In high school I was awarded “Excellence in Spanish II” sophomore year followed by “Most Enthusiastic in Spanish III” junior year. I think Excellence meant highest grade and Most Enthusiastic meant Pain in the Cheeks. Mrs. Sweeney awarded them to me, she’s not a native Spanish speaker but she did study abroad in Spain. Mr. R- Roland maybe?- no, Rolfster? don’t recall- taught my Spring semester Spanish before that in 9th grade, but I just moved to Atlanta and jumped in halfway through the school year. I just remember my tummy growling during class as we waited for lunch. I sat next to Josh Smith who is now a professional basketball player. Sometimes he copied off my paper: You’re welcome, Josh. Que le vaya bien.

There are some volunteers who think I can speak Spanish like the Turkish can make rugs, others who know when I mess up and others who are more or less in the same language level with me. But I came into country with my own memory patchwork of learning Spanish. The time I tortillared in Guatemala in 2005 and said “Tortilla Doctor!” every time one broke in my hands, the hard wooden desks of Whitefield Academy and the series “La Catrina” that we watched about Bisabuela, and a semester of Spanish in college before I hung up my hat (I thought forever).

But this is a tribute to all my Spanish classes before I arrived to country. Folks often ask me how long I’ve studied Spanish, and I realize that even though most of it left me behind over the years, it was a lot easier to return to because I had a mental framework.

But Mrs. Van Name was the first to introduce me to Classroom Spanish in 8th grade. Mrs. Van Name was from Venezuela (I think) and married Mr. Van Name and I surely don’t know what her maiden name was but it wasn’t Van Name. Spanish was her first language. I remember Tim Trefzer asking her “How do you ‘say quick like a bunny?’” and Mrs. Van Name said “Rapido cómo..” and everyone laughed. But she scared the poop out of me so I just tried to get by without her getting mad at me. She thought I talked a lot in class and that is preposterous if you ask anyone with whom I went to middle school. I was so shy that I sweat tears and interloped to anyone’s identity with a stronger force field. But somewhere between all that I ignited a love for speaking Spanish. In 10th grade I jived with the curriculum, Paso a Paso, which had cool pictures and made things easy to remember and it wasn’t until two years ago that I finally got rid of those flash cards. I remember we had oral exams where we had to record our answers into a tape recorder in the hallway of the mods. Oh, the good old days.

My friend Marguerite and I made 2 Spanish videos in our house. Of all the zillions of projects we did in high school, those Spanish videos were the most fun.

Then Spanish took an interesting turn when I started Spanish 5 senior year. But I skipped Spanish 4. And that was not the best thing. But our teacher was a native Speaker, Señor Lezcano from Cuba, and he let us listen to songs by Silvio Rodriguez “Ojala.” And I didn’t make it around the sharp turns and quick verbal twists of a native speaker teaching only in Spanish. 3 of the 7 of us had studied Spanish in Spanish-speaking countries. And that didn’t include me. The others could understand what he was saying but I, well, didn’t, and so I usually just listened passively but did not understand or learn much. I remember we ate Tres Leches cake in class and that Mr. Lezcano was the nicest.

I took Spanish II in freshman year college but I got lost in subjunctive grammar and my friend Heather who was double majoring in Spanish and Math surpassed me and I gave up (again). I didn’t think Spanish class in Birmingham, AL, taught by a white lady would be that difficult, but it made me drop the idea of getting a Spanish minor. I got a B or B- in the class, I can’t remember, but I didn’t get an “Excellence Award” on Honors Day. Honors Day: Yes, we had HONORS DAY in High School, another reason why transitioning to real life was such a fumbly awkward display of fleshy warbling. They don’t give you awards in adulthood when you do what you’re supposed to. I digress.

I went on a few mission trips to Spanish speaking countries over the years: Mexico and Guatemala Twice. When I went to Spain in 2015 I could get away with very basic conversational Spanish, but it made me realize all I’d lost over the years. Some of my friends from high school went on to marry Spanish-speakers, travel throughout Central America, or teach Spanish to high schoolers in Vestavia Hills, Alabama. But it just sat with me like a distant memory: Excellence Awards and Tres Leches Cake and Rapido Como Un Conejo.

And when I accepted the invitation to Peace Corps Guatemala in early 2016, I knew I’d have to get back in the saddle again.

So it was with this backpack of incongruent memories of schooling that I reentered Spanish-Learning-Zone in Alaska on an app called DuoLingo. You see, when I started learning Spanish apps did not exist. Now I was tapping away on my phone during work breaks to learn “Yo veo el gato” with words in neon cubes. It was somewhat helpful.

On my day off they set me up with a phone call to do a language assessment with a Spanish teacher in Guatemala. Sandra started the call and asked me about myself. I had also introduced myself in Spanish on the facebook page, a 2-minute video speaking in Spanish. This helped me remember some words: “Yo trabajo con cruceros” for example.. but I felt like I was leaning into a pit of muteness and the words might never cough themselves out of my throat. I was stuck in my English mind and could not reach my Spanish foundation.

I took with me a residual confidence, excitement mixed with competitive embarrassment into country. My language level was marked “Advanced Low” from our phone call. “You’re advanced, and you’re low.” Where was my Excellence Award?? Days gone by. So we had two more language assessments in country, and I was placed in intermediate mid with Tanya, Clint and Amanda. We started Spanish class with Profe Eduardo and switched to Profa Gladys by week 4.

And that began the Spanish wheels creaking, word by word, once again.