A Rare Impression

In a fast food center, about a week ago, I met an elderly lady who introduced herself to me as a nurse. She had a grandchild sitting (or seated) beside her. As I sat right across the table from her, her attention was drawn to my daughter’s skin and her beauty. This is because my daughter is different from the other children. I gladly responded to her, and we began to talk to each other. Then later, she found out my daughter has one half American blood.

The old lady was simple looking. She sounded like a typical Visayan woman. But, I heard her talk to her grandchild in English. It seems like in slang English, but it was perfectly spoken. When she was through, she turned to me and talked again in a native bisaya dialect. Then, because of her English accent, I asked her if she had already been to another country. She told me, she had been in the USA for over 30 years working as a nurse.

I had the notion that she is a smart lady and a fast-learner. And one thing that she left me with was the impression that she still embraces and has never forgotten her native bisaya accent.

And now, there is a big difference between her and my friend living in the USA , now, for eight years. Because, every time I talk with this friend, she responds to me like she is trying hard to make her voice sound like an American accent. Even the way she talks in bisaya, it sounds like a slang bisaya.

A moral lesson I got from the old lady, is that: Be true to yourself, speak in the natural way when you are talking to a person with the same dialect, and do not forget your roots; because it is from there where you found your way up now.