Buying Water in Barcelona

April 6, 2005—Just as I was getting decent enough at recalling my high school Spanish education for it actually to be of some practical use in Madrid, I was off to Barcelona. If you’ve never been to the capital of Catalan, here’s a tip: the language is so confusing to outsiders, even outsiders with a good comprehension of Castillian (which I have never, and will never claim to have), that the Catalonians label nearly everything in both languages, and even throw the ugly Americans a bone by often including English.

Looking back from my journal from this trip, I was amused to find that it only took me about 3 hours to transition from writing “I can say that this city has a very different energy than Madrid. I’m not sure that’s good or bad, just different,” to “Okay, I’m sold – Barcelona is rad.” But, I won’t bore you with a travelogue--though if you’re interested in A.K. Gold's Favorite Spots in Barcelona, follow the link—because this story is about stopping to buy a bottle of water.

After an action-packed first day in town involving an art museum and a recently-excavated synagogue, I walked around the Barri Gothic, continuously getting turned around in the neighborhood’s labyrinthine streets. The flight, the heat and the walking left me parched, so I ducked into a bodega to buy an enormous bottle of water.

As I walked toward the back of the store, where I could see the refrigerators over the tops of shelves, I noticed that the music emanating from the store’s speaker system was not in Catalan, Castillian, or anything resembling a romance language. It sounded like Urdu.

Now, I’ll give you that most 25 year old white, Jewish, middle class women raised on Chicago’s North Shore (which, at least when I was growing up, was largely devoid of Pakistanis) are not known for their skill at recognizing the national language of Pakistan. But, clearly, I pride myself on not being the average product of my upbringing.

I found the largest bottle of water that I could, and walked up to the register where I saw a man who was so clearly Pakistani that I’m pretty sure Britannica uses his photo in their “P” volume. The store was empty, so after he told me the price, and I paid and thanked him, I pointed to the air and said, “Es Urdu?”

He looked at me and smiled while saying “Si.”

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and asked “Aap kaha say hay?” (Where are you from?) To which he smiled more broadly and said “Pakistan,” and asked me—in Urdu—where I learned to speak Urdu.

I once read that all the languages you are fluent in are stored in a different part of your brain than all the languages you are not fluent in—as such, Spanish, Urdu and the bit of French I know are all stored in some very poorly-developed part of my brain. That being said, I pieced together the following, “Mai, doh sal say, kalag ma, Urdu likti ti.” Which was my attempt to tell him that I had studied Urdu for two years in college (but, actually, I think means that 2 years ago I studied Urdu in college—darn post-positions).

The man seemed very impressed, and turned his attention to something I couldn’t see behind a shelf on the other side of the store. “Beta, beta. Ghori larki Urdu bolti hai.” Now, I knew exactly what this meant as his son came over to see the whitey girl who speaks Urdu.

Up to this point, mind you, I had only spoken in a poor mix of Urdu and Spanish. The store owner’s son, however, must have had me pegged. This 18 years old walked up to me and said in perfect English, “Are you from London?”

I replied, “No, I am from the United States.”

To which he said, “I didn’t know people from the United States could speak Urdu.”

I’m not really sure how one is supposed to reply to such statements, since by-and-large it is true. So, I told him that at least a couple of us can speak Urdu, and he seemed satisfied. I bid farewell, and they encouraged me to 1) go to Pakistan—because I’d love it, and 2) come back and see them again on my visit.

I tried to go back and visit the store a day later, but I got lost in the maze of streets, and never managed to find it again. Who knows, maybe the owner and his son would have forgotten I was the ghori larki Urdu bolti hai, or they wouldn’t have been working at that moment. I like to think it was one of those strange and fun interactions that could only happen when you’re traveling solo in a foreign land. The type of experience that happens by chance, and can’t be manufactured at will, and is all the more memorable for it.