Tagalog

Dear ELI, DORA, EMMY, TESSY and SAMPants

As you know I served  a mission to the phillipines, that was over 20 years ago now. When I was there, I spoke so fluently that I dreamed in Tagalog, I was told that on the phone I sounded like a philippino. That made me feel good. Well, I haven't used my Tagalog that much in the past 20 years. Most of the Philipinos that I meet speak English as well as Tagalog, as a result, I have since lost the ability to communicate effectively. I can still ask how people are doing.

Last year there was a 90 year old Filipina woman who came in for fever, no family was around and she only spoke tagalog, so I went in to the Room and asked her if she was hurting, where she was hurting, if she took medicine and got enough information to help me figure out how to get her taken care of. When the family arrived, they were all speaking in Tagalog but the family also spoke English, I introduced myself as their mother's physician. they told me what was wrong with their mom/grandma, confirming what I had already figured out. The Old Lady spoke to the family in Tagalog and said, "that white doctor speaks Tagalog" They looked at me, then at their mom/grandma, looked back at me. I smiled. They then said, "our mother has dementia."

I never corrected them. So they thought their mom was just confused.... I thought that was pretty funny.

Last week, there was a Filipino on a shipping boat and there was an accident, his leg was dislocated and barely hanging on. Well, there was a long complicated story about how this happened. But when he arrived, he didn't speak English, no one was around that spoke Tagalog, I looked at his name and it looked like a Filipino name, So I went into the room and, in tagalog, asked him where he was hurting. The look on his face was priceless, here he was, lost in a foreign land, no one speaking his language, no friends here, and scared he was going to lose his leg. I explained what was going on, I explained that we would have to put him to sleep to fix his leg. We chatted about where he was from... anyway, the ortho surgeon and nurses needed me to translate. My tagalog was bad and I couldn't remember all the words of body parts and medical terms. Anyway, I meant to ask him, "can you feel me?" trying to get an idea if he had nerve damage. Instead I asked, "how do you feel?"

He put his hand to his heart and said, "I feel at peace. im so grateful you are here..." I completely asked/said the wrong thing.

After I fixed him up, and got him ready for the operating room, he said, "Im so glad you are here. if you weren't here I think I would die...."

After like an hour of talking to him he finally realized that I shouldn't be able to speak tagalog. This was our conversation:
Him: Is your wife a Filipino?
Me: nope shes white and beautiful.
Him: are your Parents Filipino?
Me: Nope, White like me.
Him: Are you from the Filipines?
Me: nope:
Him: how do you speak tagalog?
Me; I was a Mormon missionary.
Him: the guys with the white shirt and name tags?
Me: yup, but that was 20 years ago.
HIm: Ive seen you guys around.

Anyway, I thought both of those were interesting stories.

You guys grow so fast, Im proud of you

Love, your dad
-the bald white guy that used to speak tagalog