that laughs at the obstacles

Carne asada grilled outdoors, by an Argentinean. Tinny Tecate from a can that looks way too much like Coca-Cola (the can, not the beer). An embrace, a kiss on the cheek, or a handshake from each person on arriving. None of those noncomittal waves at the room in general, like I'm used to getting by with. I like it so much better - me encanta - the way Spanish-speakers greet each other.

Dinner starts around 11, and this seems nothing out of the ordinary. Our host brings the meat, balanced on a heavy wooden slab, fresh from the grill in the order of our requests: first the rares, then the mediums, last the well-dones. A dozen small courtesies at the table, that I never learned as a child but wish I had. Half a dozen dirty jokes, of which I understand all but the punchline (and, for the most part, wish I hadn't). Jokes that make their object the indigenous country person or the status-seeking city-dweller, or the particular South American nationality of whoever sits next to the speaker. If other topics lag, there's rapid-fire commentary on soccer, for which ardor does not seem to abate with the end of the World Cup. Somebody asserts, "You don't have to know soccer to be a commentator. You just have to know how to talk."

I didn't come here expecting to be at the center of the conversation. To say the least. But it's fascinating: much the same dynamic appears that I encounter at English-speaking parties. What I find is that I really don't know how to connect with the greater part of the conversation. And not for language, but for diversity of life experiences. For lack of pop-culture education or recent TV viewing. For dislike of raising my voice across a yardfull of people. But it all becomes the same workable challenge: navigate the mostly unfamiliar waters with an accepting grace, with a dash of ironic detachment, with genuine appreciation for the inexplicability of other human beings.

And, just as in English, one or two astounding conversations may surface from the static, tuning in like surprise radio stations out on the late-night highway. This night brings two such gifts. One, the life-story of an Ecuadorian who spent 10 years in Amsterdam and New York before settling in Albuquerque with his partner and young son. The other, a Texan who grew up in Spanish-speaking South Texas, but who asserts when somebody labels him chicano, entonces, that he never once heard of the Chicano Movement until his university years. He tells me about a year of digging latrines and building schools with the Peace Corps in Paraguay. Of having missed being witness to the assassination of a vice-president, by only a few city blocks. And of watching a kind and intelligent group of Franciscan nuns, after the coup that removed a corrupt local boss, avoiding death threats and bringing the inspiration of local power back to the people well before the government presence finally arrived in the pueblo.

Somehow, a lovely paradox grows here. Unexpected and welcome as a volunteer flower in my barely-surviving vegetable garden: spending time with people who speak a language different from mine is easing the sting of separation that's lived with me, sad and parasitic, all of my English-speaking life. When factors less essential than the medium of communication seem the obstacles to connection - personal interests, personality types, social class - it's too easy to be distracted, alienated, by what divides on the surface. When the language itself instigates the separation -- a divide that can't possibly be crossed in the space of an evening -- I'm relieved from duty to my anxiety and expectation, to simply enjoy the state of unknowing. Supported, of course, by the kindness of a few translated words here and there. By the knowledge that I am progressing, however slowly, toward that elusive prize of bilinguality. And by the fact that the beautiful fellow traveller who brought me to this gathering has already gifted me with a connection that bridges all of the above. A connection that laughs at the obstacles of language, life experience, expectation, pessimism. That builds bridges in total disregard of reason. That ignores the voices in my head to tell me, You may not understand it all but you are, in fact, understood.