February 5, 2015. Nuevo Vallarta, Mex. The Taxi Driver.

You know all about the attitude. When a person is in a foreign country and tries to speak the local language, you are treated with great joy. Yesterday I observed this attitude from the back seat of the taxi. Doreen sat in the front seat as she had directions to the hospital. We had to stop at the blood bank at the hospital, wait for Doreen to carry my blood sample, then drive back home. The taxi driver was about 50. When she gave him directions in Spanish, he turned to her with great joy and exclaimed how wonderful it was that she was speaking spanish. All the way to the hospital, they chattered away in Spanish, both obviously enjoying the conversation. When Doreen got out, I expected the driver to turn to me sitting in the back seat and talk to me. But he did not even turn around. I stayed mute, which is not an easy thing for me to do, but I wanted to see if he really was going to ignore me totally, which he did. Doreen returned after ten minutes and immediately their conversation continued, all the way back to the condo. It was am amazing display of the pleasure of finding a gringo speaking spanish. Doreen was not aware what was going on. Of course, she did not know that I was mute the whole time she was in the hospital. She expected he would be talking to me too. The driver was a friendly guy but he was not interested to talking to the very white lady wearing a hat in the back seat. But he loved chatting with Doreen, and her to him. What a difference a bit of language makes in attitudes.