Words that make me cry
By Highblood
MY best friend in recent years is Marcia. Once in a while, she says a
Spanish word and I cry. We are going to a movie and as I get out of the car,
she says: Do you have your “abrigo”? Abrigo! And I shed tears, remembering
my mother. One day she gave me a tiny Swiss knife. She said: A “cortapluma”
always comes in handy. I choked. I thought of my father who often used a
cortapluma. Marcia once said that my neckline was “escotada” and I wept
again because my mother sometimes said that about my dress. My mother also
required that I wear an “enagua” under my skirt.
Abrigo is the Spanish word for shawl or any wrap against the cold.
Cortapluma is a penknife. Escotada is a low neckline. Enagua refers to a
half slip. Except from people my age or older, you don’t often hear those
words anymore. I doubt if my children understand even one of them.
Perceptively Marcia says that it is because I did or do not use these words
often enough with them. Vocabulary is a true and living heritage yet we are
as casual about it as we are of our slippers.
My grandson Luis, 3 years old, is a smart aleck. His remarks make me giggle
or gag. One day I said, “You are so ‘articulante.’” And I heard my mother’s
voice saying that same word, articulante (quick to reason out), with
suitable pride or exasperation. Or I say that my granddaughter Rocio is
“lista (bright).” And I again hear my mother’s voice with its shiver of
doting whenever she said that word.
In these my golden years, Spanish words make me cry. They take me back to
the home of my childhood. I hear my mother and my aunts speaking. I
recapture their delight or censure. I am once again a little girl, caressed
or reproved by these words.
No one really spoke Spanish in my first home, but the speech was liberally
sprinkled with Spanish terms. “Chofer” for the driver. “Auto” for the car.
“Criada” for the maid. “Pescado” (pronounced “pescao”) for the steamed fish
served with “salsa verde” (green sauce but it was white). “Solomillo” for
the beef. “Chuleta” for the breaded pork chop. “Segundo almuerzo” for the
mid-morning snack. “Cena” for dinner. “Ponche (eggnog)” for the nightcap the
sickly took.
They said “carajo” if a boy was naughty; “pilla” if referring to a girl. But
I seldom heard “sin verguenza (shameless)” screeched out in my home. Neither
was “caramba” nor any other expletive heard among my genteel kinfolk. Once
in a while, I heard them say that a girl was “descarada” and that was
strong. Literally, descarada means “without a face” but my aunts meant
brazen. They also said “cuchina” about anyone who was dirty physically or
otherwise. I learned to say “puñeta” from the Filipino movies but not from
the women of my childhood home.
Every ailment was treated with a “purga” (laxative) or “lavativa” (enema) or
“ventuza” (hot suction). “Cobrecama” meant the coverlet for the bed,
“escalera” meant the stairs and “caida” meant the top of the stairs.
“Casillas” referred to the toilet and “orinola” was the chamber pot. Spoken
to the driver, “mano” meant turn right and “silla” meant turn left.
Be it known that there is not a single drop of Spanish blood or chromosome
in me. As far as can be traced, neither my father nor my mother had any
Spanish ancestor. My mother’s great grandfather was French but that does not
count in this discussion. Or does it? For it was my mother who was avid that
I should learn to speak Spanish. “Derecho,” she said, not in dribs and
drabs. Every summer break from my high school, she placed me under the
tutelage of a Spanish nun for “conversaciones en Castellano.” In my college
years, she placed me as a boarder in the Institucion Teresiana (1955 to
1958) to be able to read as well as converse in Spanish. She went into this
with fervor, even if neither she nor my father could converse in Spanish.
Today I can understand Spanish if it is an insular or a San Juan mestizo who
speaks it but not a true-blue native from Madrid or the Spanish provinces.
Neither King Juan Carlos nor Antonio Samaranch makes sense to me but I get
the gist of the news on TV. I read journalistic Spanish fairly well,
especially Hola magazine. I enjoy sitting in the midst of local Spaniards or
Spanish-speaking Filipinos who use the language as a secret code to malign
or insult people around them. I understand every word they say, including
those referring to me as “esa gordita (fat one).”
My friend Luisita is part Spanish, part American and part Filipino. She was
brought up by her grandmother who relocated to Manila from Navarra, Northern
Spain. Lui’s “abuelita (grandmother)’’ spoke only Spanish to everyone
(including her maid and the market vendors) and to Lui, then growing up in
Ermita. Now that she is a grandmother herself, Lui speaks English to her
grandchildren but counsels them in Spanish. "A Dios rogando, con mazo dando.
(Pray but work hard too).’’ "La mona aunque la vista de seda, mona se queda
(A monkey even in silk remains a monkey).’’ "El hombre se casa cuando
quiere, la muter cuando puede. (A man gets married when he wishes, a woman
when she can).’’ In repeating these sayings, Lui says she hears her
grandmother right down to the crispy Navarro accent. In reverting to
Spanish, she siphons from the force of her grandmother’s mordant irony.
Some people are nostalgic about schools, about neighborhoods and movies.
Some people are nostalgic about other people as Lui is about her abuelita.
Are some people, like me, nostalgic about words? If you are, tell me. Or as
the Spanish say on the phone: “Digame.” Mary V. Vidal, 63, lives and works
in Pasig City. A widow, she has two daughters, five sons and four
grandchildren. On weekends, she runs an inn in Laguna.
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, Feb. 21, 2002