En Espanol, por favor...

Jenna and I have traveled to the other side of the world to teach English. Yet, today, we found ourselves giving a lesson in Spanish.

“You teach me a little Spanish, nahn?” The request came from Santosh, a wiry man who teaches Biology at JM and usually sits next to Jenna and me in the teachers’ lounge. Santosh spends most of his time combing his bristly hair into a perfect coif and making the female teachers laugh with his rapid-fire commentaries on life, spoken in his impenetrable Malayalam.

He made his request on what was the fourth in a series of slow days at JM Higher Secondary. The students were in the midst of their yearly exams. Half the faculty was always on duty supervising the students as they tested, leaving the other half to while away time in the lounge. Some dutiful teachers graded papers or planned future lessons. Most of us, though, did more ignoble things: gossiped, texted, played games on our cell phones, read the newspaper. And this is how Santosh hit upon the idea of learning some basic Spanish.

“My Malayalam: good. Hindi: good. English: okay,” he said by way of explanation. “ My Spanish…” he said and made a face as if he had just downed a cupful of Kerala’s famous pickled mangoes, “My Spanish…is no good.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for not knowing Spanish,” I said. “Yeah, Nobody around here speaks it,” Jenna added helpfully. Santosh, casting himself as a man of letters, got out his notebook. “I want to know languages. Many languages. Teach me Spanish.”

Jenna and I looked at each other doubtfully. A few of the other teachers had become curious and were looking our way. Santosh has a knack for gaining the room’s attention. He opened his notebook to a blank page. Jenna and I did not know where to start. Luckily, Santosh already had a curriculum in mind.

“How you say: What is your name…in Spanish,” his pen poised over his notebook.

“Easy,” Jenna said. “Como se llama. Co-mo say YA-ma,” she repeated, emphasizing the pronunciation. We told Santosh how to spell it and he wrote the words down.

“Como se LA-ma,” he said.

“Como se YA-ma,” Jenna repeated. “Como se YA-ma,” Santosh repeated back, smiling broadly. By now, two other teachers had come over and were peering down at Santosh’s notebook.

“Say: My name is…in Spanish,” Santosh instructed.

“Me llamo Kyle,” I said. “Me YA-mo Kyle.” Santosh wrote this down, too.

He practiced excitedly, going back and forth between Jenna and me. Then, he turned to one of the teachers who had come over—an older man named Suresh—and said, “Como say LA-ma?”

Suresh smiled and said, “Me LA-mo Suresh!”

“Me YAAA-mo…” Jenna said to Suresh. “Of course, of course,” Suresh replied, shaking his head. “Me YAAA-mo Suresh.”

We repeated the process for other common phrases like ‘Good morning’, ‘Good night’, ‘Thanks’, ‘Please’ and ‘Goodbye’. Each time, Santosh garbled the translation but repeated the phrases until he had satisfied both himself and us. Then, he directed his burgeoning Spanish to an unsuspecting teacher sitting in another part of the room who had not been listening.

“BOO-nays no-CHIS, Safeera!” and Safeera looked up from her magazine puzzled.

“GRASS-ee-UHS, Girija,” and Girija turned around from another conversation and wrinkled her nose.

“AAA-dee-osh, Ambika!” and Ambika playfully snapped something back in Malayalam.

After a while of this, Santosh looked conspiratorially back to Jenna and me and asked in a hushed voice, “How to say...I love you?” His feline features stretched into a mischievous grin. His drooping mustache shook with excitement.

“Te amo,” Jenna said. “Tay AA-mo.”

“Te amo. Te amo. Te amo,” Santosh repeated it, low and secretively, as if it was a mantra with talismanic power. “Do not tell anyone else…the meaning of this,” he said, pointing to where he had written “Te amo” in his notebook.

Jenna and I nodded, now co-conspirators in whatever scheme Santosh was cooking up in his frenetic head.

To break the reverie, he looked up once again and shouted, “Me LA-mo Santosh! BOO-nays TUR-days, Noorja!” Noorja had been curiously looking on for some time. “BOO-na-wha?” she replied and erupted in laughter.

Jenna and I had to laugh, too. It seemed we were making an impact in two languages.