Of Languages and Lineages

Want to meet people from all over the world? Order Ubers in San Francisco. 

That was my thought after speaking Spanish to a driver last week who apologized that he has “very little English.” I told him not to worry; that I'm proficient in only one language as well — though not his. 

That said, thanks to watching “Sesame Street” with my son when he was little, I know the Spanish for "open" (abierto) and "closed" (cerrado). Also, I can find my way around a menu at a Mexican restaurant. ("Mas cerveza, por favor!") On a whale-watching trip to Argentina, I learned that helados ananas means pineapple ice cream, and under the influence of extreme jetlag in Buenos Aires, I ordered exactly that for dinner. Later, in Puerto Madryn, I asked a jewelry store clerk to show me a tiny earring shaped like a crab by saying camaron (that means "shrimp") and dancing sideways, clacking my fingers like claws. After that inspired display, I simply had to buy the earring.  

In spite of all that, in order to tell my Uber driver that my apartment building in San Francisco is on the left side of the street, I had to look up “left” in Spanish on my phone. I was successful, and called out "Gracias!" when the driver dropped me off.  

Je parle français — un peu, anyway — which I learned at a high school in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and later took a few more classes at the University of Missouri at Columbia before gaining entrance to their storied journalism school. Nonetheless, on a trip to France, I was embarrassed that a woman who could not understand my Midwestern accent when applied to her romance language felt the need to summon a trilingual Asian man to translate for us. Quel dommage!  

On a wildlife safari in Tanzania decades ago, I learned the names of some animals in Swahili. (You do know simba means “lion,” right? Remember the mandrill that narrates "The Lion King?" Rafiki is the word for "friend.") In Italian, I can order pasta and then express my immense gratitude with “grazie.” I can deliver a toast in Irish (Sláinte!), hai is "yes" in Japanese, nyet is "no" in Russian and except for a bit of Yiddish, that's it for me. 

Since moving to San Francisco 16 years ago this month (!), I’ve encountered Uber and Lyft drivers from Nepal, Ecuador, Tunisia, Iran, Ethiopia, Ireland, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Nigeria, Iraq, Australia, Eritrea, Pakistan and from all over the U.S. If the driver is chatty, I ask whether they have family back in their native countries or cities, if they visit there often, what brought them to San Francisco and what they think of the city. Routinely, drivers praise the weather here as the best they’ve ever experienced. I concur. 

If the driver is from Brazil — which is not uncommon — I express my fondness for feijoada, the black bean stew from that country. I feasted on it often, back when my friends Judy and Scott used to throw annual rowdy samba parties. They cooked gallons of feijoada for the crowd, hired a samba band and brought in a dance instructor, who often dressed in carnival garb, complete with feathers and sequins! Here’s an old photo from one of those memorable parties. 

The Language of the Heart

Irish melancholy, historians say, is the result of lives long colored by oppression and hardship, experienced for eons (the Vikings first invaded the country in 795 AD), but particularly brought to light during and after The Great Famine (1845-1852). Sparked by a destructive mold that caused potato crops to fail throughout Ireland, the tragic time also is known in that country as The Great Starvation, due to England’s refusal to help feed the Irish. British landowners chose instead to export Ireland’s wheat, oats, livestock and butter — none of which the natives could afford after the potatoes died — and British soldiers routinely destroyed fishing nets and burned boats as well. More than a million people died of starvation, and nearly twice that many left the country.

“Land: A Novel,” Maggie O’Farrell’s entrancing new book, considers the lives of those who stayed in the beleaguered country. After reading it — avidly turning page after page, even as my eyes burned — I was unwilling to move on, and spent some time reviewing my family tree. 

My mother’s family left Ireland around the time of the Revolutionary War, but some members from my dad’s side came to America during the famine. Some stayed in Ireland, including Thomas Lamb and his bride, “Nappy” Byrne, who both were born and later died in Swinford, a town situated on the River Moy in County Mayo. Here's a startling story about Nappy's name, which I just discovered. 

When I was born, my father filled out my birth certificate, naming me after some of my ancestors, as the Irish like to do. Years later, my mother told me she had planned to name me Penelope and call my Penny, for the red hair I was expected to have, as one of my grandfathers was a redhead. (I got green eyes, an Irish pug nose and freckles, but missed out on the red hair — at least until college, when I invested in the first of many bottles of Lady Clairol.)

Fast forward to 2009, when an editor at the St. Louis Jewish Light assigned me a freelance article requiring that I speak with five women, ages 75 to 93, who were preparing for a group bat mitzvah at their senior residence. After the interview, the eldest woman thanked me for my time. She said the group felt heard, and they were grateful for my enthusiasm for their planned celebration. Then she asked if I would be offended if she gave me a Hebrew name.

Here's some background regarding my religious upbringing: Neither of my parents were religious. When I was an infant, my aunt kidnapped me one morning and had me christened Catholic. At 6, I landed my first acting gig as the head angel in the Christmas pageant at an Evangelical Reformed Church in the neighborhood. My friend Tommy's family were members, and the church said if I would loan them my Tiny Tears doll to play Baby Jesus, I could be in the pageant. Deal!

When I was 10, my Southern Baptist grandma saw to it that I was “saved” at a tent revival and gave me a Bible. As a young teen, when I stayed overnight on a Saturday with a girlfriend, I sometimes went to that family's church, so I sampled several denominations. As an adult, I have shivered in the presence of Shiva in Mumbai, spoken aloud to a statue of the goddess Sekhmet in Luxor, Egypt and came close to genuflecting on my first visit to City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. For a while, I described myself as an ecumenical pantheist, but now I claim to be a self-styled Druid, one who is spiritually renewed when sitting in small boats next to large whales or in the company of majestic trees. 

So, no, I was not all offended by the woman's question, and even felt honored. She then told me my Hebrew name would be Penina, which means pearl (my birthstone!) and that she and her friends would call me Penny. When I caught my breath and found my words, I told her that had been the very name my mother had chosen for me. We hugged! 

Earlier this week, after I finished reading “Land,” I searched online for more clues about my great-great grandmother Nappy Byrne. One site noted that "Nappy" is a nickname for Penelope. 

A Penny for your thoughts!