Language School

This afternoon we attended our first Portuguese language class here in Viana. Our friend, Dona Flora, took us into the town center last week to meet the public language school director, who was in Spain at that moment, so she introduced us with a great flourish to the secretary of the public language school director. But we were in like Flynn and when we arrived today the Director made a terrific fuss over “Flora’s friends”. This class commenced on September 1st, so adding to my tone-deaf language abilities is the fact that the class was nine sessions ahead of us.

And so class started. I kept up through,

“Bom Dia. Tudo bem?”

“Bom! ”

“Obrigado.”

“Danada.”

“Muito Obrigado!”

“Danada! Danada!”

“Tchau.”

“Tchau!”

And then it fuzzed out into a sound torrent, but one with great animation, hand wringing and pointing over, under and beside objects as a visual aid. The instructor, who has a stentorian voice and the kind of expressive face usually associated with sign-language speakers, got louder and louder as she walked toward Linda and me to introduce us to the class. Once standing over us she let go a blast of high speed, high volume Portuguese interspersed with, “America”, “Retired”, “Linda”, and, pointing to me, “Gleek”. I corrected her gently, “I’m Rick, actually.”

“Yes, Gleek…Walcom, Gleek!”

“Obrigado!”

At that point, Trixie, who was lying at our feet, and who has recently changed dog-food brands from one sold only by vets to one sold in all stores, but containing the same ingredients, well, almost the same ingredients, squeezed off a couple of stinkies while lying there that caused everyone’s eyes to water. Several of my colleagues produced hankies and covered their noses and mouths and our instructor retreated to her lectern.

I took Trixie out of class in a cloud of shame to glares of relief by my classmates. Even outside in a brisk wind it was horrific. I think she’s still acclimating to the new food; no I’m certain of it.