The waiter arrived with food and started asking if it was ours. In the melee of crowd present in the bar, it was hard to hear him but I could make it out that someone must have ordered food among our group and so I responded, 'Si, Si Senor!" The waiter immediately shot back saying, "What!" and his confused and irritated voice shook me up and made me realise that I was sitting in USA, not Peru anymore! The strong hangover is testimonial to how intoxicating it was to be in Lima, Peru's capital, for a week.
I was sent to Peru on an official trip to train people coming from all over the American continent, but I think I must have heard it wrong as at the end of a week it was I who felt had been trained. Prepared as I thought I was, after having read quite a bit of the 'Bible' for all spanish learners- 'Spanish for Dummies' and armed with a Spanish to English dictionary, I landed at the airport at Lima. All my way through the airport I read signs in both Spanish and English, the forms were all in two languages and immediately I thought this is going to be easy, even the person who recieved me and drove me to the hotel spoke both Spanish and English! I was relaxed, this is going to be not as harsh as I had imagined.
The next morning I had a sobering experience as I found my nealty pressed clothes all wrinkled up after the journey and called up the frontdesk to ask for an iron. This is how the conversation went:
Frontdesk: Buenas dias
Me: Buenos dias, Por favor senorita a Iron para ropas? (Good morning, I need an iron for the clothes)
Frontdesk: ^%&((&#(#_@($ ropas ^(*(_)_)_*_()(_ laundry @$@%$%^ (............... Clothes.... laundry...)
Me: Si (yes)
Frontdesk: $^@*&(*!)( @!*(@ #&#*^$ &*
Me: Si (yes)
(Pause from other side)
Me: (sensing the conversation has ended) Gracias! (Thank you)
After a while I heard a knock on my door and upon opening it I found a lady standing in front of my room and asking me for the clothes that I wanted to give for laundry. A little late but finally I understood what the receptionist at the front desk was saying and what had I said a 'Si' to. In my broken spanish and vivid hand actions, I explained the lady standing in front of my door that I wanted something to iron my clothes with. She repeated something in her coded language and left. After a while I got a call from the frontdesk, the person this time chose to speak in English and confirmed that it was infact an Iron I had wanted. Enough said and done, although I didn't want to be late on first day of training, my training had already started.
As if my first encounter was very successful, I called up the frontdesk again, and started asking for the room in which the PAHO training was going to take place. They had booked me in the same hotel in which the training was going to take place, I realised that this was delibrate attempt to keep me in time as I came to the PAHO office everyday according to IST- Indian standard time to others, Indian stretchable time for me. In my Spanish, and since I didn't recall the spanish word for room, I asked her again:
Me: Buenas dias senortia, por favor a que piso es reunion de la OPS? (what floor is the PAHO meeting on?)
Frontdesk: %^&&*()) &^*&^&* @#$@#@%$ doce &)*&( 0*()#$%# (Mumble-Jumble, 12th floor)
Me: Gracias! (Thank you)
I was sure that if I knew the floor, I would find the room anyhow. Armed with the knowledge and confusion, I took my chances of going with the understanding of what the receptionist must have said. I took the elevator to the 12th floor and got out, looked around and realised that I had just hit the home run: it was the room where the PAHO training session was going to take place!
(...my travail continues, later....)
Buenas Noches (Good night)
Prabhjot
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