Hoosier Prof in Peru

I’m probably dating myself when I say that I grew up treating dictionaries and usage guides as sacred text. If a word was defined on a published page, especially if the cover bore the imprimatur of Webster’s or Oxford, then it must be so. The experts had spoken. When the language high priests Strunk and White said “Omit needless words” and “Do not inject opinion” and “Place yourself in the background,” I tried to line up, obediently.

In the June issue of Iowa Alumni Magazine, Judy Polumbaum, a journalism professor, pays tribute to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style as “kind of a Holy Gospel of American English.” Then she introduces the subject of her profile, who is either a bold truthteller or a false prophet, Arthur Plotnik, Class of 1961 and a longtime editor at the American Library Association. He is the author of Spunk & Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language & Style.

In Spunk & Bite, she says, Plotnik characterizes The Elements of Style as “a decent guide to plain English that offers ‘a quick, authoritarian fix,’ adding that it’s ‘geriatric’—too old-fashioned, prescriptive, and restrained for the rapidly changing hurly-burly of today’s language. His basic message is that, in this age of cyberspace chatter, diversionary distractions, and expressive explosion, writers who want to get past editorial gatekeepers and reach readers must defy convention and even violate rules.”

While I wouldn’t be so quick to put Struck and White out to pasture (what’s wrong with omitting needless words and needless opinion?), there’s no denying that editorial gatekeepers are not nearly so powerful, that language changes quickly and that the best authority may be someone you bump into on the street. The most amazing example of informational power in the hands of the people may be wikipedia, which in only seven years has become one of the largest and generally most trustworthy Web reference sites, built collaboratively by volunteers. By traditional standards, it shouldn’t have worked; but now, for many people, it’s the first stop in research (my daughter and I used it only this week in advance of a test on lunar gravity and tides; the wikipedia explanations were in plainer English than what we found in her textbook). The site is flourishing as a pioneer and as a model, spinning off relatives: Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikiquote.

With the arrival of the first group of students on Friday, we’re getting ready to launch our own collaborative dictionary and usage guide. We have to. In our short time here, we’ve been impressed by the originality of Peruvian Spanish, or castellano. Often, the textbooks and language guides that we’ve brought along down from the States are misleading, or at best, unhelpful.

Example one: For “straight ahead,” a Quick Study cheat sheet from the U.S. says to use “siga derecho” and a textbook here in the office, Puntos de Partida, suggests “todo derecho.” But Peruanos favor “de frente,” as in “Vaya de frente” (Go straight ahead).

Example two: In answering the phone, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Spanish (don’t ask) recommends “Diga” or “Oiga.” As it happens, most people here answer simply, “Alo?”

We have 16 students in the first group. If we have each person contributing at least four entries, we’ll be off and running. Ideas for entries might come from host families or billboards or cobradors (the people who collect your money on a bus or a combi). The appeal is not so much the prospect of arriving at a destination — having a finished guide in hand — as it is the adventure of trying together to understand a language that lives in a certain place and in a certain time, but is always changing. As Goshen College would say, it’s all part of the joy of the journey. Como se dice “joy of the journey” in Peru?

Here in our apartment that doubles as the Peruvian field office for Goshen College, we have a small but growing library. Over the past three summers, students and professors, with suitcases bulging, have left behind books. There’s something touching about browsing through these books, knowing that they were read during periods of incredible learning, and, for some, life-changing experiences. Many of the titles are serious works of literature (Joyce’s Ulysses, all 783 pages of it), but there are also signs of a need to escape (Bombeck’s Family: The Ties that Bind . . . And Gag), and maybe an eagerness to get back to the States (A Place Called Home . . . “As the dim lights of the train station faded, Christine Bennett wondered if she would ever see home again”).

Someone left behind a gem of a book, “Gracias,” by Henri Nouwen, the late Dutch theologian and prolific author. Published in 1983, and with a fourteenth printing in 2005, the book is a journal of his travels in Peru and Bolivia. It was in Lima, Nouwen said, that he came in touch with God’s “option for the poor,” and grew in the conviction that he had to choose that option. His six-month sojourn in Latin America included a stay at a language institute in Bolivia.

During that time, he wrote: “This is my second day of language training, frustrating and exhilarating at the same time. It is frustrating, since I make the same mistakes that I made nine years ago and continue to have the feeling that I should be much more advanced after the many weeks and months I have worked on Spanish in the past.

“There are frequent moments during which I say to myself: ‘I will never master this language.’ But the same experience is also refreshing. I can be a student again. I can spend hours doing simple exercises that often appear as little puzzles, and I can be with other people who go through the same frustrations as I do.”

This captures so well my experience here in Lima, now six weeks old. As classes get underway in Goshen, I find myself grateful to be here in this place where I am a student first, and a professor second. Surprisingly, there’s satisfaction in feeling out of control, in not having answers at the ready, in not knowing how to do things, in not knowing what to say. The other day our doorman was totally flummoxed when I said, “Que tiempo hace?” which is standard textbook Spanish for “How’s the weather?” I blamed my poor accent until I learned that in Peru, one simply asks, “Como esta el clima?”

When we set aside our own competencies, or assumed competencies, Nouwen writes, we get in touch with a part of ourselves that is usually hidden by defenses. We become like children again. We’re free to ask questions. We admit mistakes. We see how much we have in common with others, instead of what we can hold above them. We discover anew, he says, “our vocation to live graceful lives.”

One daughter, Emily, was in the midst of writing spelling-word definitions when her pencil started to shake. Another daughter, Kate, was engrossed in e-mail correspondence at the computer when the desk began tilt. Kate was the first one to figure out what was happening and give it a name, with a yell that resounded through the second-floor apartment: earthquake!

Seconds later we were together in the living room, kneeling on floor and holding onto each other for dear life. For about two minutes we huddled there, amazed and terrified. Windows rattled. The chandelier in the room swung wildly back and forth, like a crazed swing on a playground.

As the bending of the building went on and on, we had plenty of time to think: is this where we should be? should we go to another room? should we run outside? (Karen knew that the best chance of survival in a quake came with staying next to, but not underneath, a large object like a desk or a bed; we made due with a wooden chair).

When the shaking stopped, we looked out the window to see people crowding out on the street. Traffic was at a standstill. Everything was quiet, eerily quiet for Avenida Larco in the early lamplight. We joined the throngs outside, and saw people hugging each other, some laughing with relief, some crying, cell phones in hand but no way to get through (only Skype remained open for calls to the States). We went to the supermarket to buy water, just in case; there were broken bottles and streams of liquid in the aisles.

At first we thought that the damage was no worse than something on that order, as we surveyed our neighborhood. Then AP began reporting many deaths and injuries, especially in cities along the coast south of Lima. As of this evening, the death toll had topped 430, and was still climbing.

The country coordinator and her husband, Celia and Oswaldo, rang the bell about an hour after the quake. It was a great relief to see friends at the door. They couldn’t reach us by phone to make sure that all was well, and so they traveled by bus to check on us; for a while we talked and watched the news. We’re relieved to be safe and hope not to experience another quake, but we’re mindful of the many people who were not so fortunate. We had earlier planned a field trip to several cities hit hard by the quake, and so the students who will join us in two weeks may see some of the devastation firsthand.

Tom Meyers, our director, wrote: “Assuring the safety and security of students is always our first priority. To our knowledge no one connected with our programs has suffered significant losses due to this terrible quake and for that we are extremely grateful. We continue to believe that Goshen College students will be able to get the full benefit from the study-service program in Perú, but we will continue to monitor the situation and keep students, parents and the community informed.”

The behavior was odd, if not suspicious. Two men stand on a street corner, talking. One of them gets in a bus; the other man waits a few minutes and follows in another bus. The first man gets off at the intersection of Arequipa and Aramburu and lingers; a few minutes later the other man gets off his bus at the same intersection. They talk briefly and then walk a few hundred yards to a bank, Banco Continental.

They sit down together and wait to speak with a customer service representative. The first man does all of the talking. He asks what the requirements would be to open a savings account, in U.S. dollars; he asks for a brochure with the terms and conditions. Then they abruptly leave the bank and return to the bus stop; this time they ride together. The man who did all of the talking in the bank now does all of the writing in a notebook.

In the United States, this might be a code orange. In Peru, it’s language school. My Spanish teacher likes to mix book learning with lessons on the street. Recently he had me inquire about the bank account. In days past, he’s watched while I’ve bargained for avocados in the market, and asked for information about enrolling at a university. One class, probably my favorite so far, was spent at the Museum of Art of Lima, speaking in Spanish as we moved from room to room. (Vocabulary for the day included muy impresionante (sounds like the English), abierto para interpretacion (another near cognate) , talla en madera (wood sculpture), estilo unico (unique style). The homework for our next class involves watching the news for an update on the maritime dispute between Chile and Peru, and summarizing as much of it as I can manage to understand.

Not only is he an imaginative teacher, but he instills confidence by speaking slowly and clearly. At the end of a class session I’ll think that I’m well on my way to learning castellano, the Peruvian term for what we in the States call Spanish. But it’s a shaky confidence. It only takes one brief exchange to provide a deflating reality check. It’s happened in the supermarket more than once, when the clerk has quickly asked, for example: “Quiere donar a los ninos?” What was that? Until I learned that supermarkets routinely seek to have change donated to charities for children, I was stumped. So much of understanding is having the vocabulary of a setting and anticipating what is to come. And at large social gatherings, such as the birthday party for a grandfather that I attended last weekend, the conversation, mixing in slang and truncated phrases and insider references, flies right by me.

So here are a few strategies for learning as much of a foreign language as possible over the next year:

1. Read signs aloud as I walk down the street. The practice may draw stares, but it’s worth it.

2. Develop a customized English-Spanish dictionary, with new words and phrases gathered during the day and with special sections (e.g., terms to get along in a kitchen or restaurant).

3. Read the front page of the newspaper every day, with a dictionary at hand.

4. Speak as often as possible, with whomever is available, even when it feels forced: to cab drivers, kiosk venders, store clerks, neighbors.

5. Repeat unfamiliar words two or three times aloud after hearing them used in a conversation.

6. Watch videos, in English with Spanish subtitles.

7 . Study first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

8. Commit useful words and phrases to memory (e.g., quisiera for I would like).

9. Make a pact with my wife to speak only in Spanish once we leave the apartment.

10. Make flash cards in English and Spanish and let the first word be grace.

During a recent run, I was caught off guard when another runner called out, “Como esta?” I automatically responded, “Buenos dias.” I thought: “Wow. What a friendly runner.” This was the first time that anyone had said as much as hello during my morning runs; runners pass runners here without a word or a wave; and I was doubly surprised that this apparent taboo would be broken by a young woman addressing an older man.

Then I quickly realized that I had been leaning against a pole to stretch my legs and she must have thought that here I was, this “older runner” with a receding hairline, probably feeling dizzy or tight in the chest and about to collapse. So as she ran off I called out, “Todo esta bien. Mucha gracias.” My Spanish — or castellano, as Peruvians would say — wasn’t good enough to add: “I’m only 47 years old! If my knees hold up, and I expect they will, and the iliotibial band syndrome doesn’t flare up again, and I don’t expect it will, I may run another marathon, by golly! And besides that, I was stretching before my run!”

For the first two weeks here in Lima, I gave up running. Having run almost every day in recent years, at an easy pace around the grassy athletic field in Goshen, it was a reluctant break with the past. But the only available routes seemed to be on sidewalks along streets where no one else was running. I was already feeling feel conspicuous enough walking around as a newcomer from the States.

Then someone told me there were actually quite a few runners on the sidewalks and promenades along the clifftops that overlook the Pacific. It was a great discovery. I walked about 10 blocks to get to the ocean, and then started running, and soon had plenty of company. For a week I ran the sidewalks that offered glimpses of the water, several hundred feet below and in effect fenced off by a four-lane highway that followed the shoreline. But how to get down to the water’s edge?

As it turns out there are two pathways tucked away at different points along the promenade, both of which have hundreds of steps that wind steeply down to the shore, with a pedestrian bridge at the end that crosses over the highway. The third route is my favorite. Just a few blocks from our apartment is a two-lane cobblestone road that slopes down to the ocean, and, after rounding a curve, offers a magnificant view of the water, framed by a gap in the cliffs and palm trees. If the wind is right, you can see tandem flights of paragliders launching from a spot near the Parque del Amor.

Down at the water, it’s not a gorgeous beach with sand that you could run on barefooted; for that, you’d have to travel north or south out of Lima. Runners have to watch their footing, or risk a twisted ankle on a rock or a sinkhole, but at least you can run on a path of sandy dirt that divides the water and the highway (47-year-old knees are happy for any break from sidewalks!). During one stretch of a few hundred yards, where round stones line the water’s edge, it sounds like soft thunder, as the waves push the rocks forward and they resettle. Draped in fog, the water, with a hint of green amid a swirl of gray and white, is beautiful, in a bleak way.

Here, too, one finds signs of a city divided between the moneyed and the masses. A private resort lays claim to a long stretch of waterfront land along this Playa Costa Verde, with pools, a sauna, a gym, tennis and squash courts, restaurants. From the beach, you can look across the highway to see people with white towels around their shoulders giving stationary bikes and treadmills a workout. Drivers on the expressway have time to admire the facilities as well. The city has placed speed bumps on the highway to allow patrons to walk to the water’s edge when they need some air or want to pick up their car. The speed bumps make sense from a safety standpoint, but it also looks like privilege at work, slowing down thousands of cars so that a few have ease of access.