Jolly J!

I attend a lot of prayer meetings and bible study sessions organized by the campus group of which I am an active member and treasurer. In these meetings, members get to discuss Christianity and pray with others in small groups — a lot. One can say that every trial we encounter is ‘soaked in prayer.’

After attending a prayer meeting one evening, I board a jam-packed passenger jeepney en route to Baclaran. In the dark, I scrounge for some loose change in my bag.

Sitting at the very end of the jeepney, far from the driver, I then hand over the exact change to a co-passenger sitting in the middle of the long seat. In an attempt to notify the jeepney driver of my payment that is now ‘on its way,’ I say out loud: “Lord, bayad po (Lord, here’s my payment).” (Manila, Philippines/Sometime in 1988)

One summer day in Kremenchuk, I felt like having some ice cream so I hied off to the corner store.

I was getting two pre-wrapped cones of Ukrainian ice cream from the store’s freezer when my mobile phone beeped. It was my husband sending me a message. I tried to read the text message in a jiffy when all of a sudden the grocery owner grabbed the ice cream cones from my left hand and slammed them back into the freezer as she reprimanded me in Russian on machine-gun mode. She kept pointing at my mobile phone as she hurled angry words at me. Maybe she thought I was going to steal her ice cream and was calling my (non-existent) ‘partner in crime’ to prepare the get-away car parked somewhere nearby.

A young man, who was with his friends, spoke on my behalf. I think he told the grocer that I couldn’t speak Russian. And then I heard the magic words that brought relief to my heart, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asked from afar. I responded: “Ja! Ja! Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch. Ich spreche Englisch auch. (Yes! Yes! I speak a little German. I also speak English.)

The young man then moved away from his friends, whose eyes were glued to what was happening, and swaggered towards my direction. It appeared that he wanted to make my acquiantance. I tried to remember all the German phrases I knew — you know, those you try to learn when planning to go to Germany as a tourist.

“Wie heissen Sie? (How are you called?)” he asked.

“Ich heisse Jay-Ann. Ich komme aus den Philippinen. (I come from the Philippines),” I answered.

Clearing his throat and trying to look cool, he said rather proudly, “Ich spreche Deutsch. Ich heisse English. (I speak German. I’m called English.)”

“Wie bitte? (Pardon me?)” I asked, a bit confused.

“Ich heisse Englisch (I’m called English),” he repeated, still looking as confident as ever.

I couldn’t believe my ears. There was clearly something linguistically awry, I thought.

“Also, Vielen Dank! Auf Wiedersehen. (Ok, thank you very much. Good-bye.),” I said clumsily.

Thinking that the young man might want to chat me up in (bad) German, I quickly summoned the still angry grocery owner to get the two cones of ice cream for me and paid for them. I then dashed towards the exit. And with one last look at the guy called ‘English,’ I waved good-bye and escaped on foot.

Confusing German conversations are not my thing. (Kremenchuk, Ukraine/July 2005)