Speak.

Today I went to get a haircut, and in the waiting room there was a man sitting silently, having accompanied his wife and daughter. At first I picked up a magazine so we wouldn’t just be staring at each other, but after a little while he began talking to me. We chatted about the typical things like weather (Is that a cultural universal, finding yourselves in forced situations where you have to mention the climate? Maybe Granada’s 90+ degree heat lends itself especially well to weather small talk), and then moved on to his multiple heart and stomach operations, his family, final exams, my time in Granada, etc. He was very difficult to understand, which I thought was due to his age (65+), so I caught about 70 per cent and the remaining 30 I sort of just nodded and let out the occasional laugh, which he seemed satisfied enough with. When his wife and daughter finished they introduced themselves and seemed particularly nice to me, and once again I was left to ponder just how open and friendly Andalusians can be.

            When it was time for my haircut, I chatted about this and that with the hairdresser, and then the subject of that family came up. She stopped cutting my hair and looked at me really seriously and said, “I can’t believe that man talked to you today! It’s been three months since he’s said a single word.” I wasn’t sure if I completely understood her right, but she went on to say that when his wife heard him speaking to me in the waiting room she was ecstatic and completely surprised, because he hasn’t even talked to her in this whole time as a side effect of mental deterioration (possibly Altzeimer’s). “Mi marido ha vuelto a hablar,” she told the hairdresser (my husband speaks again). Of course I was completely oblivious of all this at the time, mostly worrying throughout the whole conversation if I should treat the man with Tú verses Usted (one of my greatest fears in speaking Spanish is that I’ll greatly offend someone by using the casual form with a superior), and it never crossed my mind that the reason he was so difficult to understand was that he hadn’t exercised his voice in three months. Even though I’m sure it was coincidental, I feel so honored that he chose a sputtering, blumbering guiri to share his first words after so much time!