mr. sandman, send me a dream... make it of the Iguazu Falls...

Es usted sudamericana? = Are you South American?
(when asking a male use "sudamericano")
Soy Malaysian = I am Malaysian.

so why is it that while i have desperately wanted to pick up Spanish for years and years now, i still have to depend on my trusty guide book to "speak"?

i have been thinking a lot about this lately. trying to connect with my sub-conscious to see why is it that i still struggle with this language. having been to Spain (and more specifically to La Coruna) 3 times, i seem to understand everything Mama V says to me, provided i clear my mind, and listen with an open heart.

i understand almost perfectly in fact, and am able to answer precisely at the right times with the right answers, so i am not just winging things, and over-using my intuitive side or pretending i understand just to seem polite (as Fer suspects!). so she speaks Spanish to me, and i respond in English.
i do the same with my tutor Luisa (of my now self-terminated lessons) and am able to follow her classroom directions to a 't' but which word actually meant what? sorry lah.

and then this morning in the midst of a text conversation, i remembered again that i used to dream in Spanish. yes, i actually did! it popped right back at me as i was texting mi amigo.

did you know that??! well, when i was about 12, right until i was about 16 or 17, i used to have this recurring dream that i was living on a ranch.

and that we bred horses (my "dream" family did). we had many men working for us, and they wore cow-boy like hats and did the traditional lassos. and they repaired the fences, and moved the horses around en mass and regularly (to graze). and the "country" i lived in? well, in my dream it was vast, and very green. and in reality, i was clueless.

ahuh! one would think i was over-dosing on the John Wayne era of repeats on our local TV1 or 2, except that all the conversations in my dreams were in a language that i had no exposure too in my conscious life. the Duke only spoke English in his movies ;) and i am 100% Punjabi.
so what was the language? i didn't know.

and then my dreams stopped suddenly, and Julio Iglesias made the air-waves of Malaysia, and my friend in Form 4 or 5, gave me his cassette (do you remember those things?? sorry i digress!)

and in a blinding moment of pure clarity, i realized the language of my dreams, was Spanish!!!

only then when i watched "The Mission" with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons (must have been about 1986, when i was 18) did i finally recognize the greenery of my dreams. South America. and the rainforests. and the stupendous Iguazu Falls. sigh.

needless to say, it took me 3 - 4 attempts to finish the film. i wept like a baby from the point Robert De Niro took on his penance and started the track up the jungle trails (De Niro played the slave trader turned acolyte). i still to date, cannot hear that version of that Ave Maria sung in those angelic little children voices without freezing.

do i believe in reincarnation? absolutely.
do i think i lived once on a horse ranch in Argentina? yes.
do i know this sounds nutty? yes.
do i care? hell NO! i do not!

did you know that Mama V was originally Argentinian, before she moved to Spain? it gets more curious...