Esperando

In spite of being raised on a farm, far away from the rest of the wide world -- or maybe because of it -- I developed a great interest in pen pals as a child. At one count, I had a pen pal in every state of the country. They sent postcards of their towns and descriptions of their activities. I was fascinated by how different life could be. Then I found an organization that would put me in touch with pen pals throughout the world. How fascinating! These were places I never dreamed I would be able to see.

The fact that these pen pals spoke a language other than English quickly became apparent. One, in particular, had some difficulty communicating with me because of limited English; yet, her letters were full of fascinating information. She was from Mexico City and told me a lot about her city and its history. From time to time, she would send me some handcraft from there. I decided that it might be easier for me to write to her in Spanish, and so I asked for a Spanish language course on records for my birthday. I had noticed one such set when we had gone into town on a shopping trip.

The records were not expensive, but for a farmer with eight children and a non-working spouse, they were a little out of reach. So, I was promised the records -- when the money became available. My birthday came and went, and the money was not yet available. Christmas came and went, and the money was still not available. I did not ask again because I knew that if and when the money became available, I would get the records. That was not unlike many other hopes and desires in my early life -- expectations often had to be shelved for a long time. (However, when I was asked to choose a more realistic gift, I said that I would rather wait until the money could be saved a little at a time even if it took several birthdays and Christmases to acquire the records.)

Meanwhile, Alejandra and I continued to write in English, and her English improved. Still, I wanted very much to write to her in Spanish. Then, my birthday came again, and, surprise, there were the records!

I had waited so long for the records that they had taken on special significance. I whizzed through those Spanish lessons as if I were inhaling fresh air after a long day in a musty cellar. Within a week, I was able to write my first letter to Alejandra in Spanish. Was she surprised! After that, all our correspondence was in Spanish.

Was the wait worth it? Well, you judge. Not only did the wait inspire me to put greater effort into learning Spanish as quickly as possible to make up for lost time. Then, encouraged by that success, I took French, German, and Latin in high school and found pen pals in France and Germany to whom I could write in their languages. They were very patient with me, and knowing that I was a student of their language, they seemed to find enjoyment in sending my letters back to me with errors corrected. Then, in college, I took Russian, Czech, Yiddish, Hebrew, Japanese, and Italian, in addition to continuing to study French, German, and Spanish. Later, I learned even other languages from being in various countries. Over a period of time, I studied 18 different languages, and today those languages serve me in good stead as I provide, or have provided, consultation in multiple languages to educational institutions in more than two dozen countries. Those languages have allowed me to interpret for international events, sent me to the USSR as a liaison to the Soviet government for a group of US Senators' wives, and even got me a job early in my career supervising a language training program for diplomats and later in my career for astronauts and cosmonauts.

Ironically, I never met Alejandra, and today I no longer even have her address. However, I have visited Mexico on several occasions, and some of my publications have been translated into Spanish and sold in Latin America. For ten years not that long ago, I lived in the Hispanic part of our California town (for that matter, San Ignatio, where I now live, is mostly Hispanic and Spanish-speaking) and needed to use Spanish on a a near-daily basis. My early correspondence with Alejandra opened a door to a world that could only have been in the dreams -- not in the real-life planning -- of a farm girl. To get started, all it took was patience.