RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 44

RANDOM REMINDER

SPANISH AS SHE IS SPOKE

Not all the New Zeaseas each year form fours to watch the Changing of the Guard or queue for a view of the Statue of Liberty. Some of them follow less trodden trails, and bring back with them strange and fascinating stories of the places they have visited. Quite the most diverting we have heard came from a Wellington woman and her daughter who travelled together from the United States to New Zealand by way of South America and South Africa. The visit to Chile provides the background to the drama. Within 36 hours of their arrival at Mendosa they had (a) been in an earthquake (b) had a suitcase stolen (c) been in a train derailment and

(d) spent 45 minutes in a lift between the fourth and fifth floors of their hotel. These events would have made the average woman pine for the social security of New Zealand. But not these hardy souls. With typical stoicism, and the firm belief that life is for the living, they continued happily to do the things they had come to do. And one more. Knit That had not been planned originally, but the woman decided she needed some woollen garment and concluded it would take little enough effort to make it. After many long hours spent in animated sign language conversations, she and her daughter acquired the wool and the needles. And ultimately, she achieved what had seemed

impossible. She found someone to sell her a knitting pattern. It was, of course, in Spanish. But the woman is a person of an extremely cheerful disposition and infinite resource. It did not seem untoward to add a little Spanish-English dictionary to the gear. She ■was to translate, her daughter to start the knitting. They managed to get through one line of the pattern, none of the knitting. They carefully checked—and after they had recovered, re-checkcd, every word of the translation. It began: “Take two crimping irons. Mount your horse 90 times.” And then, with delicious irrelevancy, it added: “Tailors cabbage.’*