Time to Confess

This story probably begins with an incident that happened during the Vietnam conflict in 1968. At that time, I was enjoying the tropical climate and environs of Vietnam in my green pickle suit, on assignment, as an employee of the USA. I was one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children (USMC). Yes, I was a marine stationed in Danang, Vietnam. Most of my duty was in Danang and it was there, one evening that I found myself too close, way too close, to more than one F4 Phantom jet while they were launching on missions at full power take off. The details of this incident will remain a story with limited circulation.

So, what does this have to do with my Guatemala trip? Let me continue. At about the age of 35, I started developing tinnitus. By way of explanation, tinnitus is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound. Now, almost thirty years later, I have full fledged ringing in my ears 7x24. I have not experienced true silence in probably twenty years. So one accommodates and gets used to the constant ringing and it is not a big deal. But in addition, about five years ago, I found I was saying, "Huh?" more than normal, so I had my hearing tested. And I found that in addition I was having significant hearing loss, especially in my left ear. I went to an audiologist and she seemed astounded that I could carry on a conversation without hearing aids. And I found out some very interesting things about my hearing and communication process.

This is probably not a surprise to many that know me, but I actually don't hear much of what is said to me. But apparently I hear enough, and if I see the lips moving, my brain automatically, with the words that I actually hear, fills in the missing sounds/words I did not hear and my brain receives a complete thought and I respond in context. And this process is usually accurate, most of the time. But even considering the usual accuracy of this process, I knew my hearing was deteriorating, so I made the decision to get hearing aids. The details of that process, the many different options don't add much to this story so I won't go into the details. Except to say, I did buy a pair of very nice hearing aids. And I even wore them ... for a while. My hearing aids did improve matters, but I could not wear them while I was riding my bike, changing the batteries and charging the controller was a small issue, they sometimes itched, and of course, I was wearing hearing aids. Oh no! How far off was the walker? So, because the improvement was just above the just noticeable detection limit, after a while I stopped wearing my hearing aids and returned to letting my brain do its compensation process.

So what does this have to do with Guatemala? Well now I am in the process of learning a new language and my brain no longer recognizes the landmarks that existed when I was back home. Now it hears, "blah, blah 'pero', blah (nothing), blah, blah, 'entonces', blah". No familiar landmarks, very few known words, or understood context. I now have hundreds of vocabulary words that I should know, not yet a hundred verbs that I can now conjugate in the past, present and future. I am writing and reading better each day but when the conversation starts, my brain immediately gridlocks.

I anticipated this could become a problem and I also knew that my hearing might not be up to the task completely. So I actually packed my 'aids' and brought them with me. My left ear is clearly my worst ear, so to begin, I only wore my left aid today, and I think it made a difference. I was catching words better and our oral discussions were better today. I was not completely gridlocked and my responses were coming out, albeit very slowly. But today I could understand the questions with less repeating, and I was responding with answers and questions, in Spanish for a change, not in English.

Tomorrow is my exam for the completion of Level A (the first of four levels) and another instructor other than mine will conduct the exam. The exam will consist of me writing all my verb conjugations in simple future, present and past tenses. This will include a number reflexive verbs that give me trouble. The exam will include me describing in Spanish what I see in some photographs that will be shown to me. I believe I will do well in these parts of the test. And then stories will be read to me and I will be asked questions about the story, and I will have to respond in Spanish, accurately based on what I heard, understood and remembered about the story. For me, this will be the most difficult part of the exam.

In my next blog, I hope to tell you I passed with flying colors.