En castellano

I learned my Spanish first at some evenings lessons in Finland and then working as a volunteer for seven months in Nicaragua and Honduras. I know that in my last months in Honduras, I gave one-on-one remedial lessons in reading and maths after school to some boys at a street children's home, which would have to mean that my level was relatively good. But that was almost nine years ago.

This past year, I have on a few occasions tried to say something in Spanish. Close to nothing came out. I could introduce myself and ask people how they were, but already forming the question "how old are you" caused problems. I would struggle with words such as "always", "go" or "home". I soon gave up and started to do simple exercises on Duolingo. But when I then tried to speak again, the result was mostly the same. I could not understand how I had once been able to have real conversations and where all that knowledge had gone.

Then I bought the flights, and suddenly it was just two weeks left before the trip. I seriously wondered what I would do when I'd get to Peru.

Then, three days before departure, a miracle happened. I was lying in bed at night, trying to think up some simple sentences in Spanish that I would need when I'd arrive in Lima. Suddenly, the words started coming. The more sentences I came up with, the more new words I found. It was as if someone had finally opened the gate to a locked-up house, and in the house I could open more and more doors and find more and more forgotten words. I was stunned and triumphant. It was all still there, I just had not known how to get it out!

On my three long flights, I read the airlines magazines, listened to the safety announcements and watched Ice Age, all in Spanish. I didn't understand much at all, but I kept picking up more forgotten words: Cantar. Peligroso. Hija.

And when the taxi driver came to pick me up at midnight at the Airport in Lima, I was able to do something that I would have never believed still a week ago: have my first Spanish conversation in nine years.