Dear England

This week my heart yearns for you. There are just some things that Argentina cannot deliver. I have run out of tea, marmite and chocolate. A desperate state of affairs. I will soon find myself sipping second-rate Green Hills tea, which tastes so ugly with milk, whilst eating toast and too-sweet jam and gazing lustfully at delicious bakery treats, none of which I dare touch for fear of nuts.

English brands here are deceiving. An imposter is pretending to be dairy milk. Skittles are the wrong colour. Twinings does not taste like Twinings.

I miss British papers and British TV. Perhaps it’s the ease of communication I want, I wish I could communicate totally freely, with no occasional hesitations, or gaps when I realise I’ve reached a word or phrase I cannot express, and find myself umming and ahhing, except in Spanish tones eeeee or esteee. I miss my life being conducted in a single language, so that I don’t find myself only able to think of the Spanish word for things, or expressing myself in a mixture of the two, whichever language “fits” what I’m saying better. Spanish words have begun to creep into my English, for fed up, I say “harto”, for a lot of something I say “un montón”, they must stick out in my speech like sore thumbs, yet I often don’t even notice.

I wonder how people who speak several languages possibly have room in their heads, do they find they have to sort through a list of words in different languages before arriving at the right one? My problems are smaller, but I find myself staring at my phone, wondering why t9 recognition can’t spell a word, and then realise I need to change it from English-Spanish or visa-versa.

I miss having a network of people that I can call, and who will have an ear to listen. I miss having free minutes, or any minutes at all, so that I can call without all too soon being cut off by the familiar “no credit” beep.

I miss June meaning the beginning of summer and not winter’s onset. Autumn in April felt wrong, and I am not adjusted to the shift, as winter approaches I find myself anticipating Christmas, and feel cheated when carols and fairy lights do not appear.

I miss English countryside, green hills and forest walks. How I long for a National Trust site to visit, followed by a trip to the local pub. What I wouldn’t do for a Sunday roast with Yorkshire Pudding, for other unheard of things here….crumpets, tasty brown bread and humus from the supermarket.

I miss going dancing, to a place where I don’t have to know the steps. I went to a tango place at the weekend and felt embarrassed by my lack of skill. Tango is such a sad dance, and so divided by gender, I dislike the way the man leads and the woman must follow his every move, like a vacant doll who cannot think for herself. I feel uncomfortable by the way she clings to him like she must not let go. Is this my need for independence? Or simply an English fear of dancing so close to someone? Either way I yearn for a dark, dingy indie club where I can dance like a fool with my friends and no one cares.

So what to do with all these “misses”? What do I do when these pangs swallow me up? Making me either mopey or irritable, annoyed at things simply because they are not English, overly nostalgic and attached to the things that are. I have no long-term solution,and  there are plenty of things I am equally happy to have left behind. But I’ll tell you my short-term fix, and you will laugh, and quite rightly so. I find myself in Starbucks, hoping to grab a slice of a more Western coffee culture. The menu, though of course in Spanish,  is familiar. The pictures on the walls I feel I have seen a hundred times, even though in England, I rarely step foot in Starbucks, and probably go out of my way to avoid it.

I haven’t found England here, but I do have a chai latte, an armchair and for now, I fit in, another coffee drinker, pondering life. Except there don’t seem to be so many doing that, there are more groups of chattering teenagers or couples sharing dulce de leche frappes. If I put in my headphones and blocked out all the noise I could maybe, just maybe, be at home. But I don’t do this, and for a moment it’s nice to have a bubble of noise around me which I cannot understand unless I really tune in. Though somehow this thought makes me feel more alien, if I was at home, I would probably be eavesdropping without meaning or wanting to.

Looking at the groups that surround me, I feel a little lonely, this city can feel so daunting at times, hard to penetrate and feel a part of. Perhaps that’s just city life. I remind myself I didn’t come to chatter. I have my English book and my chai, and feel content in these small pleasures. After all, I could not have obtained such luxuries in Bolivia. England will be still be there when I get home, and I am already planning the English feast which awaits me on my return.