vaga #1/7 English a

bricks stacked haphazardly because that's how I started my English, piling up pieces of information, putting it side by side, always half uncertain, that's why it is not perfectly lined up

Part VII

Today my topic will be English since I have always moved around …….do not take it for granted that I manage to speak English easily, not the way the young travellers talk comfortably. Not me, I speak it fluently, with my accent but I never feel that it is 100% accurate, I have many gaps in my speech, I learned English at the age of 30 ON THE STREET, never formally. When I went to live in the US at the end of the ‘80s I had to work, yes or yes, I only had 50 dollars ...

  …………………………hahaha. NO ENGLISH AT ALL ........................

I found an ad for a job to sell furniture, I went to the interview ... ... I was accompanied by my ex, who spoke perfect English. At the beginning of the interview in an informal office, he looked at me, , saw the urgency and ended up sitting with us. The interview ended with him doing all the talking.  he has an Italian surname and is a charming person, it turned out that the owner was the grandson of an Italian immigrant and that was why he became interested in us, He said that his grandfather arrived the same way and that he should give another immigrant a chance …… And Italian is better…  only his last name is Italian, he is not. Then he asked me to go to do a lie detector test at first and if I passed it, I would have the job. I found out that the lie detector test was necessary because the last employee used drugs and it hurt the company…...

  !!! LIE DETECTOR TEST !!! …… I couldn't believe it …….I was led towards a man in a private house, a small room with machines that I have never seen before, ……...I sat down where they told me to and they put sensors on me… .. !! what a strange feeling ……… !!! First question with sensors on ...

       …. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? ...

I did not pass that answer or any of the others either the machines beeped non-stop

I have to clarify that when I arrived in the US about 3 weeks before this....... legally. hahaha with a  "green card" …… .hahaha, I'm legal hahaha. It turns out that to get the "social security" type of identity card, I changed my name. My real name at that time was Maria Eugenia ...... and I decided to put my name down as Mary and  I did not use my Chilean surname, I used the surname, which at that time was my husband’s,  ... ... I wanted to use this for a  total change to my new life. I clarify, Pollo, (Alberto) is not the father of my children, the father is my second husband ... Then again the question

…….WHAT IS YOUR NAME?………

A name that I had never used before and the little machine jumps over and over again, I think he tried to ask other questions but I didn't understand what he was asking, so we rehearsed them before plugging in the sensors ... he checked the machine, the sensors, again and again, rehearsed the answers and ..... nothing, no correct answer, The poor guy no longer knew what else to do, but he was on my side, he knew I was not a liar, it was just the language barrier, he supposed, and then, with nothing more than that, he gave me the paper that stated that everything was fine,  I passed the lie detector test hahaha without any correct answers ... hahaha

They hired me first, to help me as an immigrant, especially as an Italian, hahaha and because I knew French and Spanish. He thought it would help with potential foreign clients. In a year I served 3 Latinos and that was all, Joe, the owner, had a dream that was to have foreign clients… .. but sorry, the furniture is more to the taste of middle-class gringos, it was horrible, no redeemable designs, no pretty tapestries, my poor eyes suffered among so much tackiness.

that's how I was building up my vocabulary; stone after stone, word after word, placed one next to the other, with spaces in between,  not knowing how to put the sentences together, so every day I added one there, another here, in the last photos and the ones below they start coming together, becoming more solid and I was putting new ones on top and I continued like this ........

I went to work the next day, my level of English was: counting up to a hundred, the names of colours and 10 typical phrases ……  the first customer arrived and the other saleswoman was unoccupied… ..pufff I was relieved, but when the moment came to serve the customer I ran to hide in the bathroom ........ and I repeated that over and over again .....it looked as though I had cystitis .... little runs to the bathroom ....... 

They gave me a video where they show you how to sell furniture, how the drawers work, the different types of wood and so on ... I had to study it in my spare time ... Thankfully, I had a lot of free time ... I put the video in and in the first 3 seconds, I couldn’t understand a thing….I hit "rewind" at least a thousand times for the first 3 seconds, ....... I wrote everything on a piece of paper, I had no idea how to write in English, there was no technology that I could copy from the video and take it home to ask Pollo to translate it for me ……. !!! NOP NOP I HAD NOTHING TO COVER MY ARSE, I WAS ON MY OWN. !!! In summary, it was a failure, I  cannot tell you the hundreds of hours I spent watching the videos with almost zero effectiveness. The other thing I did was to write 10 words on a paper every day starting with A, and I memorised them ……... I never got to C…. LOL. how boring.....

I spent a year in this job, Joe took me in, and he watched my back, I had many humiliating moments and the staff from some of the other stores in the chain, annoyed me by making calls passing themselves off as customers, they got me into trouble and screwed me. Joe caught them and they no longer bothered me ... I never had access to money or the cash register, Salespersons 10 years younger than me handled it ... ... it was torture and the other torture, THE FURNITURE ... ... it was horrible, sticks, mirrors with shiny gold and black lacquers… .no pretty tapestries, my poor eyes and my creative soul suffered… ..… .and when I was more adept with my English I had to convince the clients how beautiful they were …… pufff !!! Gonzalo has laughed for years at my story about how to sell mattresses…… 300 coils, 72 springs etc… ..hahaha

the separation from Pollo happened and, I needed a place to live, I needed another job and I needed a car since I rode around on a small motorcycle. Joe lent me money and gave me all the time with the schedules to have two jobs. I worked for him to pay off every last penny. 

I had a day off, and then slowly but surely I got back into art ... ... I no longer remember how and when, but the city council hired me and gave me a "stand" to represent them at the State Fair ….An entire stand for me to do an installation… .and they paid me……. It was to be on public show to thousands of people ……………………… ..my first art job …………………………... How fantastic, I knew I had to keep selling horrible furniture ... ... but I justified it so I could start getting into my art. Even with the tremendous stress of not knowing the language.

At the time I was able to rent a studio and I lived there, I shared with a musician, and I bought a VW Beetle …… ..after the furniture job shift was finished, I went to my home studio to work on art projects that were being offered to me. Carter, my roommate was good company and he helped me with everything,  English, introducing me to friends, putting me in contact with galleries ..... we even did a mega-event together. I did an "installation" with two dancers, who moved in between the installations and he composed the music... The name of the art and the music was "Near the end, there is always a light" it was a success. But at that opening, his ex-girlfriend appeared and they got back together, I had to get out of there, leaving my home and studio … I was back on the street.

Then I got another job in a restaurant, as a hostess…………… ... it was the most humiliating job, the waiters, laughing, did not understand why I was not a waitress, that I could have earned triple the amount... ... there were 25 types of beers on offer, for example, I knew two. And as with everything else, I did not know much ……… .my boss a fat, black guy, unlike Joe who protected me, this guy did everything to humiliate me and give me the damn task of taking the names off the waiting list. That was one of the worst traumas…… I had to take the last name and write them down………. Jonson, where does the H go, ... I don't know, I know that there should be one, but where? The sounds of the vowels confused me, ……. …… .those are some of my worst memories .. but I am a survivor and I ended up giving the paper to the customer to write their names down, end of trauma. Take that, you fat bastard. Then a friend of Carter's suggested a Mexican restaurant where he used to go … GREAT ……. I left both jobs behind and applied as a waitress at the restaurant… .easy….easy… I worked lunch and dinner with them for more than two years, a Columbian was the manager, and we became very close friends, he was an engineer, finally,  there were people to discuss higher-level topics with, not like the rest of my dear fellow waitresses, and cooks. 

With a new studio apartment and alone, it was difficult. But then I participated in a national art contest and I won an Honorable Mention ….hahaha…. PLOP…. ME?  I came fifth out of all the artists in the whole of the US, my first competition. There was always the good along with the bad. I did it in the gallery of the University, the award was made there and Joe, the manager of the restaurant and my new friends, were all present and happy, they were proud to have seen me how I was when I arrived, to be there receiving my National award. Joe broke down and took pictures like crazy …… That work of art opened many doors for me

I mean, I learned English on the street with a very strong Latin accent.

I put this as my last photo because I filled the holes

of the language with my imagination, just like here in Nepal, they put jack shit into the holes to cover the gaps hahaha