The Language Barrier and Board Games

When I was in Europe in June 2022, the language barrier was noticeable. I couldn't thank the waiter without worrying about if I was pronouncing "Merci" right, even though I've watched Ratatouille plenty of times. My school group was subject to plenty of stares and we heard "stupid Americans" at least once. Sure, the time between disgruntled Frenchmen was few and far between, but we were welcomed into most places. Accepted, tolerated, and then gently shoved back into the wild, where we could shout in bad British accents to our hearts' content. 

In the Dominican Republic, the language barrier was different. I was no longer a passerby, only denied the pleasures of understanding conversation while idly people-watching. Here, I wanted to understand. Needed to, at times. Unfortunately, my Spanish was limited to si, no, gracias, por favor, Mi nombre es Maddy, a few colors, numbers, and phrases I'd heard scattered on the internet. That was it. Yes, no, thank you, please, my name is Maddy, colors, and numbers. That's not a lot to use, especially when you're surrounded by little kids who want to know how old you are, and you definitely can't count that high. 

By the end of the trip, I'd added at least four more phrases to my vocabulary: aquí, mira, corre, and ¿Cómo se dice es? Respectively, "here," "look," "run," and "How do you say this?" In the mornings, a bunch of preschool- and kindergarten-aged kids from the surrounding community would flock to the school, more ready to play than learn. The afternoons consisted of tutoring for the kids who were old enough to go to school. 

There were two girls that came in the morning that adopted me on the spot; both with braided hair, missing teeth, and dressed in matching red polo shirts. One would ride piggyback style on my back and the other would do the same but on my front. Together, they'd scream: "¡Corre! ¡Corre! ¡Rápido!" One of the boys, wearing the same matching polo shirt, would chase us through the school, onto the porch, and back into the school again. This ritual was repeated every morning as soon as the girls showed up to the school. 

Later in the morning, I'd help the kids with their crafts, sitting on the deliciously cool concrete floor next to tiny plastic tables. "Cuidado," I warned a little boy as he took scissors to paper with a reckless sort of creativity. A small part of me was glad that I remembered what wet floor signs looked like; and by proxy, the Spanish equivalent of "careful." Later, we played with play-dough, creating shapes and cakes and all sorts of lopsided creations. 

"¡Mira!" the kids around the table shouted, waving their play-dough in the air and jostling for attention. Look at what I did! Aren't you proud of me?  

"¿Cómo se dice es?" I asked, again and again, every day, all day long. Usually, the kid who was standing next to me was willing to help out and give me the Spanish translation for whatever I was pointing at. 

"Puerta," one girl told me, touching the doorframe as we went running through it one afternoon. 

On the wall was a tree, apples dispersed amongst the branches. Each apple had a different face painted on it, with emotions ranging from happy to angry. 

Again, "¿Cómo se dice es?" 

She pointed at a grinning apple: "Feliz."

I pointed at a second apple, tears running from its comical eyes. "¿Es feliz?" 

She shook her head, "No. Es triste." 

The same girl who taught me the words happy and sad was obsessed with my hair. She'd demand I sit, a word that I repeated multiple times in an attempt to learn it, but still got wrong. The Global Bridge girls informed me that "sit" and "seven" were remarkably similar, and that I was not saying what I wanted to. After I was properly seated she'd yank out my ponytail and set to the meticulous task of twisting strands of my hair together. After four or five, she'd stop and say, "¿Tu gusta?" 

I nodded. "Si, muy bien. ¡Muchas gracias!" 

The younger kids were my favorite at the beginning of the week. I only needed to know when to pick them up, when to run, when to pay attention, and when to offer praise. I could color, point at the site leader and say, "Mira, profe." (My so-so attempt at saying "Look at the teacher.") The older kids wanted to have full-blown conversations, and "me gusta" did not suffice as an answer to almost everything. 

The one thing that I could do with the older kids was play Uno. It required exactly seven Spanish words. Rojo, azul, amarillo, verde, uno, and tu turno. These Uno games were on par with multiple extreme sports, in both competition and overall hype. If one player became distracted, the others would begin to yell "¡Tu turno!" over and over until the player realized that it was, in fact, their turn. One boy, after winning a game, threw his single card to the ground, did a victory lap, trash-talked his friends (I assume), and then sat down and began to deal out another game. There are few things more dramatic than a group of young boys who have just lost a game of Uno, and I can assure you, I did not need to know Spanish to understand the disappointment of the losers. 

On the last day that I was in the Dominican, I was assigned to work with one of the older boys and help him learn his phonetics. He was frustrated at first, and understandably so. First, because I didn't know enough Spanish to explain the worksheet to him. And second, learning phonetics is one of the most frustrating things known to mankind, especially when twenty minutes ago, he'd been absolutely demolishing his opponents in Uno. After a lot of "¡Muy bien!" from me and sighs of utter defeat from him, I knew I had to do whatever I could to get us through this worksheet. 

"¿Cómo se dice es?" I asked, pointing at the picture of a dog halfway down the worksheet. 

"Perro," he said dejectedly. 

"¿Tu gusta perro?" I continued. This was as far as I'd gotten in any conversation; soon my vocabulary would be exhausted, and I'd be back to nodding and smiling until the boy in front of me realized I had no idea what he was saying. 

"Si," he answered firmly. 

We went back and forth for another minute or so. He told me all about his dog, excitement in his voice. I asked what his dog's name was, what color the dog was. We, thankfully, finished the worksheet. 

Afterward, we played Connect 4. It consisted of rules that I was completely unaware of, and so he won pretty much every round that we played. When he felt that I'd been successfully defeated, he pulled a pink and green bracelet off of his wrist and offered it to me. I wore it for the remainder of the tutoring time, and when he was about to leave, I attempted to return it. 

"No," he said seriously. "Tu mi amigo."

It took me a second to comprehend what he was saying. "¡Muchas gracias, amigo!" 

He smiled, blue-brown eyes wide, and then ran off to play with his other amigos. 

I fiddled with the bracelet for the rest of the day, wishing that I knew enough Spanish to explain to him that I was going back to the US and that he wouldn't see me until August. Don't worry, I wanted to say to him, I'll be back. It broke my heart that I would be leaving without being able to say goodbye properly. 

It was super fun playing with the younger kids, giving them piggyback rides, and coloring with them. It was comforting to know that, whether in English or Spanish, kids all play the same. But the older kids, the ones who wanted to connect with me through basic conversation (and then quickly found out that they couldn't), those are the ones that I'm most excited to go back to. Those kids are one of the reasons I'm so absolutely pumped to learn Spanish. Because next time I play Connect 4 with mi amigo? I want to know what the rules are. 

¡Hasta luego, y'all!

    Maddy <3