By: Zach Dowling
Ahumadores, excluidos de reinas, and tools that I forgot the names of.
“Entonces, en lugar del típico tablero fondo, veo que usas este dispositivo.” I point to a waxy, laminated disk of what looked to be the trunk of a palm tree. Above this device was an adjustable rack with about twelve uniform, rectangular boxes. El excluidor de reinas, I thought to myself, the Queen excluder. Each piece made sense, although more ornate and detailed than what I was typically used to; I ran through the rest of the equipment with Jaime: “Todas estas herramientas, el bastidor de secciones, los cuchillos del hierro forjado, el ahumador, el levantacuadros,” I paused, making sure I accounted for everything. “Y el filtro, también”, nodding at a rough, well-used, ultra-fine mesh strainer that hung from a cast-iron hook buried in the wood paneling of the centuries-old home.
I initially spoke to Jaime after a co-worker at the elementary school I worked at mentioned his apiary. I reached out for a presentation I was giving on beekeeping techniques in the Canary islands compared to New Orleans, where I was from, but I quickly came to appreciate his company-- and getting free honey all the time didn’t hurt either. He showed me how canarios cultivated honey differently than other places, and how the limited space for crops forced farmers to be creative.
Honey in Fuerteventura tends to be monofloral rather than multifloral, which leads to sharp, distinct flavors.You can easily tell the difference between aloe vera honey, with its dark and rich flavor, the darker and richer honey made from corazoncillo, and the savory, spicy bite of honey from the flowers of the barilla plant.
Back home in the United States, I was an amateur beekeeper, keeping hives in my backyard and giving the honey to family and friends. I’d sell whatever was leftover at the local farmers’ market. Long Saturdays spent at the beehives were my favorite form of meditation, of being aware of the act I was engaging in and nothing else. When I wasn't working the beehives, I longed for the calming buzz enveloping me, and the feel of the dense, viscous honey.
I helped Jaime as a way to remember a hobby that brought me solace and reminded me of home. I also received an impromptu vocabulary lesson on the names of each tool, which I always seemed to forget the names of. After a few months, my Spanish was the best it had ever been, even if my strangely specific knowledge of traditional beekeeping tools made up for my lack of knowledge of the subjunctive tense.
I had come a long way since my first few days in Spain. Sure, I’d taken Spanish courses in college, and even practiced with some of my bilingual friends daily to prepare myself. What I wasn’t prepared for was the most crushing confidence-killer possible: ordering food in Spanish and having the server respond to me in English. I understand that they were probably just being courteous, or had to deal with so many tourists from the nearby cruise ships bungle their way through a “Un cafe por favor” that I’m sure they were exhausted and this just made their job easier. Or maybe they just want to practice their English and are using this as an opportunity, I reasoned to myself.
By the time I was nearing the end of my year in Spain and had spent countless hours with Jaime discussing XYZ (something related to beehives), I could order, ask questions about the menu, and was greeted each morning by Valentina, the server at my neighborhood cafe that came to know me by name. Rather than answering me in English everytime, the servers would only speak in English to me about two-thirds of the time, which in my eyes was a massive victory.
When it came time to finally leave the beautiful island I’d called home, and say farewell to the beautiful, kind people I’d met and worked with as a teacher, I already felt myself losing what little grip I had on the language that connected me to them, the thin, steadily unraveling rope that tied myself to the island and the people there. I first noticed this when I packed my suitcase. I made sure all my clothes were packed, mis camisas, mis pantalones, mis trajes de baño, mis chaquetas (aunque no fueron necesarias durante la mayor parte del año), mis zapatos, y mis chanclas. It became more difficult when I got my toiletries. Tenía mi desodorante, mi pasta de dientes, mi cepillo de dientes, mi…. floss?
Wait, how do you say ‘floss’ in Spanish? It was on the tip of my tongue, I thought (no pun intended). Wait, how do you say ‘no pun intended’ in Spanish? I began to spiral, realizing that this might be the best I ever get at speaking this languageand that I can’t even remember how to say hilo dental.
If I’d ever have time to sit and reflect on what I knew in Spanish, it would be during the 36 hours of travel time that awaited me the next day. My travel itinerary included four airports, each one more distant to the Spanish-speaking world. Departing from Tenerife, I completed the entire pre-boarding process in Spanish, facturando mi equipaje, mostrando mi tarjeta de embarque, y utilizando mi TIE por última vez. My second stop was Madrid, with most of the signs still in Spanish but with voices that crackled through the intercom in English, Mandarin, and Arabic. The Istanbul airport was a sprawling, gleaming complex that seemed more like a luxury mall that happened to have airplanesthan an airport. I arrived in Houston what seemed like months later, and while this city does have a notable Hispanic population, there was no doubt I was back in the U.S.
My first few weeks back home I felt out of place, a feeling I’m sure many share after being away from their home country for an extended period of time. I could already feel what little Spanish I knew slipping away, and tried to combat it best I could. I spoke to some of my friends I’d made over the phone, but we all had busier lives now. I listened to Quevedo, Bad Bunny, and Rosalia, staples of where I’d just been. I watched episodes of Elite and re-watched some of my favorite Pedro Almodovar movies.
My most ambitious step in continuing to practice was picking up Cien años de soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’d attempted this book in Spanish before, but put it down about 100 pages in. I flipped to the page I’d left off at:
“Un obstáculo mayor, tan invisible como imprevisto, obligó a un nuevo e indefinido aplazamiento.”
“A major obstacle, as invisible as it was unforeseen, forced a new and indefinite postponement.”
This obstacle was something I did foresee – I knew that words would start leaving me upon returning home, that I wouldn’t be able to see things around me and hear the voice in my head I’d grown so accustomed to. I’d like to hope that this postponement won’t be indefinite.
I realized with each day that passed and each set of vocabulary words or tense conjugations that slipped from my memory that I was losing more than just a language. In forgetting how to communicate with the people I’d encountered, I was also in the process of forgetting the memories I had with those people and places. Each moment lost some of its significance, every detail became hazier. It became harder to remember why I laughed so hard at a joke someone said, or even if I did, why I thought it was so funny. I’ve thought a lot about this connection between language and the experiences I had, and how I think about them so differently not just due to time but also due to the words that come to mind when I do remember them. It’s hard not to think of them as abejas whenever I get back in the suit now, and to run through the tools I need in two languages now, even if I can’t always remember the names.
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