There Are Times When I Feel Like I’m Translating Life
HAVANA TIMES – Not just words, but memories and feelings as well.
When I arrived in Brazil, I understood that learning the language wasn’t a luxury; it was a necessity. Shortly after arriving, I was fortunate to find a free course for immigrants offered by Caritas at a Pontifical University. There I learned my first words, about the country’s culture, and everyday expressions.
I had the immense pleasure of meeting people from Venezuela, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, and Syria, all with the same goals and desire to succeed. And little by little, the fear of speaking gave way to confidence.
One day I learned how to ask for bread in another language, to greet people naturally, to answer questions without stopping to think about every word. Then suddenly, without even realizing it, the language stopped sounding foreign and began to become part of my daily life.
Over time, I felt confident enough to continue studying. I began taking courses in administration, computer science, and later, nursing.
I still remember my first day of class in that last course. The professor began speaking without using a single word of Spanish. For a moment, I regretted walking into that classroom. I felt I wasn’t going to understand anything, that perhaps the course wasn’t for me.
But I decided to stay.
At first, I understood one word out of every ten. I watched my classmates, took notes as best I could, and went home with my head full of questions. One day those ten words became twenty, then fifty… until the language stopped being a wall and began to be a bridge.
But there is one thing that never changed: I still think in Spanish.
The important conversations in my head take place in my native language. When I miss my daughters, when I pray, when I remember my parents and my brother, when something hurts or makes me happy, the words come to me in the language I grew up with.
Sometimes everything gets mixed together. I search for an expression, and it comes to me first in the other language. It’s as though two versions of me live inside: the one who was born in one land and the one who learned to walk in another; a kind of invisible connection between the person I was and the person I am.
Today I can study, work, and build a life in another language. Now I move between two worlds, listen to new voices, and understand sounds that once seemed distant.
I learned a new language and, what moves me most, is that it also became a quiet way of rediscovering myself. I didn’t have to leave my story behind to begin another one.
In the end, I’m still the same woman who arrived with her suitcase filled with fears, hopes, and thousands of stories written in Spanish.
The difference is that now my voice has more words with which to tell them…