|
Recently, I was at a breakfast technical presentation and
the gentleman sitting next to me turned out to be an American working in
Trinidad. As I started to eat my eggs and buljhol, he said "Buen
provecho". When he saw my puzzled look, he translated "Bon appetite!".
First of all, I was ashamed that I didn't understand such
a simple Spanish expression, and secondly, it's ironic that the English
translation was actually a French one. Thirdly, how come an American can
speak Spanish and I can't, and I grew up and live in a country just 7 miles from
South America? The reason, of course, is that he does business with South
America.
The odd thing is that CRS also does business with South
America. We have an international client doing work in Trinidad and
our client contacts live in Brazil. I know, they speak Portuguese, but
they can also speak Spanish and English.
From time to time, we are asked
to source Spanish speaking I.T. professionals to work in Trinidad and be able to
communicate with regional head offices in South America or the Dominican
Republic, and that combination of skills has been virtually impossible to
find here in Trinidad.
Globalisation is already here as large multi-national
companies lump the Caribbean with Latin America rather than English-speaking
North America. We're more comfortable
shopping in Miami or visiting relatives in Toronto, than traveling to our much
closer neighbours like Venezuela, because of the difficulty of the
language barrier. Yet, many of the bars and gyms in Port of Spain (note
the irony of our capital city's name) are full of Spanish speaking people,
mainly from Venezuela.
Years ago, I was playing a game of "Trivial Pursuit" in
Tobago with some visiting English friends. The question was "What is the
official language spoken in Trinidad & Tobago?". To my amazement, my
friends answered "Spanish". Maybe I don't pronounce my words well enough
for them to think that English is my first language? Actually, they were
misled by the fact that our country has a Spanish name ... another irony.
So, I'm very pleased that the T&T government has
a plan to
establish "Spanish As First Foreign Language". The SAFFL initiative
is designed to help our nation become proficient in Spanish within the next 10
to 15 years.
This will make my job much easier when sourcing people for my
Latin American clients, and we may get more such clients as a result.
Also, some of our local clients are already expanding to Latin America and I'm
sure the demand for Spanish as a pre-requisite for good I.T. jobs will escalate
as a result, together with the opportunities to work abroad.
So, think about enrolling in a Spanish language class.
You can find them at UWI, NIHERST, the Venezuelan Embassy and many private
institutions in T&T. Some companies are also introducing training for
employees to learn business and conversational Spanish.
Hasta La Vista!
|
