lih
I am, of course, hesitant to label any person or any group as particularly lacking in intelligence. But my attempts to communicate across the boundaries of language have several times led me into a corner were only one conclusion can be drawn. This situation usually involves my attempts to get directions, armed only with the name of the required road.
“Bolivar?” I would ask confidently, only to be greeted with a look of undisguised bafflement.
“Bolivar?” I was repeating myself now, but I really had nothing else to go on. And surely the name should be enough? “Bolivar? Avenue Bolivar?”
A shrug of the shoulders was the only reply.
*Sigh* “Bo-li-vaaaar?”
“Ah!”, realisation dawns, “Bõlivarrr!” My guide rolls the final r with Iberian relish and points the way.
This, of course, was not enough to settle my opinion. I had once spent half an hour wandering around the Machaneh Yehuda Souk asking passers-by how to get to the Marzipan Bakery, meeting nothing but ignorance, until one genius of a woman said “Ah! Murtzipen!” And this among a race famed for their intelligence.
What really convinced me was my attempts to obtain sundry items from the staff of the Kaskai hostel, where I stayed in Salta. Requiring a plastic bag for some dirty clothes, I armed myself with one that I already had, not bothering to remove the t-shirt inside it, and headed or the reception.
That shirt proved fatal.
“Do you have a plastic baaaag?” I asked, rustling my own vigorously.
The two biddies behind the counter were regarded me with bewilderment.
“Baaaag!?” I emphasised (rustle-rustle), “BAAAAAAG?”
All that rustling could not go unnoticed. One of the girls emerged from behind the panel and tried to prise the bag open.
“No, no, no!” I clamped it shut. “Just a bag!” (Oh G-d)
The other girls was now feeling through the plastic, attempting to assertain the nature of what lay within, muttering various suggestions in Spanish all the while.
I resorted to my dictionary.
“Bolso!” I cried in triumph.
But what a short-lived triumph.
That I now wanted a bag was obvious; the question was what type.
“In the toilet?” “Mochillah?” L-rd have mercy.
I resorted to Alta Vista Babel Fish, and the fact that all I wanted was a spare plastic bag, dawned at last upon humanity.
Just before I left the Kaskai, I had (what I thought was) my last opportunity to witness Argentine incomprehension at first hand, as I had already booked my ticket to Bolivia.
There were no matches in the kitchen, but I was not unduly alarmed.
“Fuego” was on of the only about ten Spanish words that I actually knew, and I complented myself on it’s usefulness.
“Fuego!” I announced proudly at the reception, imitating the motion of lightnig a cigarrette.
Oh G-d. It was the look of bafflement I had come to know so well.
“Que?”
“Fuego! Fuego? You have fuego?”
“Eh, no…no understand”
“Fuego…” (Christ)
“Fuego?”
Thank G-d.
“Yes! Yes! Fuego!”
“You wan’t ciggarettes?”
“No, no, no. just fuego…” I almost moaned. For fucks sakes…
The girl was now saying something in Spanish and pointing outside.
Now it was my time to be confused.
“Eh?’
“I you want smoke must go outside”
Time to resort to Alta Vista Babel Fish, in whose light, truth dawned.
Ciggarette lighter in hand, I was about to head for the hills when something held me back.
“Fuego?” I asked, tapping the lighter.
“Si, si”
“Did I say it wrong?”
“Que?”
Oh G-d.
I never did find out what had been so hard to uderstand. Ok, I was making the motion of lighting a cigarrette, but I was also shouting “Fire! Fire!” at the top of my voice. Oh well.