Coffee Time Spanish

After work tonight I'm going to hang out with about ten other people. I know one of them. The others, well, I have no idea what to expect. All I know is that we all have at least one thing in common.

Estamos aprendiendo español.

We are all learning Spanish.

And that, my friends, is enough to convince me to go have dinner with a bunch of strangers.

It's very interesting how that works sometimes. Like when I hang out with a bunch of people who all have type 1 diabetes. It's the common denominator that brings us together but there is no guarantee that we will have any connection beyond a faulty pancreas. In fact, as obvious as it seems, it's important to point out that it's quite possible that two people with something in common won't actually get along when put in the same room together.

Just like how running groups bring people together who love running. It doesn't mean they won't drive us completely batty in other ways but we at least have running in common.

So I'm hoping that a common love of language and an interest in improving our Spanish is enough to overcome the fact that I have no idea who these people are and they could all be crazy town.

Worst case, I eat a quick dinner with a bunch of strangers, learn a few new words and expressions and increase my salt intake at the same time. Because hey, it's pretty hard not to order the fries when the dinner is in a local ale house complete with pub food.

I've mentioned a few times that I do a lot of driving for my job. Not a ton but I usually have a 20-30 minute drive to an from a meeting most days of the week. Sometimes I listen to the radio. Sometimes I use the quiet time to rehearse an upcoming diabetes presentation. Well, for the past week, I've been listening to Spanish podcasts in an effort to brush up on my rusty skills. I discovered a podcast called Coffee Time Spanish (I guess these things exist for different languages as well) and each podcast is a 15-20 minute lesson. The instructor (Mark) and the student (Cara) are both from Scotland so I enjoy listening to them speak Spanish and enjoy them just as much when they speak English with their lovely Scottish accents.

Why is the French-Canadian girl suddenly interested in Spanish you ask? Well, it's not suddenly. It's something I've loved for over a decade now. I took several years' worth of Spanish as a second language classes...several years ago. There was a time in my life when I did some travelling in Mexico and Cuba and it was wonderful to be able to speak the language. Problem is that it's been more than five years since my last visit to a Spanish-speaking country so I'm horribly out of practice. The Coffee Time podcasts have been really helpful and my vocabulary and pronunciation are slowly waking up again.

I expect that tonight will involve a lot of fumbling and grade one level vocabulary but a whole bunch of giggles too. And, if it turns out that I actually like these people, they do this once a month.

Long-Lost Community

I belong to many different communities.

My work community - where we are all connected by the desire to make a difference in people's lives as well as, let's be honest here, the need for a regular paycheque.

My curling community - where we are all connected by the Friday night ritual of not really caring whether we win or lose because winning comes with bragging rights and losing means free drinks. So really, it's win/win.

My diabetes community - where we are all connected by our faulty pancreases (pancrei?) and our twisted desire to laugh about the craziness of it all.

My Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Divergent community - where we plan our movie dates months in advance and get way more excited than we should with each release.

My Outlander community - where we talk about each character as if they were real, where we discuss the most insignificant little details and laugh our heads off at the shenanigans that a bunch of Scottish folk get up to.

My golf girlfriends community. My triathlon community. My Masters swim community.

Last week I was sent to an all-day session for work...on a Friday no less. I didn't know much about it other than it was to learn more about Ontario's French Language Services Act. I am responsible for ensuring that our agency meets all of the requirements of the FLSA so I get sent to these sorts of things.

The meetings usually involve a bunch of mostly English-speaking people who talk about how they are struggling to make sure that their agency provides French-language services when no one at the agency speaks French.

This meeting seemed a little more hard-core right from the get go. The agenda was sent in French. And only in French. It informed us that we would be working in teams, doing ice breakers and team challenges...and learning all about the FLSA. In French.

Eep.

I showed up feeling a little nervous as I wondered if my French would hold up. I quickly realized that the people I sat with were wondering the same thing. We had all learned French as young children but lost a lot of our vocabulary simple from lack of use. There never seems to be anyone to speak French with in our daily lives.

We started off speaking English at our table but, once we realized that we were encouraged to speak French, that we were supported to speak French and that everyone else's French sounded a lot like ours, we jumped right in and fumbled our way through the day.

I laughed as people used expressions I had not heard since high school. I stumbled over words but managed to get my point across anyway. The memory floodgates opened and I felt a sense of kinship with a roomful of strangers who had nothing in common other than a language that they rarely spoke. And I realized how much I missed being part of a Franco-Ontarien community. How isolated I sometimes felt in a primarily English world and how wonderful it felt to flex my French muscles after so many years of disuse.

I spoke French for 7 hours that day. I took notes in French. I wrote down expressions that I didn't want to forget. I giggled at French jokes and felt proud to be Canadienne et francophone.

They asked us if we would be interested in arranging regular times for everyone to get together and just speak French. I, who showed up not looking forward to the day, happily raised my hand. Sign me up!

Español

Hola amigas,

This blog will be short and sweet today.

"Why" you ask?

Not because we lost power during the Frankenstorm. Not because I was out gallavanting on the town all night. But because my friend Klari came over last night and we spent the better part of the evening together. She is taking a Spanish class and asked for my help on her first presentación.

She decided to write about las maratones because she, like many of my other running friends, is a super duper marathoner.

So I spent the evening surrounded by Spanish-English dictionaries and dusting off the Spanish cobwebs in my head. Years ago I took class after class in Spanish and had reached the point where my Spanish was comparable to my French. I loved it. I thought in Spanish, I spoke it, I listened to Spanish radio and I read Spanish magazines. When I went to Cuba and Mexico, I chatted away, albeit hesitantly, with the locals.

Sadly, I do not have any Spanish-speaking friends with which to practice so my skills have faded a bit.

Until last night!

Funny enough, it doesn't take much to get those synapses firing again. Two hours and I'm already thinking in Spanish.

Poor Doug!

The Language of Labels

Last week I drove to a meeting with one of my co-workers. I'm not even sure how the conversation started but we ended up having a fascinating discussion about definitions and terms that are used to label people.

Specifically, we discussed the terms disability, condition, illness, and disease.

I explained to her that I have met a few people with type 1 diabetes who find the word 'condition' to be very offensive. They argue that condition is defined as a state of health. As in, he was in critical condition or she was in prime condition.

So, arguably, we can have type 1 diabetes and still be in pretty darn good condition. Or in really bad condition. But diabetes itself is not a condition.

So I said to her that I don't have a chronic condition, I have a chronic illness.

And she replied "I don't think that's the right word either".

"Chronic disease then?" I asked. "That sounds better" she replied.

Then she launched into an explanation of the term disability and the conversation really became fascinating.

According to what she learned in school, disability is a transient rather than a permanent thing. For example, someone might have a physical impairment that requires them to use a wheelchair to get around. The impairment is permanent - they will always have that impairment. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they always have a disability. If they live in an area where everything is completely accessible to them - then technically they are not disabled because they are able to function the same way everyone else can. But if they live in a area that is full of barriers - that's when they become disabled.

So I asked "if the person lives in a large city with an accessible home and accessible transit, buildings, workplaces, stores etc then they are not disabled but if they move to a small town where they cannot take the bus, get into stores or buildings, then they are disabled?"

"Pretty much" was the answer.

That's fascinating.

"Just like how, if someone with Down Syndrome lives in a small town and they are a fully accepted and active member of that community, then they really don't have a disability. They still have Down Syndrome but they don't have a disability. Take the same person and put them in a larger city where they can't easily integrate into the community, get a job, contribute, access services etc and suddenly they have a disability."

That is SO interesting. I had never thought of disability that way before.

When I got home that evening I looked up the terms illness and disease. According to my research, an illness is a state where a person has feelings of pain or discomfort for no identifiable reason.

Identify the reason (eg. diabetes, cancer etc) and then they have a disease. So I guess, based on that definition, I have a chronic disease. Not an illness and not a condition.

I don't know about you folks but I find language absolutely fascinating. I am amazed how some people are able to weave words into eloquent stories that describe perfectly how they are feeling or what they are thinking. And yet what is often the case is that people can't quite find the correct term to explain how they're feeling or what they're thinking - it can lead to all sorts of frustrations and misunderstandings.

Language can set people free and it can also put people into tiny boxes that limits their ability to do what they want to do. I see that every day and I hate it.

But on a purely intellectual level - it sure is fun to debate and discuss the meaning of things and the nuances that make our language so beautiful and so powerful.

People First

The words we choose can really hurt, even when we don't mean them to.  Sometimes they might hurt just a little but words paint pictures and they can easily paint the wrong ones. 

I work with people who have a developmental disability.  I'm very careful to put it that way because they are people first.  Just like I am a person with diabetes rather than a diabetic.  It's a little thing but it's a big thing.

Anyway, that's what I do.  I am well aware of how the words I choose can make a difference.  An email discussion started yesterday between a co-worker and I.  I really respect her because she makes me think and constantly challenges me.  So she opened a can of worms and got me thinking about the language we use at work.

She mentioned the term 'front line'.  People who work directly with a person with a developmental disability are often called a front line staff.  I hate that term and so does she.  She told me of an exercise she does sometimes to challenge people.  She asks them to google 'front line' and see if the pictures that come up accurately represent the work that we do.  I think not. 

The problem is that we've developed a way of talking when we are at work and we would never talk that way in our personal lives.  When I get up in the morning, I shower, brush my teeth and get ready for work.  I would never say that I complete my hygiene routine and then go to my paid employment placement. 

I go out with my friends, I don't go on outings with my peer group. 

I get angry and upset, I don't exhibit behaviours or become verbally aggressive.

And, trust me, when I feel angry and upset, I don't need to be de-escalated. 

Language is all about respect.  Yet too often, we have a language for people who are like us and a language for people who are different.  All that does is highlight the differences. 

We are people first.