Immigrants on the Move

Yesterday we landed back in Barcelona airport after living in Baku for 7 months. For me it’s the end of my time in Baku, and amid the stress and chaos of packing up my belongings and paying for overweight cases (I must learn how to pack light), there was a moment of pure relief. I headed to Pret a Manger in Barcelona Airport for some snacks for the long drive to the Alicante region. The choices on offer looked like luxury take away, it was familiar, there were so many choices I was lost. But most of all, I understood the labels and packaging of everything I looked at.

A long long time ago I went on holiday to Turkey, the furthest afield I had travelled in my early twenties. As was customary for me I had a little phrasebook (this was before we googled everything) and attempted to learn the basic greetings of the local language; hello, goodbye, thank you, and please. Nowadays I learn white wine too, because it’s always nice to be able to order in the local language. I had done this in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy without too much difficulty, but no matter how many times I read and re-read the words in Turkish they would not stay in my head.

The Azerbaijani language is of Turkic origin and is similar enough that both countries can understand each other. But similarly to my brief holiday in Turkey, the language does not stay in my head. It shoots in one ear and straight out the other. At the end of seven months I had about 10 words that I could remember and pronounce very badly.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein

What does this have to do with familiarity? Well when I brought my items to the counter at Pret and decided to order a chai tea latte the Spanish just rolled off my tongue. It was easy, I could communicate again. It honestly felt like someone had taken a two ton weight off my shoulders. The confidence to be able to say what I wanted, to be clear without confusion, to be me without apology was huge. The familiarity of the Spanish language, of knowing what people are saying, of knowing whatever situation may arise I could handle it and communicate in their language replenished some of the confidence I’d lost in the last 7 months.

So while familiarity can of course breed contempt when you don’t appreciate what you have, I would argue it’s not the familiarity that does that, it’s not appreciating what you have in front of you, what you know and once cherished. For me familiarity can also help make you feel whole again. It can give you the voice you may have lost, and it can help you hold your head a little higher.