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Letting Go in Spain
by Diana Welch
Excerpts:
I knew I was a traveler long before I went abroad. My father was offered the opportunity to develop the photography department at a university in Jakarta, Indonesia in the late ’60s. I was ten years old, and the possibility of exchanging our home routine for an exotic adventure half a world away thrilled me like nothing else. However, my opinion was not solicited and the offer was declined.
When I was 21 years old, I took my first trip outside the United States. I went to Central America, with my father’s blessing and a backpack loaded with photo equipment and film. I was instantly seduced by the light and color of my new surroundings. I loved the soft sounds of the language of Guatemala’s highland Maya, and was fascinated with the political history of the region. I returned changed to the core, with a newfound desire to study linguistics.
I met my husband in a phonological analysis course. When I learned that he had lived in Europe for a decade and spoke five languages, I was impressed. When I heard him sparring with our professor in German over an esoteric phonological point, I was in love. Our daughter, Bryden, was born a year and a half later.
We spoke and read to Bryden in the languages we knew. She also observed me teaching English to foreign students. When she turned eight, we began our family travels. (I had wanted to travel sooner in her life, but she was born with an immunity weakness that would not subside until this age; we were advised to wait.)
We could tell immediately that she was a fellow traveler. She enjoyed camping in Europe and didn’t complain through the long bus rides in rural Mexico. And she loved getting to know local children.
In one small village near Chetumal, Mexico, an outgoing 11-year-old girl invited us to her thatched-roof home. At the close of a gracious visit with her mother and siblings, we were offered the parting gift of a baby turkey. Bryden didn’t have to be told what this small animal meant to the family. The bus ride back to our lodging was quiet as we let the magnitude of their generosity sink in.
Perhaps due to her early experiences in Mexico, Bryden chose to study Spanish. When she reached her fourth year of memorizing dialogues, verbs and rules, we felt it was time for her to be immersed, to face the challenge of transforming obscure code into a practical device of communication and survival. We also wanted her to experience on her own the enrichment of navigating in the unfamiliar and adapting to another culture. We found a school for her in Salamanca, where she could live with a family for a month while attending intensive classes. We planned a mother/daughter road trip across Spain, at the end of which I would leave her with her host family . . .
