Glenn

Every now and then you meet one. And when you do, it's important to remember as close to every word they say, because the true ridiculous of them is not borne out until you've reflected on it for a while. These are the people who live in a fantasy world, but talk about their life with such prosaic confidence that if you're not careful, you'll get drawn in to thinking, 'Well, good on them, at least their doing it.' Well, to be honest, this one wasn't too hard to spot. This was how I met Glenn.

Spanish lessons again. A long time seems to have passed since Cheese Wire's (June entry 07) painful lessons on damp, cold Thursday evenings, watching the clock tick down oh so slowly. Things are much better at the lovely Academia Buenos Aires, where the coffee is strong, croissants await you even if you haven't done your homework and nothing ever starts on time.

Monday morning, opening lesson, and German, our teacher, asked us to say where we were from, our age, what we were doing in BsAs, how long we were here for.... the usual ice breakers. Clockwise from the teach was: Aneesha, the States, 27, learning Spanish for two weeks then travelling. Textbook answer, no? Then Tina, Germany, 29, learning Spanish before becoming a lawyer in Germany. Then me, then Alex, 25, the States, working for an NGO with people affected by AIDS... then Glenn.

From first appearances I would have Glenn pencilled in as a charity worker of some sort, definitely had the Christian group leader look about him. Sensible clothes, neat side parting, the naive confidence to wear a t-shirt without an ironic slogan on it such as 'My Ironic Is In The Wash'.

Now, everyone had spoken in Spanish until now. Yup, even me, I'm clever now. Glenn only used one word of Spanish, pandilla, which means gang. I think it's best to quote Glenn in full:

- Yeah, well, I'm Glenn, I'm 24, and I'm from Canada (I suspect this was a lie to curry favour for 'not being American'), and I'm just doing a couple of weeks Spanish. I need Spanish for my job, but not really conventional Spanish.
- Why is your job going to be Glenn?
- I'm gonna be working with the pandillas of the South.
(He didn't actually punch his heart with his fist and then hold his arm out in a salute to the brothers, but I reckon it was well within his repertoire).
- You know, they change their slang every, like, dos o tres weeks so you gotta learn it from there.

I think it's accurate to report a stunned silence here of several seconds. Eventually somone asked:

- And what exactly are you going to be doing?
- Getting them off the street, helping them cope while they re-integrate themselves into society, that kinda thing.
- And... do you have experience of that kinda thing in the past?
- Yeah, some. In Toronto.
- Oh yeah, what did you do there?
- I was a courtroom reporter.

The following half an hour was alternately hilarious and painful as it became clear that Glenn was firstly in the wrong group (I refer to both Spanish and homo sapiens). The guy really spoke no Spanish. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure slang is important when communicating with the pandillas, but surely a context helps. And aren't the colloquials are the last thing you learn? And how am I getting stuck on the details?

As he rambled on, in English with an occasional Spanish word, I couldn't help but want to kill him, but reflected that the pandillas would more than likely do that for me soon enough.

At the end of the first day, I heard him speaking to Alex, the American girl.
- Hey Alex, you're living in Palermo, right? Do you know anywhere good there where I can get a tattoo?
- You're getting a tattoo?
- Yeah, thinking about it. Something to show my commitment, you know...?

Awesome! More to follow, surely, on this absolute biscuit.