I love my job, really, but there is one thing that drives me nuts.

[gridlore]

Santas Clara is an unbelievably diverse place. Thanks to the high tech industry, we have engineers and their families living here from all points on the globe layered on top of the existing Anflo-American and Latino communities. I honestly love it, because living with each other is how we break down barriers.

But, there is an issue. The default language used here is English with Spanish as a close second. I'm not expecting everyone to learn fluent English right off the plane, but if you are going to live here it is your obligation to learn enough to not get killed.

Which is what happened today. I was working a very busy corner on the district's weekly minimum day, so I got all the kids and parents almost at once. This meant I was hopping to cover both crosswalks. I had just crossed a large group and the crosswalk timer was down to zero. I was walking back when a family; mom, tiddler in a stroller, two school-age kids, step into the crosswalk.

Right into the path of a large SUV making a right turn. To be clear, the SUV was in the wrong. When I'm in the street with my sign up, I'm controlling that street until I release it. But sadly, a lot of Silicon Valley drivers are ignorant of this and most other traffic codes.

I see this and react. I swing my sign so the driver can clearly see it, and with my best, Army-trained command voice, bellow STOP. The kids freeze. Mom just keeps walking. Thank Halford the driver saw my sign, or the mom, and slammed his brakes. No one hurt.

All mom had to say? "No English."

Yeah, lady. "No English" almost put you and your kids in the hospital.

Kirsten and I joked about buying a summer house on Buyukada if we won the billion dollar lottery. Had that happened, you can bet we would have studied Türkçe to at least be able to interact at the most basic level with the authorities.

I'm still dealing with the adreniline surge from that. Now I know why I have my job.

Comments

[feyandstrange]

Yeah, "STOP" and about ten other words are the kind of thing we all expected to pick up as overseas-post dependents. Hell, I can still draw you the Arabic word for "stop" because of stop signs. And how has she got "No English" and not "stop"? Yikes.

And anyway, if I'm stepping into traffic and someone yells in a commanding fashion, I at least look the fuck up to see if there's a reason for it.

Glad it worked out okay.

[murphymom]

1.) You are a mensch

2.) Which corners/school were you working today? (Remember, K&S attended one, K went to GATE at another, and I was a classroom aide at a third).

[gridlore]

This was for Scott Lane, and I was at Scott & Monroe.

[claidheamhmor]

Nice going!

(Here, the kids live by their wits...)

[fayanora]

Out of curiosity, I looked up the Spanish word for stop, and found it's "detener." I'm like "WTF? That's a STUPID word for stop!" Honestly, "stop" is perfect, it's one syllable, like "help." But "detener"? A three syllable word for stop? WTF? o_O

Okay, because on of the languages my Ravenstone family characters speak is Spanish and the other is Navajo, I looked up the Navajo word for stop. It's worse than "detener," it's " niʼníłtłáád ". Don't ask me how to pronounce that, I'm still trying to figure that kind of thing out. But with what I know of that language so far, I'm guessing it's a four syllable word. And "halt" is " ta-akwai-i ."

English may have myriad stupid points to it, but having "stop" as a one-syllable word is one thing it got right.

[gridlore]

¡Alto! is a better choice, it means Halt! and is what you see on Mexican stop signs.

But that wouldn't have helped here, as the woman was some flavor of South Asian.

[fayanora]

Ugh, stupid Google Translate! I recognize Alto. I thought it was weird I didn't recognize that other word. I don't speak Spanish, but I took a year or two of it and learned very little. I think I have some kind of mental block where languages are concerned.