What was your last name again?

Warning: This might be an interesting and surprising post;)

In another life, I lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for almost 18 years.

I started teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) waayyy back in 1996. Back then, before we had the internet, word of mouth and a bit of newspaper advertising were all I needed to keep my schedule full.

In Argentina, there is an English newspaper called “The Buenos Aires Herald” where I could place an ad stating that I was an “English native” who gave private lessons as well as “in-company” training.

One day, I got a phone call from a potential student who told me that she and her best friend wanted Conversation classes and that they both worked together at the same company. Most of the time, potential students would call in Spanish and explain to me what they were looking for. However, I noticed that this student had impeccable English over the phone. I could not help but wonder why she thought she needed someone like me.

I then asked her what her name was. She replied, “Mirta”. And what’s your last name, Mirta? “It’s Smith”. That was when I thought I had misheard her last name.

I asked her again, “Did you say your last name was ‘Smith’?”

She chuckled a little as she explained that she had grown up in the southernmost part of Argentina´s Patagonian region in a Welsh colony called Gaiman in the province of Chubut. They lived as if they lived in Wales, speaking English and Welsh, and celebrated holidays and traditions like “afternoon tea”. Yum! Fyi: even Princess Diana of Wales visited their town when she was still alive;)

We ended up setting up English conversation classes in her company. When I met her, she was as blond-haired and blue-eyed as could be. This was not anyone like my previous students!

As it turns out, there are many places around the world where immigrants from another country have been given settlement rights to live as they please, Gaiman being one of these places on our beautiful planet.

I am fascinated every time I find out about these enclaves located throughout the world. I remember taking a Lloyd Aereo Boliviano flight in 1995 on my way to Buenos Aires once. The flight had a layover in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, for a while. When I looked around at the other passengers, I could not help but notice a large family of all blonde-haired, blue-eyed people wearing overalls taking up a whole row of the Airbus we would be flying on. They looked out of place, and I wondered what they were doing. I never did find out their story, as I was too scared to ask them, and they honestly looked more terrified than I did. Turns out they were Mennonites. How does a Mennonite end up in Bolivia?

I live in Mexico, and there are plenty of Mennonites here as well. We ran into a few of them during our time in Bacalar, Mexico.

Finally, have you ever heard of Equatorial Guinea? It happens to be one of the smaller countries in Africa that speaks Spanish and Portuguese as the official languages, along with French. Other languages that are regionally recognized include Fang, Bube, and Igbo.

In full disclosure, I did not know this until last year. I was “doing my duty” during a Spanish lesson to show my student where all the places are in the world that speak Spanish. I had just learned how to use a great system to teach Spanish online, when all of a sudden, Equatorial Guinea popped up as a country that speaks Spanish (and Portuguese). I was like, ‘Huh, how did that happen?’ That’s so interesting… I love learning new things and being surprised while I’m the one doing the teaching.

So, back to our topic of being surprised about learning that some people grow up differently than the rest of us…

Where else have you heard of people living in lesser-known communities around the world?

• Business English

• ESL (English as a Second Language)

• Accent Reduction

• Spanish

• Portuguese

• Writing

• Proofreading and Editing

• Document and Website Translation

Who do you know that we could help? We have a great team of mostly bilingual language professionals ready and willing to help you and your people with quality language services.

Talk to you soon! ¡Hablemos pronto! Falo com você em breve!

Kimberlee❤️