," he said. "That's the baker."

"The baker?" I asked, unsure if he was telling the truth or just pulling my leg. "What, does the baker have an alarm that goes off that tells the town when there is fresh bread or something?"

"Not exactly. That's the sound of the car horn telling you that the baker has arrived in town with his van full of bread. If you want bread, you just go outside and buy it from him. Or, you can go to his house and buy the bread from there."

Now, the concept of buying bread from the van of a roving baker was completely foreign to me, but is an everyday occurrence in small Spanish towns, so you can imagine the look of both disbelief and enthusiasm that crossed my face at that point.  Excitedly, I asked if we could buy bread from the van at least once during our stay.  J smiled and said that if I wanted some, all I had to do was go outside and buy it.

For breakfast that morning, and for the next several mornings, we had some of the most delicious muffins I had ever eaten. With only one muffin remaining, I asked J where we could get more. He told me that if I wanted more, I could either go to the baker's house or wait for the van to come around the following day.  Despite the town having only two main streets, I knew that with my sense of direction I probably wouldn't be able to find the baker's house and make my way back to his house without losing a couple of hours, so I decided that waiting for the van was the best option.  Nervous about taking on this endeavor, I asked J where the van would be and at approximately what time it would arrive so I would be ready and we wouldn't have to go a day without the muffins.  He told me that the baker usually arrived before 11am and that I should first go left upon exiting the house and if he wasn't there, to go to the right.

The following morning, I woke up early to make sure that I didn't miss the arrival of the muffin man.  As I was getting dressed, I heard the sound of the car horn. I hastily threw on the rest of my clothes, grabbed my wallet and ran out the door. I looked to the left and there was no van. Then I looked to the right. Still no van. Worried that I may have missed the van and therefore my chance to eat more delicious muffins, I decided to walk a little further up the street to see if I could find it. When I reached the intersection at the end of the street and still didn't see the van, I felt a bit discouraged, so I decided to return home, grab my camera and take a walk around town.  Not wanting to go back down the same street because I didn't want the old man sitting outside to think I was stupid, I took a different route.  I just had to keep telling myself that if I turned left three more times, I would make it.

Upon arriving at the house, my friend asked where I had gone. I told him that I had gone to get muffins, but that I couldn't find the van. He laughed and told me that the baker was probably still a ways away and that I would know it when he arrived. I decided to chance it and go on with my walk as planned and hoped that I would find the muffin man while out exploring. As I left the house, I saw a white van parked up the street and suddenly heard a long, loud blast of a car horn.  One by one, the residents of the town began leaving their houses and walking towards the van. I joined the procession nervously. As the people were congregating around the van, I felt uncomfortable as I  could feel all of their eyes looking at the giant foreigner. Not only was I not from there, but I was dressed as a tourist with my university sweatshirt, backpack, and camera and I was at least a full head taller than everyone else.  Then, I asked for two bags of muffins, which seemed to surprise everyone, but especially the baker.  I quickly left and took my treasure to the house so I could get on with my exploration of the town.

Could I be more of a tourist?

If You'd Have Seen it, I Betcha You Would Have Done the Same

Being an adult definitely has some perks, but it also has some significant drawbacks. One of those being the need to rid my house of any uninvited six or eight-legged visitors who have no intention of leaving on their own accord. If there is anyone around who I deem to be "more adult" than I am, it automatically becomes their job to take care of the problem.  One of the downsides to being a teacher is the fact that, despite some of my students being older than I am, I am the "most adult" person in the room and I am responsible for removing the threat.

At home, on the other hand, the intruders will only be taken care of if I am alone and know that nobody else will be there for at least a couple of days. Unfortunately for all parties involved, this is usually the case, and I am forced to take matters into my own hands and instead of cowardly hiding and yelling for assistance, I must attack the problem head on.

This was the case a couple of months ago, when I was awakened by a loud buzzing sound in my bedroom.  To fully comprehend the situation, there are a few things you need to know about my house. I live on the top floor of the building in an apartment with sloping ceilings. Because of this, the main windows are at floor level, so to let in more light, the apartment is equipped with several skylights that can be opened as to allow fresh air in.  Each skylight also has a sun shade that can be rolled up or extended.  The biggest drawback to the skylights is that, despite being closed, flying insects tend to think that they are an escape route and are not intelligent enough to determine that continuously smashing themselves against the glass will accomplish nothing except for an untimely death.  Being that the skylights are just high enough that I have to stand on a chair to open them fully, if the animal in question is a fly, I leave it to its own devices because trying to coax a small  flying animal out of the relatively narrow opening without falling off the chair is a difficult feat.  In fact, my first and only attempt at this resulted in my accidentally throwing a piece of cardboard on my roof and being unable to retrieve it. If it is a bee, I will usually open one of the lower windows in the hopes that it will fly downwards and exit my house, mostly as an act of self preservation because I don't want to get stung.

Now, back to the day in question.  It was a Sunday morning and my roommate was out of town.  I slept in that day and woke up with the sun shining through the skylight at about 10:00am. Before fully opening my eyes, I heard a loud buzzing coming from the area near the skylight. Not yet being fully conscious, I was relatively unconcerned, assuming, due to the sound, that it was just a large fly. Upon opening my eyes, I discovered that it was not a fly, but the largest wasp I had ever seen.  I am not exaggerating when I say that. It was about an inch and a half long and about the same size around as my little finger.  Doing what any sane person would do in this situation, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my phone, and locked myself in the bathroom to protect myself from the beast and plan my next move. 

I spent over an hour locked in the bathroom researching what the beast was and the best methods for dealing with it while it flew back and forth outside, surely waiting for the perfect moment to launch its attack.  In this hour, I discovered that my foe was an Asian wasp. While researching, one site told me that the best method for getting rid of this type of creature was to run away screaming and wait for it to leave or die on its own or for someone to kill it and rescue me. I had that method down pat. Other, slightly more useful, methods included using shoes, newspapers, or hairspray to take care of it.  Unfortunately for me, all three of these methods would force me to be in very close contact with the animal, which was not something I wanted to risk.  Finally I came upon a tactic that  I felt would be the best, given the situation and my abilities. Window cleaner would allow me to attack from a relatively safe distance without putting myself into harm's way.

Armed with this knowledge, I opened the bathroom door, and ran as fast as I could to the kitchen to get my weapon.  Knowing what the effects of the window cleaner were, I grabbed the bottle and a glass, which would be used to trap the intruder as it fell to the floor.  Hesitantly, I walked back to my bedroom, hoping that I would be able to accomplish this difficult feat without causing too much to damage to either myself or my house.  I quietly opened the bedroom door and walked slowly towards the skylight, hoping to sneak up on the intruder and catch it by surprise.  As I approached the skylight, the intruder appeared out of nowhere and flew at me, like a lightning bolt. I screamed, turned around, and high-tailed it out of the room and shut the door.  After spending several minutes in the hallway regaining my composure, I decided to try again. With the bottle of window cleaner in one hand and the glass in the other I re-entered the room.  The beast was ready this time and, again, as I approached its lair, it charged at me and I ran screaming to the safety of the hallway.  This process continued for a total of 40 minutes.

Finally, after wasting almost two hours of my life, I know it was time to take care of the beast once and for all.  This time as I closed in on the skylight, nothing happened. Surprised by the lack of charging on the part of my enemy, I inched closer to the skylight.  When I was directly under it, I looked for signs of the wasp, but there was no trace of it. Praying that it hadn't escaped to some other part of the house, I decided to give a quick spray with the bottle of window cleaner to see if I could find it. I directed the bottle at the skylight and sprayed and heard the familiar terrifying buzzing.  The beast had crawled inside of the rolled up window shade and I was going to force it out, whether it wanted wanted to come out or not.  After quite a few sprays, the wasp poked its head out and I continued with my attack. It fully emerged and quickly fell to the ground where I trapped it with the glass.  Not wanting it to escape from its prison, I set a grammar book on top of the glass, so that if it were strong enough to knock the glass over, it would be crushed by the weight of the Basque language.  I didn't want to see it suffer, so I was happy to see that it perished in only a matter of minutes. However, knowing that wasps have good eyesight and can identify their attackers, I left it in its glass prison for a few days to make sure that it was really dead before disposing of the body.

Fast forward a few months to another lazy  morning. On that day, when I was home alone, I was again awakened by a loud buzzing coming from the skylight.  This time, I knew just what to do and walked to the kitchen to arm myself.  This time, I was able to vanquish the beast in only a matter of minutes.  I sent a picture to my roommate to show him that I had been able to take care of an intruder without any help.  When he returned from work, I made him dispose of the body, because I didn't want to have to do it and, upon seeing the animal up close and personal he said, "It looked much smaller in the picture."  "I know," I replied, "And this one was even smaller than the last one."

WORD OF THE DAY

English: wasp
Spanish: la avispa
Basque: liztorra

P.D.  Bonus points if you get the musical reference I used for the title.

How to Confuse an American

Q: How do you confuse an American?

A: Speak to them in a language other than English.

Before you get angry and start giving me the evil eye, let me explain. Americans are not generally known for being multilingual. In fact, it is commonly assumed that Americans don't learn other languages because at this point in time the primary language of international and intercultural communication is English. We can get by without having to resort to a second or third language.  That being said, I know many Americans who are, if not fluent, at least proficient in another language.  Despite this fact, the stereotype remains, as illustrated by the following joke.

Two highway workers were busy working at a construction site when a big car with diplomatic license plates pulled up. "Parlez-vous français?" the driver asks them. The two workers just stared. 

"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" The two continued to stare at him.

"Fala português?" Neither worker said anything.

"¿Habla español?" Still no response. Finally, the man drives off in disgust. 

One worker turned to the other and said, "Gee, maybe we should learn a foreign language..." 

"What for? That guy knew four of them and what good did it do him?"

The reason for this post is that I experienced a situation similar to the previous joke a couple of days ago. Despite being a native English speaker, having a decent level of proficiency in Spanish, being in second year Basque, and having briefly studied a few other languages, I found myself in the same position as the highway workers.

I had planned an interesting day trip for myself on Friday (more about the actual trip in a later post) and having just bought my train ticket to Bilbao, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see an older man holding a map and seemingly in need of directions. I said "Hola", as I usually would when someone taps me on the shoulder, and the response I received was "Bilbao?" while pointing to Bilbao on the map. When I didn't receive a response in Spanish, I switched to English and tried to explain how to catch the train. I tried to show him where we were on the map so he could orient himself, but Durango is a small enough city that it wasn't there. After realizing that he didn't speak more than a few words of English, I resorted to pointing to signs and timetables. He seemed to understand, and I went on my way, feeling bad that I wasn't able to speak to him in his own language.

Since I was also going to Bilbao, we ended up on the same train. In fact, we ended up sitting across from each other. It was still morning, and I hadn't been awake for that long, so I was hoping to be left alone with my thoughts or my music for the duration of the train ride.  My new-found friend, on the other hand, had other plans.  As it turns out, he was a bit of a talker.  Our "conversation" began with him asking directions from Bilbao to Santander and then to Gijón. I put conversation in quotation marks because what went on between us wasn't really a conversation, since neither one could understand the other.  It was more like a strange game of charades that allowed talking in snippets of five or six different languages. With these special rules, you were not allowed to say more than four words in one language without switching to another. Not having been born bilingual, I'm not the best at code-switching even when I know both languages.  I tend to get stuck in one of them and have a difficult time following the conversation when words of the other language are thrown in at random. Imagine my confusion when having to follow the code-switching between languages I don't understand.

Despite our lack of a common language, I managed to get lectured about my relative inability to speak neither German nor French.  He was of the opinion that because I could speak English that I should be able to speak German because they are related. He thought the same about Spanish and French, and then proceeded to list all of the romance languages that he thought I should speak. While knowing one language that is closely related to another often makes it easier to learn, it doesn't mean that they are mutually intelligible and that understanding one automatically means you will understand the other.  Not only was I lectured about about languages, but about my exercise habits and my choice of profession as well.  Apparently teachers work a lot and don't make a whole lot of money (that's a shocker) and I would be much better off becoming a doctor or a lawyer. I do not want to be a doctor or a lawyer, I want to be a teacher. Now feeling a little uncomfortable, I got off the train at the first stop in Bilbao leaving him to exit at the second stop, where hopefully he could find someone who had a better sense of direction than I did or could at least speak to him in a language he could understand.

Have you ever played the game of code-switching charades or had difficulties finding a common language to communicate in?