Chapter 10: In Colombia . . . .

Once through customs, an overwhelming explosion of new input began for me. It’s not as if everything in Colombia was a slight change from the way everything in the US was. It was if EVERYTHING was completely different. The sounds, smells, feel and look of everything was different. Instead of the organized chaos of sounds, there didn’t appear to be any organization what so ever. There were hundreds of conversations, all loud and all at the same time. Instead of the slight smell of pollution, there was a strong one, mixed with the close humid smell of the jungle, not that far away. Instead of the cold that I left in San Francisco, it was hot and humid; so humid, that my shirt immediately stuck to my chest. All of these changes started to modify a lot of the assumptions that I had about the world. Not everything was like that with which I was familiar.

There is no way to describe how different everything looked to me at first sight in Colombia. I had no way to reference almost any of the sights that I was seeing. Months later when people asked about Colombia, it was difficult for me to explain to them because of all of those differences. Colombia was like nothing I had experienced before. By the end, I had warm and longing feelings to the entire experience of being in Colombia, but I couldn’t then (and have a hard time now) explain the experiences.

The first person that I met after coming out of customs and hugging María was her father, Evaristo. At first sight, Evaristo seemed to be a very uptight individual. He had dark hair, thick black-rimmed glasses, a formal suit, a tie and manicured nails. He looked almost like Elvis Costello on his way to an awards ceremony. The only time that I remember seeing him without a tie was later when he went swimming with us. He was always impeccably dressed. I was nervous in seeing him to begin with being my father-in-law and everything, and the way that he looked all dressed up made it even worse. I summed up all of my courage and in my best broken Spanish said, “Yo ser mucho gusto de conocerlo” which literally is pretty close to “I am to be happy to meet you.” Instead of the serious response that I expected from a man dressed like he was, he cracked a large smile and gave me a big hug.

It didn’t take long to realize that in spite of the way that he looked, Evaristo was a loving and fun-loving man. Yes, he would always dressed very formally, but his sense of humor was incredible. On one occasion while we were driving through a rural portion of the country to get to one of the other cities, we were stopped by the regional national guard. They were stopping and searching all of the vehicles that were traveling down the highway. The wait was getting a little long especially since there were about 12 of us packed into a vehicle not much larger than a Jeep. Finally, Evaristo with his normal tie and suit jumped out of the back of the Jeep to confront the guard.

“Don’t you know who you are dealing with?” he yelled at the guards closest to us.

Neither the guards, nor any of the rest of us in the vehicle, knew how to react.

“You need to respond when you are addressed by a superior officer!” Evaristo continued without waiting for a response.

“Superior officer?” one of the guards started to ask.

"Of course, superior officer! Don’t you recognize me? I’m General Savereski and I’m trying to pass through here with my family. What are you idiots doing delaying us so long?”

Again, the guards were not sure how to respond.

“Haven’t your superiors trained you well enough to salute when a superior officer is present?” Evaristo did not let up for a second.

The guards immediately started to tremble and saluted quickly.

“I have my paperwork in order here,” Evaristo added grabbing some note paper that he had in his pocket. “These are in order and allow us quick passage, but you idiots continue to delay us. Stand at attention when I am addressing you!”

The guards immediately snapped to attention, each of them saluting Evaristo with worried looks on their faces. They didn’t even bother to ask to see the supposed orders that he quickly put back into his jacket pocket.

“What are your names, so I can take note and report to your superior officers?” he asked.

“Oh, please sir! Don’t do that! We’ll let your vehicle pass straight through in front of all of the rest of these cars. Don’t worry, sir! We didn’t realize that it was you.”

While Evaristo climbed back into the back of the vehicle and saluted the guards again, the rest of us had to bite our tongues in order to not bust out laughing. We drove for about a 1/2 of a mile before even the driver had to pull over to try and control his laughter. Evaristo’s serious looks and the seriousness with which he spoke to the guards left them with no doubt that he was who he claimed to be and that they were in serious trouble if they didn’t allow him to pass as quickly as possible. I seriously doubt that there ever was a General Savereski, but Evaristo sure made a believable one.

That was only one of many examples of how Evaristo’s looks and serious delivery had conned people into believing he was someone else. Darío showed us a videotape that he had made with Evaristo when the two of them posed as reporters from the US filming the Easter pilgrimage to one of the more religious cities. People stopped, combed their hair, straightened their clothes, and stood on their tippy-toes to look taller, while he interviewed them with made-up questions. Evaristo was a perfect example of how important it is to not take life so seriously, something that too many of us in the US tend to do on a regular basis.

After meeting Evaristo, I met the rest of the family that was there at the airport: María’s uncle Tito, aunt Maria Cristina and cousin Maria Juliana who had been at the wedding the year before; her aunt from her father’s side, Mercedes, who we all called Meti since María couldn’t say Merceditas when she was little; and Junior, Evaristo’s son from another woman. Junior had continued the tradition of being called Evaristo that went back over at least six generations that María has been able to track. His friends all gave him a hard time saying that he was the only one that they knew whose name was almost as ugly as he was.

The other interesting nickname that I ran into while there came the following day. One of Meti’s close friends that lived near was named Luis Fernando. Like most Luises in Latin America, his “official” nickname was Luigi. We all started calling him “Happy,” however, after one of the seven dwarves since he was just barely 5 feet tall. We would tell him that we called him “Happy” because he was smiling all of the time. He had no way knowing the real reason we called him like that. It was one of the few English words that I made sure that I used on a regular basis.

The month in Colombia was like a whirlwind for me. Every day there were new sights, new sounds, new smells, and new people to meet. And everywhere we went, the “normal” sized Colombians had to come up and measure themselves to the gringo giant. I was at least 12 inches taller than the average Colombian. I guess that it didn’t help matters much that I called even more attention to myself by carrying the white-haired Giancarlos around either on my back or on my shoulders. Every street we walked down people would rush up to measure themselves thinking that I could not or did not notice.

Even while we weren’t walking around town, I found a way to attract attention without wanting to. Being a large, metropolitan city of 3 million, Cali had multiple ways of mass transit. The cars were primarily French imported Renaults, i.e. tiny cars that my legs barely fit into. If I didn’t feel like squeezing my legs into a taxi, we could always take the cheaper buses. There were two types of buses driving around all of the streets in Cali, none of which are very well labeled. Basically, you had to know which of the different colored routes ran close to where you wanted to go and hop on one of those buses.

The larger buses were like leftovers school buses from the US. They had to be at least 20 years old and all spat out tons of pollution as they noisily drove around the city. The smaller version, called busetas, were like a combination of a regular bus and a van, sort of like the shuttles at some airports, only as old as the regular buses. They had the great disadvantage, for someone my size, of not being very tall inside. Basically, I had to bend over at the waist to be able to keep my head from poking through the roof. María, and everyone else in Colombia, was able to walk around and barely notice the roof, but not someone my size.

The best part about riding the buses was that no matter what time you were riding or where you were riding to, there would always be someone coming down the aisles saying somthing similar to, “Ladies and gentlemen, for your pleasure while riding the” whichever route you were on, “we will be entertaining you with the following little songs. All we ask, is a little financial cooperation to help us pay for the fine tuning of our top notch instruments.” The rickety instruments that they tended to play were obviously either homemade or found somewhere thrown away. The idea was that they were asking for money, but tried to provide a service while doing so.

I saw on a regular basis how people were striving to survive economically while living within a third world economy. Not only were people playing songs on the bus while asking for tips, they were selling individual pieces of gum and cigarettes at the stop lights. It was not as if there wasn’t enough jobs to do. Instead of like in the US, where you have to search sometimes to find someone to help you in stores, in Colombia there were people, sometimes more than one, around every corner, waiting to help you out. The problem was that none of the jobs seemed to pay enough. Even María’s uncle and aunt, who were university professors, had to take multiple positions at different universities in order to be able to survive. I was seeing things that I had never seen or imagined while living within the US.

My assumptions about a lot of things also changed a lot because of my ankle. I arrived to Colombia on crutches. Immediately, everyone had a solution. I had twisted my ankle enough times in my life to know that the best was to stay off of it as much as possible and wait for it to heal. Some of the others thought that I should have it X-rayed right away, “You never know.” I could understand this idea, it might be more serious than a simple sprain. Besides, I could get X-rays at one of the clinics in Cali for about $20. One of the other solutions was referred to as a sobadora. Literally, sobador comes from the verb sobar which means something close to massage. Unfortunately, the way that it was described to me did nothing to make me want to visit the sobadora. “Just a few quick jerks on your foot and then a rub down with the right herbs, and you will be as good as new!”

Just listening to the description made my ankle hurt even more, besides it made me think of a witch-doctor type person grabbing a hold of my foot. Needless to say, I decided that the X-rays were the course for me.

I went with María, the very next day to one of the clinics in Cali. We didn’t even need an appointment, we just showed up. In the US, your doctor refers you to the X-rays. A radiologist takes them, but you have to wait, sometimes a couple of days, before the doctor can “interpret” the X-rays to tell you what happened. In Colombia, the radiologist came to talk with me about 5 minutes after X-raying my ankle. I was happily surprised.

“Well, the good news is that you are pretty much healed,” he told me. “Give it a couple of more days without putting to much weight on it, and you’ll be fine. The bad news is that you had a hairline fracture.” With that, he took out the X-rays and showed me where the fracture had taken place. “You can also see right here, that you still have about 2 to 4 centimeters of growth in you.”

That’s where I thought that my broken Spanish had failed me. I was sure that the radiologist had told me, a 23-year-old who was already 6 foot 3 inches tall, that I was still going to grow. I double-checked with María.

“He says that you are still growing,” she clarified.

“There is no way that I could still be growing,” I thought to myself as I nodded to both Maria and the doctor. “Must just be one of those third world beliefs again.” How could he possibly tell that I was still growing from an X-ray of my ankle? No one, in the “obviously superior” US had ever said anything along those lines.

I looked, filled with doubt, at the X-rays and the line in my foot that he said showed that I still had growth. “These two lines will meet once you have stopped growing,” he said. Yeah right!

As we took a cab back to the house, I laughed with María, telling her about how backward medicine was here. Imagine, me, already a giant, growing more? No way was that going to happen. The funny part for is that the doctor was exactly right. Within the next 6 months I grew a little more than an inch, about 3 centimeters, exactly what the doctor had said. I went from 6 foot 3 at age 23 to 6 foot 4 at age 24. Maybe there was something to what the doctor had said. Maybe the medical system here in the US wasn’t the best way of treating patients. I had felt much more comfortable with the doctor in Cali, in spite of my limited Spanish, than I had felt for a long time in the US. On top of that, he didn’t seem like he was in a big hurry to get to the next patient. He actually chatted with us for a while before sending us on our way. I don’t remember having that ever in the US until later when I went out looking specifically for a doctor who would treat me as a person and not a number. Maybe there was something to how people lived in the third world after all.

It wasn’t just the doctors either. Everyone in Colombia seemed to be much happier than people in the US. Even without the modern conveniences in the US that you would think would lead to more leisure time, people were relaxing, talking, spending time together to interact in Colombia, even with people they didn’t know. I was warmly welcomed into multiple parties by people that I had never met before and treated as a long lost friend. It was as if the social interactions were the important part of the relationships. In the US, people were always too busy working to act like that, especially with someone they had never met before. People here are defined by what they do. No one in Colombia ever asked me what I did, or planned to do, for a living. Work seemed to be what provided economically, but it wasn’t the most important thing. Even the whole idea of a siesta was new to me. People in Colombia spent 2 to 3 hours with their family eating a REAL lunch before returning to work, and then, they were home to eat dinner again with the family.

All of these difference were refreshing for me. I felt “at home” in Colombia. All of these things left a long lasting impression that I still have today.

Chapter 9: To Colombia . . . .

Things continue to progress with everyone living in the house. I took another Spanish class and improved a little more. I was still far from being fluent, but I could understand a lot better when people were speaking slowly. It would take a long trip before I could get to the point well I really felt “fluent” in Spanish: a long trip to María’s native country of Colombia.

María had visited her father one time since they had come to the US, but neither her mother, sisters nor I had been there. Giancarlos’ birth got María thinking more and more about the fact that he would need ties to his grandfather as well. What better way than to travel to Colombia?

A “normal” couple here in the US would pack up their bags and travel: father, mother and son. I had learned a long time ago, that we were not part of a “normal” family. We would be taking the trip along with Iris, Ximena and Sonia. We actually tried to get some of los tíos to accompany us as well, but because of schedules and finances, it ended up being just the six of us.

We were all set. We had found the most economic way of getting to Colombia during December, the best time of year to travel to Latin America, especially to South America since it is their summer time and most people have off from work. December worked perfectly with our schedules as well, since finals would be over before we were scheduled to leave. Giancarlos would be just over a year old, having turned one at the end of November. Everything seemed to be perfect. It seemed that way, then I went out and fractured my ankle.

I didn’t realize that I had fractured my ankle. I thought that I had just twisted it. I did it while playing basketball. Two or three times a week, I would get up at 5 AM to play basketball with other men in the gym at the married student housing center. Even though, you would think that I would be more tired being up at that time playing basketball, I always seemed to have more energy on those days. I was actually able to stay awake through my early afternoon lectures. I wasn’t able to do that on the days when I didn’t play. I guess it is one of those strange coincidences in life.

Whatever it was, my ankle was at least sprained, and with no time left before we flew to Colombia. It was Thursday morning when I twisted it, and Saturday morning early we flew out of San Francisco. I had time at the doctors to get the ankle wrapped and to get crutches, but, for some reason, I don’t remember getting X-rays. “That’s OK,” I remember hearing, “you can have the X-rays done in Colombia for a lot less anyway.”

So, away we went! What a great attraction we must have been to everyone in the airports: Iris, Ximena, Sonia, María, Giancarlos and me, the only male in the group, hobbling along on crutches. Giancarlos was extremely blond at the time. His hair was so light that it was almost white. Many people asked us if I was Swiss, since his hair was so light. On top of that attraction, we carried him around in a little backpack-type carrier. There were times that I was the one doing the carrying, so, through the airport would pass this 6-foot 3-inch, giant of a man with a white-haired infant on his back. Actually, it ended up being more of an attraction in Colombia with the same scene except that there everyone else measured about 5 foot 2 inches and had dark, black hair. I heard “El Niño Dios” many times while carrying Giancarlos either on my shoulders or in the backpack in Colombia. It was only later that María let me know that it meant “The Christ Child.”

More than once we were almost late to an airplane as I hobbled from one end of the airport to the other. We ended up flying from San Francisco to Atlanta, Atlanta to Miami, Miami to Bogotá, and Bogotá to Cali, where María was born. In all, we arrived to Cali 25 hours after taking off from the airport in San Francisco. That was quite a experience for me, since the only flight I had taken before in my life was to Mazatlán for our honeymoon, and that was only a 5 hour direct flight. My family had traveled when I was going up, but traveling meant driving either in a car or in a camper. There was never any airfare involved and definitely no foreign countries.

The most difficult stop in all of the different airports was the stop in Miami. Since we were flying out of the US and into Colombia, we had to pick up all of our bags and check them in again with the new airline. In the many times that I have flown since, I don’t remember ever having to do this ridiculous step, but on that occasion, when the number of strong people available to carry bags was limited, we did.

The entire thing wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for two complications. The first was unavoidable: traveling with an infant meant that you basically had to take an entire house with you. You had to make sure that you had diapers, toys, diapers, food, diapers, multiple changes of clothing, diapers, pacifiers, diapers, baby wipes and anything else that you can imagine to take. Especially since this was our first child and our first time traveling with him, we took a long of stuff.

Complicating that even further was Iris and Ximena’s ways of traveling. I have had the opportunity now to have travel most of the way around the world with Iris and I am convinced that there can be few, if any, people who take more, and more useless, things. Don’t get me wrong, as I stated in an earlier chapter, I love Iris to death, but . . . . On one occasion, we were traveling to stay in a NICE, notice not cheap, NICE hotel in Monterey. We were going to be there for 3 days and two nights. On top of her 4 bags of luggage, Iris insisted on taking a coffee pot, coffee to brew in it and sugar. Despite the fact that most hotels provide those materials or provide you coffee free of charge, she took the largest coffee maker known to man, a whole gallon of coffee (“You never know what kind they might have there.”) and a 5 pound bag of sugar. I’m not sure if she could have finished off all of the coffee and sugar in a year, but she insisted on taking it for a weekend trip.

Ximena is not far behind. She has shoes for every imaginable occasion and uses every occasion to buy more shoes. When the former dictator of the Philippines was overthrown and his wife’s possessions were examined, it was found that Imelda Marcos had about 740 pairs of shoes. I think this made Ximena jealous, and she has worked to try and better that record.

So there we were in Miami, way too many bags, an infant, and the only strong male in the group hobbling around on crutches. What a sight we must have been trying to move all of the luggage from one side of the airport to the other! There was no way that we were going to pay to have someone move it for us, none of us had any money to pay for it even if they offered. I remember lots and lots and lots of complaints (Colombians don’t hold back on offering criticism of anything), but somehow we made it through the airport, checked in and settled in for the last big leg of the flight.

It was on this portion of the journey that I made the big decision that would have long lasting impact. I decided that regardless of how silly I sounded and how much of a fool I was making of myself, I would speak only Spanish throughout my entire time in Colombia. Yes, people would be trying out their English on me, but I would respond always in Spanish. There would be English music on the radio (listened to a lot by Ximena and Sonia), but I would listen only to the music in Spanish. I would have no idea at times how to express my feelings, emotions, or what have you, but I would immerse myself completely in Spanish. The only English I would use would be if I wanted to ask María something that I didn’t want the others around to understand.

It was not going to be easy, but I figured that it was the only way that I could get to the point where I could even slightly consider myself fluent in Spanish. I had a decent vocabulary already. I knew the basic grammatical structure. I knew verbs, even though conjugation was a completely different story (“I going yesterday to the store.”). The only way that I could really get better, at this point, was to throw myself to the wolves and speak only Spanish.

My first trial by fire was when we arrived to the airport in Cali. Colombian citizens, as María, Iris, Ximena and Sonia were, were able to pass quickly to one side, while the rest of us waited in a much longer line for our bags to be inspected. As I waited in the line, with my bags, crutches and a fishing pole gift for María’s father, a woman came up to me in line and said something along the lines of “Mumble mumble, correrse, por favor.” The key word was about the only one that I was able to catch. That word correr literally means “to run.” She said it again and pointed down towards the bags and the fishing pole.

Ok, what did running have to do with a fishing pole? Maybe she was talking about my ankle? I had no idea.

“Um, sí correr tobillo quebrar.” Literally, that’s “yes, to run ankle to break.” Great job!

“¡Córrase, pues!”

I still had no idea what the woman was saying, but I knew that she had changed to a much angrier tone and was using a command instead.

“Can jew move jure bags, please,” she said finally frustrated by my lack of Spanish. All the time she wanted me to move my bags. Why didn’t she just say so?

“Lo siento.” I added expressing my sorry, trying to hide my embarrassment. That embarrassment got worse when I asked María later why she was asking me to run instead of move the bags. It turns out that correrse means to move over, even though the term I was familiar with mover is literally “to move.” Correrse is more appropriate in the context that the woman was using it, “Move you stuff over, idiot, so we are closer to the end of the line!”

Chapter 8: Too Close for Comfort

Living as a family became part of my new routine. Now, not only was I living with María, but also with Ximena and Giancarlos. María and I continued to study, pretty much full time, and work while Giancarlos attended the university’s child care center. Luckily, the center had one of the best programs in the country. People came from across the country to observe it and how it was run. We didn’t have to worry at all about leaving Giancarlos there.

It was while there that we began to talk with other students that had children. Most of the others were graduate students, but there were a few, like us, still undergraduates. Quite a few of them talked about all of the advantages that they had living in the University Village. The Village was a group of apartments owned by the university that they rented out to married students. It was a great situation for students that were married. They had access to inexpensive housing where all of their neighbors were also students with families. It was ideal for us, only that we had no idea that something like that existed.

After talking with quite a few different people about the advantages of living in the Village, we decided that it was time to check it out. We took a short drive to the small town of Albany, just north of Berkeley and looked at the apartments. They were definitely not the most modern apartments. I think that they were army surplus building left over from the second world war. The university had a lot of similar buildings on campus that they still used as “temporary” building 40 years after the end of the war. The ones in the Village were two-story, with one and two bedroom apartments on each floor. Each of the residents had access to their apartment, to the Village garden where residents grew different fruits and vegetables, to the community center which included a gymnasium, and, most important, to the child care center right there in the Village. On top of all of those advantages, rent was VERY inexpensive. As compared to the $610 per month that we were paying living in Oakland (still, a good deal), rent in the Village was only $340 for a two bedroom apartment AND INCLUDED all of the utilities (water, electricity and gas). We decided that we would be crazy to pass up the opportunity.

So, here we went again: packing and loading. I made sure that Ximena was present this time. There was no way that I was going to move all of her stuff again for her. In all of the discussions about the new place and all of the advantages, I began to overhear talk about Iris and Sonia moving to the Bay Area to be closer to us and to Giancarlos. That didn’t seem like a bad idea at all at the time. Having María’s family close to us would have a lot of positives for us, baby-sitting, closer drives to visit, baby-sitting, lower phone bills and even baby-sitting. What I didn’t realize at the time, was that moving them to the Bay Area involved moving them in with us.

Yes, before I knew what was happening I was in Modesto helping to pack up Iris’ house, so that she and Sonia could move in with us at a relatively small two bedroom apartment. Yes, that would mean 5 adults and one child would be living within the confines of that small two bedroom apartment. If nothing else, this was going to be a great way for me to really learn what it was like to live within a Latino family.

I had thought that packing up Ximena was problematic, but it turned out that packing Iris was much more . . . . how should I put it . . . . uh, . . . delicate. Like Ximena, Iris had waited until the very last moment to start packing, the day before we were driving her things to Albany. On top of that, some of the manner of packing, especially for someone, like me, who had moved repeatedly in my lifetime, left a lot to be desired in regards to organization. Many of the boxes that she and Sonia had already packed, had things sticking out of the top so that they were impossible to close and stack and more impossible to load into the truck.

In addition to that, while packing up different areas in her house, I kept coming across things that appeared to me to be garbage: tubes of toothpaste that had been apparently completely used, cut open and scraped out; make-up that appeared to be older than María and I; containers from some unrecognizable material that no one used anymore; and I found at least 40 different, partially used bottles of different brands of shampoo. I did what I thought was right, putting all of that old and not used material into the garbage can. Iris waited until I went into the next room, and began taking of it out of the garbage can and placing within a box. When and why she would use any of those things, was beyond me, but she had come from a generation where absolutely, positively nothing was EVER thrown away. It all ended up being moved to Albany with us. It wouldn’t surprise me if she still has some of the same things, unused, now 20 some years later somewhere in a box somewhere within her house.

Somehow, we managed to make all of Iris’ stuff, all of Ximena’s stuff and all of ours fit within the confines of that Village apartment. Giancarlos was definitely within the ideal situation. Not only was he living with his parents, he was living with his two aunts and his grandmother. There were enough adults around him that, even if María and I were tired, there was still another around that could entertain him.

That was both good and bad. It was good in the sense that he grew up speaking Spanish as his first language while still comprehending English as well. He would always seem shy around new people, but it was because he always waited to see which language they were going to speak before interacting with them. We spoke only Spanish with him at home, so much that he did not know that we spoke English. After one of the parent conferences with the teachers at the child care, where she spoke entirely in English, he translated for us telling us, in Spanish, what she had just told us in English.

It was also advantageous in the sense that Giancarlos grew up with a very advanced vocabulary and manner of speaking. Many people said that talking with him was like talking with an old man instead of a child. This gave him a lot of advantages academically, but he was always a little behind socially for some of the same reasons.

One of the disadvantages to the situation was that there was always an adult there to “entertain” Giancarlos. He grew up with 5 adults ready to satisfy his every whim. 5 years later when his younger brother Nicolás was born was very rough on Giancarlos. He was no longer the center of attention, and he still, at times, seems to take out that resentment on Nico.

There were advantages and disadvantages for me and Maria as well. We never had to worry about getting baby-sitters, we had live in baby-sitters. At the same time, I always had the in-laws right there within the same apartment to change what I wanted in the household, to contradict something that I had told Giancarlos, to be right next door when I wanted to be romantic with María, to have their own dramas (as Ximena and Sonia tried to test their limits with Iris, with each other, and with us). It wasn’t exactly as I had planned for my life as a married man and father, but I can’t say that it was a negative experience.

Yes, there were inconveniences, but aren’t there plenty in any life? Yes, I would take away of few of the interactions that I had with Iris, Ximena and Sonia. Yes, I would have preferred to have lived within my own household. Yes, I needed more space a lot of the time. But, when I get down to weighing all of the advantages and disadvantages of that year living in the Village in a small two bedroom apartment with my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law, I can’t say that I would change it for a moment. That time that we spent confined within small quarters is what made my son who he is today. On top of that, it added even that much more to my understanding of a life that is now my own.

Chapter 7: New Additions

Life continued to get more and more complicated with the passage of time. María and I were still studying, we were all working, and I was still arguing with Ximena about finishing her share of the chores. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but the largest complication was going to come from the smallest source.

I was working in one of the many childcare centers at the university while María worked in the one of the zoology labs. What a nice way to support yourself! I got to play around with two-year-olds; while María got paid good money to tie labels on the legs of reptiles. One day, she told me to meet her near the cookie place where we had worked a couple of years earlier. I thought that it was a little strange. We usually met at the child care center before catching the bus to go back home. I wasn’t nervous though, since the cookie place was just outside of the Bears’ Lair, the campus pub and close to a coffee place. Maybe she just wanted to have some coffee before we caught the bus.

When María finally arrived, we started talking. She seemed a little more serious than normal, but I didn’t think anything of it until she said that she had an announcement.

“I went to the doctor’s today,” she said.

“Are you sick?” I asked. “I didn’t notice anything this morning when you left.”

“No, I’m not sick, but I am pregnant.”

The word “pregnant” didn’t sink in at first. I just sat staring at Maria thinking that with all of the other people around us in the crowded area that I had heard something else. I have the problem in large groups of not being able to shut out other conversations. It is the slight hyperactivity that I have. I don’t try to listen in on other people’s conversations, but I can’t keep from hearing them. So I just stared at María without saying anything.

“I said that I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Finally, the word sunk in. “You mean you’re going to have a baby?”

“Yes, WE’re going to have a baby.”

I wasn’t sure how to react. I was a young, 21-year-old college student. Yes, I was married, but what did I know about being a father? “Are we ready for something like that?” What a stupid question!

“What do you mean ready? It isn’t as if you can do anything to get ready to be parents, other than to do what we already did.”

As always, María had the self-confidence needed to be sure that everything was going to be all right. I didn’t have the same confidence, but again, I wasn’t the one that was going to have to carry the baby around in my stomach for 9 months.

“Well, now what do we do?” I asked, another great question.

“We have to let people know. I have to call my mother.”

I should have known that with anything big, la familia had to be involved. Quite a few phones calls and excitement later, we had let everyone know that we were going to have a baby. I still wasn’t exactly sure how we were going to make it: working full time, studying full time and being parents full time, but somehow we would find the way.

As the months and days passed and the big day got closer, María and I tried to go to the Lamaze preparation courses. Unfortunately, the instructor was a little too gung-ho on the whole idea of using breathing to relieve pain, “I went through root canal just using Lamaze!” This was a little too much for María to believe, so she didn’t really put all of her effort into learning the relaxation techniques.

As the first contractions hit María, we had no idea whatsoever what to expect or what to do. We loaded into the car to drive up Pill Hill to the hospital. She was already past nine months pregnant, and her legs had swollen up more than normal. She thought that she looked like a hippopotamus, because they were so swollen. The doctor and the midwife that we were working with were both pretty concerned, and this concern passed right over to us. We flew up the hill!

After filling out all of the necessary paperwork, we were shown to a room. In the meantime, Ximena started calling her mother to let her know, so that she could come. I was beginning to relax, since finally things were coming to a conclusion. I would be a father soon. Then the doctor came in and connected all of the machines: IV, blood pressure, sonogram, EKG, etc. It was as if they had to put to use all of the new equipment that was sitting around.

We waited and waited. Finally the pains got better. The doctors said that they had great news for us: “We’re sorry, but it’s not time yet. It must be false labor.” That is just what we needed “false labor!” Everyone had to be called again, and we had to repack and head for home.

What a let down! There is a tremendous adrenaline rush as the pains begin and all of the excitement of: “Ok, let’s get everything! Don’t forget the _____! Don’t forget the _____! Oh, my God, I forgot the _____!” The movies don’t even come close to showing the emotions that are running through your head in those moments. And then to have it all be: “false labor.” Especially with it being past the due date and all of the swelling in María’s legs. That was further complicated by the caster oil that they gave María to drink so help speed up the process. It had to be the most disgusting thing that you would want anyone to drink and still be healthy. Besides, it would give her a bad case of diarrhea.

We found out a couple of hours after getting back to our apartment that the doctors were especially concerned about the swelling. They wanted to induce the labor using drugs to force the baby to be born before the process started naturally. Now, we would know exactly when the process would start, but it would take away all of the natural process that María had wanted. That is why she had chosen to have a midwife, so that the process would be more natural. Oh well! If the doctors were concerned, it would be better to be safe.

Besides, knowing when the process would start gave Iris and Sonia the opportunity to drive from Modesto to be there as well. María didn’t want to go through the important date without her mother and both of her sisters present. I thought that it was little strange having all three of them there. I could understand her mother being there with us, but all three of them? In the end, it was María’s decision to make, not mine. She had to have her family there.

As the medication was given to María, she and I were in the small delivery room. On top of the two of us, Iris, Ximena and Sonia came in. Before the baby was finally born, 25 hours of labor later, we were joined by the midwife, a nurse, the doctor and at least three other interns that I remember, the anesthesiologist and I don’t know who else. It was as if the entire hospital was crammed into the small delivery room. And all throughout, Ximena was trying to get to the right angle to film the entire process.

The strangest part of the whole process wasn’t the number of people in the room, even though that was very strange. The strange part was the nurse. She was trying to help María from the back of the room (since the family, the doctors and I were up close) by saying, “Push, push, push.” It was as if someone had put a strange “Push, push, push” recording and was playing it over the loud speakers. The repetitiveness of her “push, push, push” was even more aggravated by her high pitched voice. It was annoying to me, but no one else said anything, so I didn’t either. It wasn’t until the next day, in talking about the experience, that we all agreed, including María, how annoying it actually was. No one could figure out where the “Push, push, push” was coming from, no one thought it was helping, but no one bothered to ask the nurse to stop.

Finally, the great occurrence happened! My son was born finally at 5:21 PM. Again, that was after 25 hours of hard labor. Without the relaxation of Lamaze, María suffered a lot. In looking at pictures taken at the time, she looks completely drained. It is almost as if giving birth drained all of her energy out of her, completely. I knew the minute that he was born that my life had changed. It was as if all of the things that had bothered me before were no longer important anymore. The only thing that mattered anymore was making sure that this little being was able to grow happy, healthy and warm. Tears flowed down my face like they had never flown before.

We had already come up with a name for the baby. We had gone through books and books of different names. María kept suggesting Giovanni and Giacomo. I couldn’t imagine my son going through life as a Giacomo, so I kept searching. One day, while working at the International House, a dorm for international students and those studying international studies, I met a Panamanian whose parents were from Italy. His name was Giancarlo. I liked the sound of his name and ran it by María. She loved the sound of it. We didn’t want to leave the name Giancarlo though since neither one of us is Italian, so I suggested adding an “s.”

“That way it will sound like it is Spanish,” I suggested. “It will be unique. No one else in the world will have that name.”

“Well then, there is no way that he needs a middle name since Giancarlos Delgado-Braun is already pretty long.”

It was settled, the baby name was going to be Giancarlos. He had given a totally new meaning to life that I had never realized before. Life, family, and everything involved with them were really what was important. All of the things that we chase after: money, sports, fame, knowledge. None of them make any sense unless it has to do with life and family. What good does any of those things do unless you have with whom to share them? It wasn’t until the day that Giancarlos was born that I began to realize that. It was something that María had known all along, that is why la familia was there always. That is why the “events” were so important, because the people at those “events” were the ones that you needed to give meaning to life. In marrying her, instead of creating a separate existence, as I had thought, we had just added to the greater existence that was la familia.

We would have an “event” in our house before too long, but first María needed her rest, and I needed time to spend with her and with Giancarlos. This was our time to concentrate on our little familia.

Chapter 6: The Family Moves In

I had already been around Maria’s family quite a bit since most of our outings were to “events” with her family. That was only the beginning, however. It would be the year after we got married and returned to the university that the influx of her family onto our lives would increase. Along with that would come my increasing comprehension of what it meant to be a Latino in the United States.

By the time that we were ready to go back to Berkeley, Maria’s younger sister, Ximena, had graduated from high school and was ready to go to college. Unfortunately, she was having a rough time getting along with her mother. Living at home didn’t seem to be an option. She had decided that she wanted to study at City College of San Francisco. Since San Francisco was a mere BART ride away from Berkeley, it was decided, pretty much before I knew what had happened, that Ximena would be living with us, somewhere. Now, not only would I be seeing Maria’s family the majority of the times that we went out, part of it would be living with us full time. But, first, we had to find a place.

Since the two of us would be attending UC Berkeley, we wanted something that would be relatively close to the campus. Ximena needed something that would be close to the BART station so she could easily make the trip to San Francisco. We drove to the Bay Area, with Sonia in-tow, I guess again as a chaperone, without much of an idea where or even how to find an apartment, but sure that we could find something. It took us the entire day of getting listings, checking out the locations and filling out applications. There were more to check out the next day, so we decided that we would sleep in our car up in the Berkeley hills away from the traffic. We were college students without the financial support of either one of our parents; it is not as if we could exactly afford a hotel. I had a Chevy Chevette at the time, not the largest of all cars for four people to sleep in (especially with my six-foot-three frame), but somehow we managed to get a little sleep before starting the next day. That is not the way that I would recommend anyone to look for apartments, but the girls had all of the confidence in the world that we would be fine. Or maybe they were just too naive to know any better.
We woke up, or, more like, sat up in the car and continued are search around the Berkeley—Oakland area. We didn’t find anything that weekend and had to return the following. This time, we decided to splurge and spend the night in an inexpensive hotel. The cheapest that we were able to find was one called “Motel 5.” Like its name suggests, it is a cheaper version of low-cost Motel 6. Frankly, we got what we paid for. The other clientele at the hotel seemed to be hourly and not quite college material.

We went into the room where the ladies refused to step on the floors. “You never know what could be there.” Ximena had her favorite stuffed animal with her. It was an older bear that had been through a lot of difficulties including losing an eye in a run-in with a light bulb. It was in such bad condition that I dubbed in “Scum.” I don’t think that any of us, including Ximena, remember the animal’s real name before then since we continued to call it Scum for years until she finally lost it. The evening was long as the 4 of us tried to sleep in the one king bed and get around the room without touching the suspect floor.

Somehow we survived the night and started our search again the next day. Finally, we found a two bedroom apartment with a large living room and a decent sized backyard. It was on a cul de sac, which meant that there wouldn’t be a lot of traffic driving by on a regular basis. On top of that, it was at the bottom of what is called “Pill Hill” where a good number of hospitals and doctors’ office are located. We wouldn’t have to go far medical needs. Most important of all, the rent was something that the three of us could afford. We took it!

The day finally arrived to move. We packed everything that we had in our apartment in Stockton into a U-Haul truck that we had rented and then drove south to Modesto to pick up Ximena and her belongings. The agreement was that she was going to have all of her things ready; we would just have to pick her and her belongings up from their mother’s. A nice surprise awaited us in Modesto. Not only was Ximena not packed, but she was nowhere to be found. We couldn’t exactly sit around and wait for her. We still needed to drive all the way to Oakland, unload and then come back to return the truck: an hour and a half drive in only one of the directions. The longer we took, the more we would have to pay for the rental. Finally, we decided that we would start packing her things for her. She should get there any time to help us. At least that is what we thought.

The more we packed and loaded, the angrier I got. Where was Ximena? These weren’t my things. Why wasn’t she all packed and ready to go? She knew the schedule and knew that we were renting the truck. Where was she?

We finished loading all of Ximena’s belongings onto the truck. She was still nowhere to be found. I wasn’t happy, but again, what could I do? We got in the truck and started driving towards Oakland. We left Modesto, telling Iris that when Ximena showed up, to let her know that we had gone ahead. We got to Oakland with still no word about Ximena. Maria and I ended up unloading all of our materials and all of Ximena’s by ourselves. Ximena didn’t arrive until a couple of days later.

“Where were you?” I asked when she finally arrived.

“I was busy with my friends.”

“Busy? But we were moving! You knew that!”

“Yeah, but there were some things that I needed to take of.”

“What about all of this stuff?” I said pointing angrily to all of the things in her room. “Maria and I had to move it all for you.”

“Thank you for doing all of that,” was her response. “You didn’t have to.”

That wasn’t the last time that I would have an argument with Ximena while she was living with us. I felt like I was constantly reminding her to do her share of the cooking, cleaning and other chores around the house. There was constantly an excuse as to why it had not been taken care of or a reason why she shouldn’t really have to do it. It was very frustrating for me. In my family, we all had to do our share, no ifs, ands, or buts. Besides, why did I have to put up with this? I did because she was Maria’s sister and as such she part of la familia of which I was now an semi-official member.

In looking back, I know that my disagreements had a positive impact on Ximena. A couple of years later when she was living with Sonia, she was the more mature partner out of the two of them. I listened as she gave many of the same complaints about Sonia that I had given about her earlier. “How come you haven’t cleaned up?” “You didn’t pick up your dishes!” “It was your turn to vacuum!” It was also during that period that I increased my understanding of the family dynamics within a Latino family. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but in marrying Maria, I had married the entire family.

As a married couple, we were now able to host some of the “events” for the family. I assumed, naively, that we could just invite both my family and Maria’s family, and they would blend, just as we had. I couldn’t be more wrong! Maria’s family, united as always, arrived and started talking amongst themselves in Spanish. I should have guessed then, but I assumed that when everyone else arrived, none of which spoke Spanish, they would switch to English and interact. That’s what I get for assuming. They made a circle with their chairs to continue talking in Spanish. My family on the other hand, stood on the peripheries to talk amongst themselves. There was no blending at all between the families. I kept running back and forth with my broken Spanish and my English trying to get the two groups to somehow talk, but no!
This wasn’t the last time that something like this would happen, but it was the first that I began to notice that the two sides didn’t mix as well as Maria and I continued to do.

Chapter 5: Uncle Tom's Ranch

Maria and I had arranged a honeymoon to Mazatlán, México, but we weren’t leaving right away. There was a weekend between the wedding itself and our flight out. In the meantime, we followed la familia’s tradition of getting together for another event. The wedding and the reception were obviously not enough time. We went out, as a group, to visit one of the families that lived on the outskirts of Modesto outside of a small town called Waterford.

Between all of the different families that composed la familia, one of the most likely to host events lived just outside of Waterford on 10 acres of land lying on the banks of the Tuolumne River. Out of all of the households, the Brodericks’ lent itself the best for a large gathering of people. Not long before our wedding, they had built a house just above the highest flood level of the river. It was a large two-story house with a kitchen, dining room and master bedroom on the top floor, and the family room and bedrooms for the three boys below. Since the house was built on a hill, the upper level was the entry way. You had to go down either by the stairs or by walking around the house down the hill to the lower level.

This ranch worked so well because everyone could find a place to do as they wished without bothering the others. That was so true that in later years we started calling it “Rancho Relaxo.” Los tíos would be on the top floor chatting. The “kids” could be on the bottom playing and not bothering the conversations going on upstairs. Anyone not wanting to be part of the conversations or playing could go outside to watch the river or the waterfall on the other side. It was a perfect place for a large group to get together, especially with the river during the hot, sticky summer months like the month in which we got married.

At that time, la familia was divided along very definite lines. The strongest line was the reason for everyone getting together, los tíos. The brothers and sisters had been through quite a bit during their lifetimes, enough to fill another book entirely. They were the ones that insisted on the very positive and strong familial bonds that had allowed the second lines, los primos, to be raised essentially together. All of the boys, and they were all male, had spent the formative portions of their lives together a large portion of the time. They lived in different households and went to different schools, but since they played and got together at the “events” so often, at times they all seemed more like brothers than cousins.

Maria’s sisters, because of their age when they came to the US, fit in more with los primos, but being girls and not having spent their earlier years together left a small gap. There was an even larger gap for Maria since she was so much older than all of her cousins. She didn’t exactly fit in with los tíos either, though, since she was quite a bit younger than each of them. She would spend a lot of the time listening to the conversations with los tíos, especially now that she was married. At the same time she would, at times, join los primos to “play.”

The last line, and the one that I was assigned to by default, was all of the people who had married into or were associated with members of la familia. This included all of the spouses and friends of los tíos. Basically, we were the in-laws, but Maria’s Uncle Tom, the owner of the property, had come up with an affectionate term that seemed to fit much better. We didn’t fit into the inner circle of the family and were too old to fit in with los primos, so we were the “Out-laws.” Because this term was similar to in-law, but gave the more appropriate sense, in this context, of being outside instead of in, it was a good fit.

The “Out-laws” would be the ones trying to change the events with their gringo ideas and customs. The “Out-laws” were the ones always trying to make everyone speak English, even though they were in the vast minority. The “Out-laws” were the ones that wanted to make sure that los primos had American customs as well as Colombian (as if it were possible not to with the heavy influence of TV and the schools). I wasn’t exactly an “Outlaw” since I wanted to find out what los tíos were talking about and I was closer in age to los primos. But I still couldn’t understand the conversations of los tíos and was still 10 years older than los primos.

Uncle Tom was definitely the leader of the “Out-laws.” Unlike the others that had married in, Tom is educated and has defined opinions that don’t always match those of la familia. Since Maria and her family were still living in Colombia at the time, Tom was the first outsider to become part of la familia.

In spite of his “Out-law” status with la familia, Tom always had treated us incredibly well. Not only had he essentially married us under the supervision of a Spanish speaking priest, he had given us a lot of much needed cash as a wedding gift. On top of that, it had been through him that Maria’s family had been able to get the visas to come to the US to begin with. Tom was also one that would take any of us aside for talks about touchy issues that were better handled one on one.

La familia arrived to Waterford in the early afternoon. As usual, los tíos sat around in the kitchen area talking about some subject that I could only dream about understanding. I assumed that it had something to do with the wedding, how someone acted or didn’t act there or one of their weddings, but I had no way of confirming without being rude. Maria’s only remaining aunt and uncle that still lived in Colombia were present since he gave her away at the wedding. They were a big part of the conversation.

Los primos, Maria and I headed down to the river to play. The weather was perfect to be in a cool river playing around. It was about 100 degrees out and the sweat dripped off of all our foreheads. We spent a long time swimming and exploring up and down the banks of the river. Some of the more adventurous of us had found a rope swing and did our best imitations of Tarzan, swinging out over the river before letting go and falling into the water. It was pure, innocent fun all of us enjoying ourselves.

Finally, we headed back up the river towards the house. One of the primos headed across the river towards the waterfall, for some reason. The waterfall was a manmade one from the overflow from one of the ranches on the other side of the tall hill across the river. Whoever it was, climbed onto the cement step at the bottom and found the cement walls covered with a mossy, seaweed type substance. He started just to clean the walls off, but one of the pieces flew into the water and hit one of the others on the back. That one had to get out in order to get his revenge by throwing another piece. Before long, all of us, Maria and her sisters included, had climbed out the water onto the step to grab some of the moss and throw it at someone else. What a blast! Before long, we were all covered in moss from head to toe. It was as if a group of Swamp Monsters had arrived at the waterfall. If only there was a waterproof camera somewhere around to have taken a picture of us.

Before long we had cleaned all of the reachable moss off of the walls and jumped back into the water to clean off. before heading back up the hill. I’m not sure if los tíos would have participated in the moss throwing, but to me it was a wonderful example of the family unity that was always present at the “events.” Not only were los tíos able to get together and rehash conversations begun earlier, the children were able to get together for healthy fun. On top of that, since a good many of the “events” were around different holidays, the children were able to learn the customs of their mothers and add those to the American ones to which they were daily exposed. Even though none of los primos was fluent in Spanish as a child, they were all able to understand it perfectly and, without fail, all of them have been able to greatly improve it and use it professionally as adults. They weren’t the only ones either, as I learned slowly myself.

Chapter 4: My Marvelous Wedding Day

Like most wedding days, my wedding was a very happy occasion. The wedding itself was one that Maria and I put together ourselves. My parents followed typical American custom in which the bride’s family pays for the wedding. Maria’s family followed the tradition that someone else pays for the wedding. Actually, Maria’s mother was in no shape to pay for any wedding. Iris and her other two daughters were very helpful in suggestions, people to invite, finding someone to give Maria away, etc., but the finances would have to come from the two of us.

I was nineteen at the time and Maria had just turned twenty. We were both college students, working to support ourselves in the not-so high-paying jobs at Fabric-Land and Seven-Eleven. We weren’t exactly rich ourselves, so our wedding definitely wasn’t the most expensive wedding ever. That’s OK! It was OUR wedding.

We knew that we wanted to get married in Modesto (surprise, surprise). We knew that we wanted the ceremony to be both in Spanish and in English. Beyond the fact that we knew we had a limited budget, we didn’t know much else about the whole undertaking. That’s all right, we (or Maria most likely), had the confidence that everything would be fine one way or the other. We plunged ahead and made all of the arrangements we could.

The site of the church was an easy decision. Iris lived around the corner from the Catholic Church that just happened to have the same name as the church in Colombia where Maria was baptized: it was perfect! In addition, her uncle was a deacon, so he would be able to be part of the ceremony: again a perfect fit! We found a reasonably priced restaurant with a large room for parties that wasn’t too far from the church. Maria knew exactly how she wanted to decorate, so we found the materials needed to make it look the way she wanted. Finally, we found a reasonably priced location in Mazatlán, México, were we could go for our honeymoon. Everything seemed to be working out fine.

As the day arrived, my friends put together a bachelor party, while Maria’s sisters put together a bachelorette party. I don’t remember too much about my party. It was at my sister’s boyfriend’s father’s house outside of Lodi. We had some drinks, watched a few movies and then I fell asleep. I woke in the morning to find that my bestman, Tony, had generously painted my fingernails and toe nails a bright red for me. What a great friend!

Finally, the day was getting closer. We finished a practice run, and I drove back to Stockton, while Maria stayed with her family. I found out later that between her hair and her makeup, Maria didn’t sleep much at all that night. I didn’t sleep much either, mostly because Tony, Ron and my sister’s boyfriend were up partying all night getting stoned. It was the most important day of my life and all of my supposed support was getting stoned.

The next morning, they were still in the same shape. They weren’t much help at all for me and my nerves. I was getting married, and a lot of people were going to be there to watch me do it. There were people from my family including all of the aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. In addition, all of Maria’s family and family friends were there. On top of that, all of our friends were there also. I had never been so nervous in my life and my stoned friends weren’t helping at all. Even worse, I couldn’t relieve my stress talking with Maria. It was our wedding day; I couldn’t even see her until the moment of the wedding.

We got to Modesto to the apartment complex where Iris lived. Luckily it was the same complex where her brother, Dario, and mother lived. That allowed those that could, the opportunity to go and see Maria, while those of us who couldn’t (me) had a place to go. My friends abandoned me to see Maria and continue their partying. Dario left to be with Iris and the others in their final preparations as well. That left me alone with Maria’s grandmother.

There I was alone with Maria’s grandmother! It wouldn’t have been so bad except for two small details: 1) Maria’s grandmother had never learned English, having come to the United States very late in her life. What was probably worse than that, however, was 2) she was suffering from the advanced effects of Alzheimer’s disease. By that point in the development of the disease, she sort of got around in a walker and was able to speak very little. What little she did say, according to Maria, didn’t always make sense.

“Necesito fríjoles para el inodoro,” she would announce asking for beans to put into the toilet.

“Mira ese niñito negro travieso,” she would say pointing to her dog, asking the listener to look at the little, black boy misbehaving.

What could I do? I didn’t speak enough Spanish to say anything to her. What was I going to say, “Mamacita, cosa rica!”? I stood over the chair where she was seated, looking around to see if anyone was in the apartment.

“¡Maravilloso!” I heard coming from her mouth.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“¡Maravilloso!”

“Oh boy! What does ma rah bee joe sew mean? Uh. ¿Cómo está Usted?” At least I knew how to ask how she was, but that didn’t help at all. All she did was keep repeating the “Maravilloso” thing, whatever that was. This wasn’t what I needed right now. I was as nervous as hell and now I had to figure out “maravilloso.” Where was everyone?

It wasn’t for another 20 minutes before Dario finally returned. He laughed when I tried to explain what she kept saying to me.

“It means marvelous,” he said. “She must like how you look.”

I didn’t exactly want to know that Maria’s grandmother thought that I looked marvelous, but at least the laughter and the presence of someone who could speak English to me helped to relax my nerves. Luckily, from there, there weren’t too many moments to get nervous.

As Maria had known, the wedding went off without too many hitches. I almost passed out seeing Maria all dressed up. She was the most beautiful thing that I had seen in my life! Luckily, I was standing next to the front pew, so I was able to keep my balance. The ceremony and the reception went off very well considering that too very inexperienced people put it together. Yes, the ceremony was a little long because of the two languages, but I didn’t see anyone walking out or falling asleep. Yes, the amount of food wasn’t quite enough and Maria and I didn’t end up eating.: we were too concerned about getting everyone else fed. Yes, the bar tab ended being higher than we had budgeted because my brother and Dario kept asking for more beer. Yes, all of that happened, but it was still the highlight of my life being able to profess publicly my love for Maria and promise myself to her for the rest of our lives. Besides, we were able to prove that two young, inexperienced and poor people were able to have a rather nice wedding without too many complications.

Chapter 3: Class Gives me some Culture

After spending two years at UC Berkeley, and living together for a good portion of that time, Maria and I decided that it was time to stop playing around and get married. We took a year off from Berkeley, got married, and then worked on changing our majors while taking some classes. Maria had decided that the hard science major of chemistry was not what she really wanted to study after all; while I made my shift from math to psychology.

The easiest place for us to make these transitions was at the local junior college, San Joaquin Delta College. I took advantage of the classes being offered and took a basic and then a Conversational Spanish class. The basic class was very simple, but did give me a grasp on the grammatical side of Spanish. The Conversational Spanish was what had the greatest impact on me, however. It was taught by Roberto Vallejo.

Mr. Vallejo took his job extremely seriously and loved what he was doing. His view was that you could not have a decent conversation without understanding the culture of the language that you were learning. He taught the class at a level above what most of the other classes at the junior college, but he saw his role as that of sort of a Pied Piper. He would pull his students, many of which were of Mexican background and whose parents had little education, up to a university level. He would push them, but in an enjoyable manner. Having already been at the university level, it was a nice continuation for me especially when many of the other classes I took reminded me of the classes that I would sleep through in high school. I thoroughly looked forward to his classes every day.

We would read a selection from a novel or a play, work out what the work meant and then discuss it and its impact on society, particularly for the Latinos within the US. There was also the opportunity to earn extra credit points by transcribing the lyrics to songs on cassettes that Mr. Vallejo would lend us. It was my first experience with the music and art of any country other than the United States.

Anyone who thinks that transcribing music is easy, doesn’t remember singing wrong song lyrics at the top of their lungs and getting embarrassed. I swore for years that the Rolling Stones had a big hit called, “Don’t leave your pizza burning” and not because I worked as a delivery driver for Dominoes. I have heard quite a few people singing about “butter dreams” instead of “life is but a dream” in “Row, row, row your boat.” Words are broken up differently in music than how it is while speaking, because you need to match with the music. Understanding lyrics, especially in a second language, is a difficult task. This was more complicated by the fact that Mr. Vallejo did not choose his cassettes based on the ease of transcription, but on the fact that he liked the music.

The best part of all the transcribing was the fact that I began to listen to, and like, the music in Spanish that Maria liked. We had one other thing to share as well, but it wasn’t positive for me. Now, she could make fun of the way I sang songs in Spanish, like I did when she tried to sing in English.

Mr. Vallejo challenged everyone to be precise in our writing as well. One of the simplest aspects of Spanish is that it is phonetic: each letter has one and only one corresponding sound. Unlike English where the same letter can be associated with different sounds (check the e’s in this sentence for an easy example), the sounds never change in Spanish. One of the most difficult aspects for many Spanish speakers who do not have a relatively high level of education has to do with accent marks. Accent marks in Spanish, mark where the pronunciation no longer follows the given rules. Once you learn the rules, any word pronounced differently would need an accent mark to show that difference. It would seem simple enough, but again it seems to be the easiest thing for people writing Spanish to forget about. Mr. Vallejo did not let us forget about accent marks at all.

“Are you speaking English or crotches?” he would ask.

The plural of crotch, crotches, is spelled ingles in Spanish. The first vowel is stressed (i.e. IN-glays). English, in Spanish, is spelled inglés with an accent mark because the second vowel is stressed (i.e. in-GLAYS). The small difference in writing is quite large in meaning, since I don’t know too many people who speak crotches. Mr. Vallejo would take 5 points off for every mistake with an accent mark. Unless we were writing an essay, each sentence was worth only 10, so a sentence needing only 3 accents marks could leave you in the negative, not a good place to be. I don’t know too many former students that don’t know how to place accent marks correctly.

One of the last assignments during the semester was one where we had to read a selection from an author and then enter into a discussion with others in the classroom. The trick was that we had to take upon the characteristics that the authors portrayed in their writing. We had to hold the discussion as if we were the authors themselves. This was a challenging task for many of the students, since most of us had never done anything similar before. As usual, Mr. Vallejo did not let us off the hook easily.

I had been assigned Octavio Paz. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Mr. Vallejo had done his doctoral dissertation with the nobel prize winning Mexican author while a student the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He knew Paz better than most people in the US, and better than most in Mexico as well. I read a brief essay written by Paz and went to class expecting to easily discuss with the other students.

“What do you think about how young women dress today?” asked Mr. Vallejo.

“What?!” was my response. Nothing along those lines appeared in what I had read.

“What do you think about how young women dress today?” he asked. “How about the way that they pluck their eyebrows? How about all the time they put into fixing their hair.”

One of the girls in the class with finely plucked eyebrows and heavily gelled hair, combed upwards in the style of the time (looking similar to a peacock’s tail), blushed.

I had no idea how to answer. The short essay that I read didn’t talk about anything remotely related to hair styles or plucking eyebrows. Luckily Mr. Vallejo saved me from getting too embarrassed, “What about you, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz? What do you think about the fashion styles of today?” By asking around the room, we saw that none of us were prepared for the type of discussions that Mr. Vallejo was pushing us towards. After class, I asked him for a more appropriate title to read.

“If you want to know and understand Octavio Paz, you need to read ‘The Labyrinth of Solitude.’” he suggested. “It is a little complicated to read in Spanish, but you can read the English translation and get the gist of what he would think.”

I was fascinated by reading “The Labyrinth of Solitude.” In the book, Paz talks about how he found out what it meant to be a Mexican by coming to the United States during the 50s and watching how the immigrants and their styles changed in the new country. At that time, the pachuco fashion with zuit suits and hats was what the Mexican males wore. The styles in Mexico were very different, but here it was something that allowed them to express their difference within the larger American culture. Paz wrote that he saw the true reflection of “mexicanism” in the reaction of the immigrants to their new surroundings. It was as if they were more Mexican by being outside of Mexico than they were by staying in it.

Paz spoke an awful lot as well about masks. He wasn’t referring to literal masks, but emotional or psychological ones that many people wear based on with whom are they are interacting. Appearance was important, and you have to maintain different appearances with different people. Paz’s take was that some people had so many masks that they had forgotten their own true identity: hiding under multiple layers of masks.

I had seen similar things to what was described in “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” but it just seemed “strange” to me, something not from the US. Here was a Nobel laureate author giving a rationale behind the creation of the “mask.” It wasn’t that people were being fake, they were merely continuing cultural actions in a completely new arena, a new country. How true this interpretation was to some of the actions of la familia, it stopped me from seeing some of their actions as “strange” and see them more as natural reactions based on their experiences.

Chapter 2: That's Just the Way Iris Is

As we began to spend more and more time together, we would walk to different places in the neighborhood. Maria was a little embarrassed walking with me since I am about 14 inches taller than she is. We would walk hand in hand: me in the gutter and Maria on the sidewalk. I felt a little strange at first walking in the gutter, but I would have done anything to be close to Maria.

She also didn’t want anyone at school to find out that we were going out, yet. We would be boyfriend and girlfriend. All of the neighborhood would know. But no one at school would know. I could walk near her in the hallways, but I couldn’t hold her hand. That would change eventually, but for the rest of our junior year, not even our friends knew that we were “going out.”

As time went on, we continued to get closer and closer going on dates, to dances to dinners and then to parties. I had grown up the first part of my life immersed within my father’s large family (11 brothers and sisters), but I had no idea how close Maria’s family was. I know now that most Latina families are extremely close, but at that point in my life, I knew very little about Latinos. I still used the racial slurs “spic” or “beaner” to refer to some of the Latinos at school. What a change! About 12 years later, when I was a teacher, I would be accused of being a racist since, according to the accuser, I didn’t “include white students with all of the activities.” I guess that the accuser forgot that I didn’t have any “white” students at the time.

Maria and I would go out to the movies, to dances, to eat, and other “normal” dates, but most of the time we would go to an “event” with her family. “Event” has to be the best way to describe the get-togethers because it seemed like any excuse at all was fair. We went to the normal holiday get-togethers and birthdays, but we also went to a birthday celebration for a man who had died 25 years earlier. We got together for religious holidays, American holidays, Colombian holidays, you-name-it holidays. And it was always the same people: Maria’s grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, mother and sisters.

The “events” were always filled with heated discussions amongst the adults and simple conversations amongst the kids, because of their ages. Unfortunately, from my perspective, I was always left out of the animated discussions since these were held in Spanish. The only ones at the parties that spoke in English were the kids. It isn’t as if the adults weren’t able to speak English. All of them were able to speak English to different degrees of fluency, and you could hold an intelligent conversation with each of them in English. They just didn’t see the reason to speak in English since everyone else with whom they were talking spoke Spanish much more fluently.

The story that I tell people now when I’m asked how I am able to speak fluent Spanish includes these “events.” I had the distinct motivation to learn what it was that the adults were talking about since talking with “snotty-nosed kids,” who were at least 10 years younger than I, was not exactly fun. Even Maria was more interested in the adult conversations. The conclusion of that story is that we still get together with the same families (not as often unfortunately, and many of the participants are no longer present), and the animated conversations amongst the “adults” is exactly the same as it was 24 years ago. I don’t mean that they are as animated as they were; I mean that the conversations are exactly the same. Now I talk with the now “snotty-nosed” adults, because I am not as interested in the “adult” conversations in which I can now understand and take part.

The family member with whom I have the best relationship and the one that has had the biggest impact on me (other than Maria) has to be my mother-in-law. There is a deceptive charm about Iris that is irresistible. She seems to be this unassuming, laid back individual, but once you get past her exterior you see that she is a dynamo. She has never-ending energy to talk to you about any subject imaginable and has very defined understanding about each and every subject. There is no gray in Iris’ conception of the world; everything is black or white.
Iris’s sense of humor is incredible. Actually, between their mother and father, I amazed that at least one of Maria and her sisters is not a professional comedian. It is not as if Iris likes to tell jokes, she normally doesn’t do that very well, but once she starts relating a story or an experience that she had, you and everyone else who is listening has side aches from the uncontrolled laughter.

There was one occasion when Iris got braces to straighten out a few teeth that had come in crooked. She had gone through the problem of regular dentist appointment for the referral to the orthodontist, multiple appointments with the orthodontists and the placement of the braces and rubber bands. On the same afternoon after the last appointment, she started having a few aches and pains. She put up with them for a little while, but finally took out the rubber bands and wires herself. The pain was too much for her. Her explanation as she threw away the last rubber band was, “Those that love me better learn to do so with crooked teeth and all.”

I remember the first Spanish that I learned, and it was Iris who taught it to me. I had been around the family enough for Iris to realize that Maria and I were pretty serious. I knew the basic Spanish that you can learn from television “adios,” “buenos dias,” etc. But I was far from being able to have an extended conversation in Spanish. We were in a park waiting for a bus when Iris asked me if I wanted to learn some Spanish. Of course I was interested! I wanted to be able to communicate better and impress Maria at the same time. Maria was a little away from us, so she had no idea what it was that her mother was teaching me.

“This is important Spanish. You need to learn: ‘Mamacita, ¡cosa rica!’”

I had no idea what in the world Iris had said. I heard something that sounded like mother, but I had no idea what it could possibly mean. “Can you say it again?” I asked.

“Mamacita, ¡cosa rica!”

Each word had a very precise intonation. The first word, “Mamacita” was in a deep tone, pronounced slow and drawn out. It was more like “mah mah SEEEEtah” spoken by a football player.

“What does that mah mah seeetah mean?” I asked, not wanting to get into trouble for saying something that I didn’t know the meaning.

“Mamacita, it means lady, like beautiful lady,” Iris explained. “But you have to pronounce it ‘mah mah SEEEtah.’” Again, the low tone and drawn out sound emphasizing the “see” portion.

“Mah mah ZEEEtah,” I managed.

“Perfecto! Now say ‘cosa rrrrrrrrrrrica.’”

In Spanish there is a difference between a single r in the middle of a word and the r at the beginning or the double r in the middle. In linguistics, I learned that it was called the trilled r. It is definitely not something that exists in English. Many English speakers have a very difficult time being able to roll their tongue to be able to pronounce it correctly. Somehow, I was able to manage a “cosa rica” but I’m sure that it sounded to Iris more like “cosa weekah,” because she started to laugh.

“No, you need to roll the r. Make it sound like a tiger growling.”

“Cosa rrrrrrrrrreeekah.”

“¡Eso! Now put that together with the mah mah SEEEEtah: Mamacita, ¡cosa rica!”

“Mah mah ZEEEtah, Cosa rrrrrrrrrreeekah.”

Again a laugh, but she answered, “Good! Now put some emphasis.”

“But what am I saying?”

“You’re saying ‘Lady, you look nice!’”

“Seriously?” I checked with one of Maria’s sisters just to make sure and then tried out my new Spanish with Maria: “Mamacita, ¡cosa rica!”

For those of you that don’t speak Spanish, Iris was literally correct in saying that what she had taught me meant “Lady, you look nice!” In going along with the rest of her personality however, what she had taught me to tell her daughter was what construction workers would yell out at a beautiful young lady walking by. Literally, “mamacita, ¡cosa rica!” especially the way that Iris taught me to say it with low tones and long and drawn out, meant more a long the lines of “Baby, you look good enough to eat!” since “cosa rica” is literally “yummy thing.” It is just another example of the humor that permeates my mother-in-law at all times. That was and how Iris is. It was also my first step in learning Spanish.

Chapter 1: The Beginnings

After so many years, it is hard to figure out exactly where to start. There are so many twists and turns along the road that who is to say which ones were mistakes and which were the right ones to get here where we are today? I guess that the best isn’t trying to determine which route was the best, but rather to take you back to the beginning and show you the path as I remember it. That way, you can determine where the wrong turns and the right ones are.

It all started, I guess, back in the early 80s. My family had just moved back to California after living in Washington (the state, not the District of Columbia) for 6 years. I wasn’t too thrilled with the move, but at the same time 1) I hadn’t wanted to move to Washington 6 years earlier, and 2) at least I wasn’t in my last year of high school like my older brother, Ron.

That had to be the worst, moving right before your senior year: all of your friends and the things you knew being left behind. Looking back however, maybe that is exactly why we were moving back. My parents at the time had said it was for “the ability to start a business,” but it might have had more to do with the troubles my brother seemed to find himself in on a regular basis. He had gotten mixed up with the “wrong” crowd: beginning to use drugs and “getting in trouble.” There’s no need to go into those details too much; this story isn’t about that portion of my life, but rather how that period got me to where I am now, 25 years later.

We came back to Central California to live in Stockton, a few miles south of where I was born and where my father’s family lived. How strange, now that I think about it, we moved to Washington to be closer to my maternal grandmother who had moved there and to give my father an opportunity to do something different than what he was doing as a cabinet maker in California. We moved back to California, after creating somewhat of a gap after so many years away from his family, to be closer to his family again and to give him an opportunity to do something different from the life as a cabinet maker that he had continued in Washington state. Ironic, isn’t it? The two most ironic parts is that 1) those moves seemed to be what made me feel less part of my own family and 2) many years past the time when he should be doing such labor intensive work, my father continues to be a cabinet maker.

Don’t get me wrong, my father does a fantastic job at what he does. It was his constant work on cabinets or something made out of wood that has left me even today, years later, with a feeling of nostalgia any time that I smell sawdust. He is one of those “old school” workers who really take pride in the quality of his work, and it shows. I have things that he made all over my houses with which people are always impressed. Plus, he never has to look for work; people search him out to ask him to do work for them. He always has more requests than he has time to complete. Besides, even though it is labor intensive work, he is truly an artist at what he does. The thing is: he still works longer and harder hours than he ever should at this point in his life. Again, that is another story all unto itself.

When we moved back, we were living in North Stockton in a relatively new housing development. It was the first house that I had lived in for quite a few years that my father had not built. This was the 7th time in my 15 years that we had moved. This movement and always being the new kid in class had a lot to do with making the personality that I had, at least the outward one. I had the reputation of being the class clown. This reputation had gotten me into trouble a few times throughout my life, but never anything serious. I was always too studious to get into serious problems. I prided myself on being able to do math quicker than just about anyone in class and was constantly reading and writing as I was growing up.

I remember starting in 3rd grade to write stories about each of my friends, and turning their qualities, as I saw them, into superhuman powers. The fastest kid in class became a Flash Gordon, running around the hospital in lightening quick time as soon as he was born. The kid that liked science became the 3 year old mad scientist who created robots that began to destroy the world; until he was able to come up with a new invention to stop them. That was my escape from always feeling out of place with everyone else that had known each other for years. I would go off into my own worlds.

Living in North Stockton, meant that we lived within Lodi Unified School District. Why Lodi Unified had decided to incorporate land that was 15 miles south of Lodi still surprises me, even though I worked within the school district for two years. At that time, there were two high schools within Lodi Unified, both of which would require the ride into Lodi either in a car or by bus. We were given the opportunity to choose which high school we wished to attend. My brother and I both chose Lodi High. I’m not sure why Ron chose Lodi High, but I knew that I wanted to go to school where some of my friends from 6 years earlier were attending. My sister, who was beginning a rebellious period in her life, chose to go to Tokay High instead just to be different. Little did I realize at the time, that my decision to go to Lodi High was going to be so critical in the determination of what has continued to be my life. At the time, it didn’t seem like much: go to a high school where there are some people you already know or be a new person once again. It didn’t seem like much of a decision.

Life began its normal routine: get up, shower, eat, ride with Ron to school, ride with Ron to go home again: nothing out of the ordinary. I ended up taking all of the honors classes: trigonometry for math (even though everyone else in the class was a year older), Honors English, chemistry, physics, etc. I remember wanting to be in the band since I had enjoyed being in the marching band in junior high, but it didn’t fit into my schedule. Ron was able to continue being part of it, but he had been in the band all throughout high school. Music was the love of his life.

I can remember riding with Ron every morning to school. If he wasn’t playing music, he was listening to it. I can remember listening to a lot of Queen, AC/DC, Van Halen and Pink Floyd on the drives from Stockton to Lodi. I wasn’t driving yet, since I didn’t turn 16 until later in the year. Then the change happened: Ron was going with the band on some sort of trip, and I was going to have to ride the bus into Lodi. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, that seemingly simple event was going to change my life completely. I never rode with my brother again to school.

Maria had come to the United States from Colombia when she was 14. The situation that she was living in there had forced Maria to grow up a lot faster than most people. Her father was an alcoholic with the bad habit of coming home to create a situation of domestic violence. Maria had on many occasions had to stand up to the violence to protect her mother. She had also been instrumental on helping her mother put together their escape to the United States to live with her mother’s family in California. None of that situation was something that a young girl should have to go through, but it all allowed Maria to become the self-assured and confident woman that she is today.

That self-assurance and confidence was needed once she arrived in the United States with the rest of her family. The four of them arrived to Modesto where her mother’s family lived. They arrived with little more than the individual bags that they carried and the clothes on their backs. The drive from the airport in San Francisco to Modesto seemed eternal as Maria looked out into the darkness of the unfamiliar country. The family had decided, since none of them could support the four of them together, each would be going to a different household: Maria’s mother with her sister, Gloria; the middle sister, Ximena, with Alfa, another aunt, and her husband Tom; the youngest sister, Sonia, with Irma, another aunt; while Maria would be housed with her grandmother and uncle, Dario.

What a struggle! Not only were they now living in an unfamiliar country, but they were separated for the first times in their lives. It was very difficult for each of them, especially Maria. In Colombia, most households, unless they are very poor, have a live-in maid who cooks and cleans. Maria’s uncle and grandmother were very used to that type of situation. With a young lady now living in their household, they naturally expected that she would take that role, cooking and cleaning for them. The problem was that since Maria had grown up in a similar household, she had no idea how to cook. She had to spend what little free time she had between school and homework, reading through recipe books trying to figure out how to cook something that they would accept. That is far from an easy task for someone who had never had to step foot in the kitchen before except to ask for something.

Maria’s struggles continued at school. Because she had just arrived to the US, the school counselors assumed that she did not have enough English to be successful. Maria had been in a bilingual English-Spanish school run by British teachers while in Colombia, so while she did have an accent, she was able to speak, read and write English quite well. The classes that she was assigned to, however, were for the lowest level English Learners reviewing complicated subjects like “This is a pencil. Can you say pencil? Pen . . . cil!” Maria had to ask to be reassessed, to get into the highest, college bound classes. After each test, they would put her in a slightly higher class, where again she would have to push for another reassessment. Luckily, her self confidence allowed her to continue to push until she was finally able to get into the most advanced classes. She would have to repeat this same scenario at each of the four high schools that she attended in the United States.

Maria didn’t keep her self-confidence to herself. When she found out that her sister, Ximena, had been placed in 4th grade because of her family’s perception of her English instead of 7th grade, where she should have been because of her age, she found a solution. She took the morning off from school, found out which school Ximena was attending and walked there with her mother in order to change her to another school.

“I’m here because my mother doesn’t speak English,” Maria told the school secretary. “My sister was put in the wrong school on accident. She is 12 years old and should be in 7th grade.”

The school secretary was not sure if she believed a 14-year-old, but the proof of Ximena’s age left her no option. She called Ximena out of class, explained to Maria where the middle school was and left the three of them to walk to the new school. Upon arriving at the middle school, Maria merely told the school that they had just arrived from another country and she was enrolling her sister. She did not bother to tell them about the elementary school where her family had already enrolled Ximena.

I know of very few 14-year-olds who would have concerned themselves with their younger sibling, let alone to go through what Maria did to get her sister in the right class. That wasn’t the last time that she would do something amazing to get what was needed for herself and her family.

The bus stop was filled with a lot of people. There were about 20 Lodi High students being picked up. Like most high school students, there was a lot of talking. Most of the kids had known each other for a while, since they were neighbors and rode the bus to and from school every day. I was the new one. I stood a little off to myself because I didn’t know anyone in the group. That didn’t seem to matter to anyone; they were all busy talking with their groups. The bus pulled up and everyone piled inside. I found a seat to myself, but before too many stops the bus began to fill up. I didn’t talk much on that first day riding the bus, but my lifelong experiences of being the new student all the time wouldn’t keep me quiet for too long.

Maria arrived in the middle of the school year. It was already her fourth school in three years, after spending her first 12 (including preschool) in the same school with almost all of the same friends. That was another drastic change, but nothing compared to the change of coming to a new, unknown country. Like in all of the schools in which she had entered in the US, she had to fight to get into the more advanced classes. The most difficult battle, this time, came from the English teacher, Mr. Maclise. Maria knew that she wanted to get into college; and to make that happen, she would need Honors English. Mr. Maclise listened to Maria speak a little and was sure that she would not be able to be successful in his class. He didn’t know her very well.

“You’re way behind,” he told her. “If you can finish a book report to catch up with the rest of the class, I’ll let you in.”

“No problema,” thought Maria. “I’ll finish this little report and he’ll let me in.”

“Unfortunately, this is the last book available. All of the others have been taken already.”

Maclise showed her a 600 page book. On top of that, the report was due in four days. Maria would only have the weekend to be able to finish the report. Like she had done so many times before, Maria accepted the challenge and started to read and sum up the book when she got home. She had to spend the entire weekend, locked up in her room reading the book with a dictionary at her side, struggling to comprehend the long text. Then, she had to try to sum up the entire thing in a report. It was an incredible undertaking--difficult if not impossible for most native speakers of English. Imagine how difficult that it must have been for someone who had just arrived in the US a mere three years earlier! I’m sure that the majority of the class, including myself, would not have been up to the challenge, but Maria sure was.

On Monday, she met with Mr. Maclise before school in order to turn the report into him. He was incredulous! He didn’t think that there was any way that this young lady could possibly finish reading the book, let alone write a report to the high standards that he was reading. Who would have believed it? But there was the prove, in his hands! What could he say? He had to let her into the class.

When the time to go to English arrived, Maria was really excited. With such a rigorous test to get in, this must be a top notch class. She expected to find a classroom full of anxious learners dedicated to intelligent, high-level discussions of literature. What she found was far from that. What she found was, unfortunately, very typical for public high schools, even in honors classes. Most of the students, me included, were very intelligent, but we didn’t always use that capacity wisely. To Maria it appeared that we were wasting all of our time playing around and being disrespectful to the teacher. There didn’t appear to be much time dedicated to real learning. It wasn’t what she wanted to see at all. And even less, she didn’t want to see a boy that seemed to always be in the middle of the jokes and wasted time. Why would she want to see a class clown like me?

On about the 3rd day of riding the bus, I noticed that one of the girls getting on at the same stop was in my Honors English class. I hadn’t noticed her before since she was very quiet, and I was one of the more rambunctious ones in class. I’m not sure what it was that made me continue to notice her: maybe it was her eyes, her smile or the seemingly exotic look about her. Either way, by the end of the week she was all that I could think about. There she was in my English class, obviously intelligent, incredibly interesting, and I didn’t even know her name. On top of that, Ron would be back on Monday to continue driving me to school. I couldn’t let that happen! I had to find out more about her. I found a way to sit close to her on the bus, and began to talk with her and her friend, Nina, a Pakistani girl that lived close to us.

After coming back from the bus tip, I decided that Ron was going to have to drive to school by himself. There was no way that I was going to stop riding the bus. Not now that it had gotten interesting. Don’t get me wrong; it is not exactly that I was a lady’s man. I hadn’t even had a real girlfriend before. There was one in Washington that I secretly liked and left poetry in her locker, but she didn’t even know who I was until right before we moved back to California. I was not exactly “experienced with the women.”

I was finally able to convince my parents to continue allowing me to ride the bus every morning, “As long as you make it home everyday, it is the same to us.” It wasn’t difficult to find her name; all you had to do was listen, while others were talking to her either at the bus stop, on the bus or in class. It was “Maria,” a seemingly simple name, for someone who turned out to be anything but simple. She had the cutest accent. Obviously, she was fluent in English or she wouldn’t be able to make it into the Honors English class, but it wasn’t for a while before I was able to find out why she had an accent.

I found a way to sit close to Maria every morning and every afternoon. And we talked about everything. I loved being able to talk with her about class, about other kids, about anything. It wasn’t until later that she told me that these conversations were what attracted her to me. I wasn’t her “type” since she had only gone out with Mediterranean looking guys before (dark hair, hairy, muscular), but I was different. In comparison to this type who spoke a lot about themselves, I listened and showed interest into what others, including Maria, had to say.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only guy on the bus talking with her. It wasn’t as if we were in an isolated location. We were in a crowded bus, full of other kids, some nosier than others. It wasn’t the prime location to start a relationship, even though that is exactly what I was doing.
One of the others that were talking with Maria was a boy named Randy. Randy wasn’t in any of our classes, but did live close to us, getting off the stop before Maria and I did. Randy was a little effeminate, but was a nice enough person. He was never too far from where Maria was sitting, and so was part of some of our conversations. On April 29th, close to the end of the school year, talk turned to swimming.

“Hey, there is a pool close to my house,” invited Randy. “Why don’t you come over and we swim for a while this afternoon?”

“That sounds like fun,” Maria responded, “but I would have to take my sister. Is that all right?”

“No problem. Who else is coming?”

“I’ll be there,” I added. “How do we get there?”

Randy tried to explain how to get to the community pool, but he wasn’t the greatest at giving directions. “Why don’t we just meet somewhere, and I’ll show you how to get there,” he said finally.

“Great! Where do we meet?” I asked.

“Well, Maria’s house seems to be about halfway between all of the others. Why don’t we meet there?”

“Ok,” we all responded.

Boy, was I nervous! Not only was I going to be able to find out exactly where Maria lived, but I was going to be able to spend some time in a pool with her. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. At the same time, I couldn’t be too overanxious. That is definitely not a good way to impress a girl.

Ok, what did I need? I had to have my swimming trunks, a towel, and a change of clothes. Then I needed my bike to be able to get to where we were going. Anything else? I hoped upon hope that I wasn’t forgetting anything important, and then let my mom know that I was going to visit a guy that had a pool. She didn’t need to know anything about any girls being involved. And away I went.

I got to Maria’s house in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately, Randy was already there. And he didn’t show up riding a bike. He had a motor scooter. That was quite an upgrade from my rickety, old bike. That’s OK. At least we were all still going together. But how to get there? Randy was going to take the lead on his scooter; and I was to follow, as well as I could, on my bike. Maria would go with one of us, while her nine-year-old little sister, Sonia, would ride with the other. My heart sank when Maria announced, “I’ll ride with Randy, and Sonia can ride with Rick.”

All my excitement about being able to spend the time with Maria, and I was regulated to pedaling her little sister around. Not exactly what I had in mind. Maybe she wasn’t meant for me after all. Maybe she liked Randy more. Maybe I was just wasting my time.

I sat Sonia on my handlebars and tried to keep up with Randy and his motor scooter. That would be the worst: to get lost while carrying this little girl around on my handlebars. Sonia and I talked a little bit, but there is not much that a high school boy and an elementary school girl have in common. In the meantime, I pedaled as hard as I could, careful to watch where and how Maria put her arms around Randy in order to not fall off.

Finally, we arrived at the pool. We swam, splashed, and talked for quite a while. Finally, Maria got out of the water and lay down by the side of the pool. Randy was playing ball with Sonia, so I took the opportunity to sit next to Maria to talk. I was sure that my legs were shaking as I did so. There was a slight breeze that blew over us as we were there, Maria lying on her stomach and me sitting next to her, as nervous as I could be. My heart raced a million miles per hour as we chatted. It only accelerated more when Maria said, “I’m chilly.” What else could I do? She was cold. I had to put my arm around her to warm her up with my towel. I had won out after all.

It wasn’t until about 15 years later that I learned that Maria wasn’t really cold, she just wanted me to put my arm around her. I was a little mad when I first found out, but I guess that it was probably better off that way. I was way too nervous and inexperienced to know how to make a move. If she hadn’t pushed me that first time, I probably would have done nothing more that keep talking with her.

Going back to Maria’s house, Maria, Sonia and I walked together while Randy stayed at his house, across the street from the pool. I got even more time to spend with Maria once we got back to her house. Sonia went inside and Maria and I sat on the front porch talking. I’m not sure how long we spent talking, but it seemed like an eternity. I had to say goodbye finally because I had to get home before I got in trouble. But I knew that Maria liked me. Maybe almost as much as I liked her. I felt like I was soaring as I rode my bike home! MARIA LIKED ME!