One afternoon in June, I was the 1 p.m. tour guide. A woman of about 45 and a teenage boy, maybe 14, came into the theater lobby and gazed around a bit. I asked them if they'd like a tour. What? A tour, a guided tour, I'd be glad to tell you about this place. This place? Yes, the Folger Shakespeare Library. Ah—this place. Thank you, but not very much English, would not understand.
The two visitors looked as if they were from Asia, maybe China or possibly the Philippines. On the off chance that they were Filipinos, who sometimes know Spanish, I asked ¿Hablan español? Oh, sí, cómo no. And we were off. It turned out that they were from the city of Puebla, south and east of Mexico City. As coincidence would have it, my wife and I were planning to spend a couple of weeks in Puebla in August. It is high and dry and cool; not at all like the DC area in August. And it's one of those UNESCO human heritage sites, owing to its wealth of colonial and 19th Century architecture right in town and the plentiful pre-Colombian archaeological treasures all around in outlying areas.
Anyway, I gave the standard tour—In Spanish. I had learned some in college and then spent time in Perú, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Guatemala on various academic, professional and humanitarian volunteer ventures. The tour-in-translation was usually pretty simple, but there were a few oddities, like figuring out the right word for Elizabethan. Isabelina would do the job, in a literal sense, but Isabelina in Spanish refers to Isabel la Católica, the 15th Century queen who, among other things, financed Columbus' original voyage. So Elizabeth Tudor was Isabela la NO católica, the 16th Century English queen who helped finance some of Shakespeare's explorations.
As I was winding things up I asked my two visitors their names. Isabel Chong and Arturo Barceló Jr., mother and son. That's the way Spanish names work, she keeps her father's name, he uses HIS father's name Chong. Chinese ancestors? Father an immigrant from China. One of those amazing stories, started as a farm worker and ended up head of systems services for some international hi-tech hardware outfit's Mexico franchise. He had married a woman from Oaxaca.
I told Isabel that my wife and I planned to be in Puebla in a few weeks. She absolutely insisted on giving me her telephone numbers, her e-mail address and her home address. And where did we live? Arlington. ¡ARLINGTON! Her brother, who works for the Inter-American Development bank lives in Arlington. They are visiting him. That's how they happened to be in DC. And they saw the Folger in a guide book. And the rest is history.
In mid-August, my wife and I were in Puebla. I called Isabel. She invited us out to her house for 
dinner— excellent lasagna. We met Arturo Sr., her husband, and her college biology student daughter Carla. And we agreed to visit the school where Isabel teaches, an English immersion school—half the day in English, half the day in Spanish, just like the Claremont Elementary School my granddaughter and grandson go to in Arlington. At Isabel's school we gave little talks in English about how we had learned Spanish, and how that was much easier to learn than English, and I told a little joke devised by George Bernard Shaw whereby g-h-o-t-i spells fish (gh as in laugh, o as in women, ti as in motion.) They fourth graders looked perplexed. I went on to say that one of the last things one masters in a foreign language is humor -- and they looked a little relieved. Anyway, the point is that Spanish is strictly phonetic and English only half-heartedly pretends to be.
dinner— excellent lasagna. We met Arturo Sr., her husband, and her college biology student daughter Carla. And we agreed to visit the school where Isabel teaches, an English immersion school—half the day in English, half the day in Spanish, just like the Claremont Elementary School my granddaughter and grandson go to in Arlington. At Isabel's school we gave little talks in English about how we had learned Spanish, and how that was much easier to learn than English, and I told a little joke devised by George Bernard Shaw whereby g-h-o-t-i spells fish (gh as in laugh, o as in women, ti as in motion.) They fourth graders looked perplexed. I went on to say that one of the last things one masters in a foreign language is humor -- and they looked a little relieved. Anyway, the point is that Spanish is strictly phonetic and English only half-heartedly pretends to be. Later the Chong/Barcelós took me to a nearby colonial city, Tlaxcala, where we ate in a former convent refectory. My wife Cynthia was exhausted by the previous day's climb up The Great Pyramid of Cholula atop which is a colonial church, so she didn't make it to Tlaxcala.
Isabel and I have exchanged e-mails since I've been back, and she wants to make sure that I meet her brother when he gets back from somewhere—Italy?
Lesson: If a visitor seems puzzled and lost and pleads Not enough English, try ¿Habla español? or Parlez-vous francais? or whatever works for you. It could lead to an entirely fulfilling and unexpected adventure.
