Hellen Keller, Little Black Men and Other Dinnertime Conversation

Dinnertime here is always an eventful cultural learning experience. Me, and my two housemates Marissa (“Swissa”) and Judith (who I thought was “Utis” because of her strong Dutch accent) sit at the table with Mari Carmen, eying whatever she has piled on our plate for the night (we’ve learned just not to ask) and trying our best to carry on dinnertime conversation. Marissa and I can both speak enough Spanish to get our basic point across, but there is usually a lot of gesturing and attempts at re-conjugating words before Mari Carmen fully understands us. Judith on the other hand, poor thing, doesn’t speak any Spanish at all. So with me as the English to Spanish translator, and mixed bag of Dutch, Swiss, American and Spanish culture, our meals usually end in bouts of hysterical laughter with a healthy dose of resigned confusion.

At tonight’s dinner, I spent a good portion of the meal explaining 3OH3’s “don’t trust me” song to the table, as both the girls recognized the tune, but didn’t understand the words. (Mari Carmen was amused, but had no idea what we were talking about.) Apparently, they don’t learn about Helen Keller in Switzerland or Holland, so I had to break it down and learn the Spanish words for “deaf” and “blind” (Mari Carmen must be REALLY good at charades) then translate “shush girl, shut your lips, do the Hellen Keller and talk with your hips” into Spanish. (Roughly: Callete chica, cerra tus labios, haz la “Hellen Keller” y hable con tus… I don’t remember the word for hips.) I then explained that it was a joke, because since Hellen Keller couldn’t see or talk, all she could do was “talk with her hips.” They finally got it, and everyone laughed – including Mari Carmen.

We also had a very interesting conversation last night about Christmas traditions here in Europe. Judith brought these great cinnamon cookies from Holland, and she was explaining to me in English (which I had to translate into Spanish for Mari Carmen) how the cookies are part of the whole Christmas tradition where she’s from. Apparently, in Holland Santa Clause is from Turkey, but lives in Spain, and around Christmas time he travels up to northern Europe with his possy of “little black men” (since they hang out in chimneys) and his white horse (yeah, no reindeer) to collect the shoes of little children and bring them gifts. The way she described these little black men is very much like how we see leprechauns on St. Patty’s day – they’re “naughty little people” who help Santa out, but like to play practical jokes. For this reason, when the Christmas celebration begins on December 5th (because it’s Santa Clause’s birthday) little children wake up to a trashed house, with toys, cookies and small gifts scattered all over the place, compliments of the mischvious little black men.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there. Beginning in February, the little black men hide under tables and throughout the house to watch little children and make sure they’re being good. They report back directly to Santa, and if the children indeed deserve presents, then Santa Clause will come and reward them on Christmas morning. (Finally, something that sounds familiar.) To avoid Santa’s blacklist, kids put one of their shoes in front of the fireplace (no socks like us!) and fill it with carrots for Santa’s horse, and notes thanking him for bringing them presents. On Christmas Eve, Dutch children sit around the fireplace and sing songs into the Chimney so Santa will hear, and if all goes well, when they fall asleep he will come and deliver presents.

As I sat there translating this crazy story, and all Mari Carmen did was just nod her head and agree – the only difference, is here in Spain Santa comes on Christmas, but all the good presents are saved until January 7th, when the wise men brought gifts to baby Jesus. (Spanish tradition is very strongly Roman Catholic.) The idea of a white horse and a possy of little black men wasn’t anything unusual… and in fact, out of the four of us, I was the only person at the table who was left completely flabbergasted by our conversation.

Now, I’m especially looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner conversation. Maybe I’ll bring up Thanksgiving, and see how that goes over? “You see, when the Puritans first came over to the New World, and made friends with the Indians…”