Chepa is my Spanish speaking partner. Every week, she patiently corrects my Spanish and slows down her Spanish so I can understand it. Even though she has a hard life, she’s unfailing patient, polite and cheerful. How does she do it, I wonder.
Every Tuesday at 9:00 AM we meet to walk the Malecon (or boardwalk) and speak Spanish. Along the way, we greet people. Sometimes Chepa has a whole conversation in rapid Spanish with someone we meet along the way. Afterward, she explains what they said in simpler Spanish. She speaks slowly and simply for me. The topics are limited: food, the weather, the lake, the sun, the past weekend. Somehow she knows how to understand me and how to make her speaking comprehensible to me with absolutely no training. How does she do it? Practice? Natural empathy? I don’t know.
Chepa’s life is really difficult. She’s maybe 50 something and she works multiple part-time jobs. She cooks and cleans, that kind of thing. She rents her house. She’s divorced and has five or so kids, one or two of whom live with her. There’s alcoholism in her family, which comes with lots of problems and drama—which she doesn’t talk about with me.
How does she do it? How does she understand my Anglicized Spanish and know what I mean? How does she have the patience to listen to me and correct me over and over? How does she know to accept others, to live in the world as it is? It’s a mystery to me. Even though I have a blessed life that I don’t deserve, I often live in my head—in my past or imagined future—or waste time whining or judging others. Here in Mexico, I’m learning from Mexicans like Chepa how to live in the present and enjoy life in spite of its difficulties.
