Camdyn Breazeale: Help from Strangers

It was my second time coming to Kebab and Grill Express in Saint Vicente del Raspeig, Valencia in Spain. It was also my second time ordering food at a Spanish restaurant. Kebab and Grill Express wasn’t anything fancy. It was a fairly homely establishment that was less than a 10-minute walk from where I was staying at the time.

It was dark out as I walked tentatively into the small restaurant. I anxiously pretended to look at the menu while the single cook finished what he was doing, trying to discreetly wipe the nervous clamminess from my palms. I had rehearsed what I wanted to order and what I wanted to say beforehand, so when he came up to the counter to take my order, I did my best attempt at sounding like I hadn’t just walked off the plane a couple of days prior. Of course, I wasn’t as successful as I wanted to be, and I’m fairly certain that I politely asked him for the gyro plate in the most ungrammatical and “gringo” way possible.

“¿Puedo tener…?” Unfortunately, I wouldn’t realize my mistake until a couple weeks later, so when he gave me that knowing smile, I thought with some relief that I had succeeded in my Spanish-speaking mission. He never corrected me, but instead served me with a smile and asked me where I was from and what I was doing in Spain. In that empty hole-in-the-wall restaurant, I proceeded to have my first full conversation with a Spaniard. I walked away with my food grinning ear to ear, beaming with excitement.

I’ve always had a difficult time asking for help. Or better said, I’ve had a difficult time with the idea of burdening someone else with my shortcomings. At some point in my early life, I had either taught myself or learned that needing help or being inadequate in any way would cause trouble for others. Hence, as a kid, I taught myself to be self-sufficient enough to get by without having to ask someone for a hand or making myself an inconvenience to others. I did all of my homework on my own because I wouldn’t even dare to ask my own parents for help, even with something as simple as my Third Grade multiplication tables. I never wanted to ask teachers for help either. I remember crying in Fourth Grade when I was forced to receive extra help with practicing Long Division because I was embarrassed for needing help. And thus, asking for became something to be ashamed of because I viewed it as a symbol of inadequacy and as something that would actively inconvenience another person. It wasn’t until I stepped foot in Spain for the first time that my perspective began to shift.

Studying in Alicante, Spain in the Spring of 2024 forced me into a position in which I had to ask for help, and I had to become okay with being imperfect. If I didn’t then I would’ve been lost, metaphorically and literally. I survived the entire four months without cellular data and only a limited number of downloaded city maps to help me find my way. So it’s only natural that there were many instances in which I had to ask for help and admit either directly or indirectly that I didn’t know what I was doing.

My conversation with the guy at Kebab and Grill Express was one of the first of many perspective-shifting experiences with Spaniards who were willing to spend time with me and give me a push in the right direction without treating me the way I braced myself to be treated.

I needed a lot of help navigating Spain’s bus systems. I was completely new to using buses, having never been in a position in which I needed to frequently use public transportation of any kind (excluding the school bus). I was deathly afraid of getting lost on the public transportation system. Hence, after my flight into Spain, I had to ask a guy on the bus from Valencia to Alicante what stop we were at because I couldn’t understand what the bus driver was saying through the speaker, and I was anxious that I was going to miss my stop. He responded to me with a reassuring smile that we were only in Benidorm and that the next stop was Alicante. There was another kind man at the Alicante bus station who dropped what he was doing to spend a minute or two explaining to me and pointing me towards where the stop for city Bus 24 was.

A couple of days later, the greatest angel out of all of them to appear was a senior lady who, when I asked which stop the Plaza was, realized that I was on the wrong bus. This sweet woman got off the bus with me, abandoning the ride that she had just paid for, and walked me to the correct bus stop. I would’ve cried and kissed her out of gratuity had she not started ushering me forward with the urgence of a parent trying to make sure her kid was on time for school when she saw that the bus that I was supposed to be on was riding up the block. I rushed forward, waving back to her and shouting my thanks with my luggage in tow behind me.

I had a lot of other great encounters with people who took time to get to know me despite my much less than perfect Spanish. For example, there was a pharmacist who not only helped me but engaged me in pleasant conversation. I had just come in there looking for a heating pack for some neck pain that I was experiencing when she offered her help. With a couple small hiccups in translation, she was finally able to help me find what I was looking for, and we had a nice laugh. After I bought the heat pack, she asked me about my experiences in Spain and what I liked about being there. I tried my best to answer her questions, offering up an apology for my bad Spanish. She quickly shook her head and told me how impressed she was with my speaking ability. I gave her a shy “thank you” and continued to talk with her for a while longer.

On a similar note, I tutored a couple’s kid in English, which meant that I would just go to their apartment and talk with their son for an hour. But when it was time for me to leave, the kid’s parents would frequently keep me around to chat. They never laughed at my struggle to express myself in Spanish, and one time they even went so far as to help me understand Spanish commands before my grammar exam. I still have the paper that Mr. José wrote instructions on.

Each of these people showed me a glimpse of a reality in which my inadequacies didn’t make me a burden. I wasn’t able to completely unlearn my way of thinking. I still struggle to ask for help in my personal life, but now there are moments when I can push past shame and reach out to others for a hand. I consider it a small victory when I’m able to do something as simple as go to a professor’s office hours to ask a question. They didn’t know it, but these strangers weren’t just helping me find my way in a foreign country, helping me practice my conversational Spanish, or helping me understand Spanish grammar before an exam. They were helping me understand myself in a much different light, one that didn’t depict me as an inconvenience when I fell short. Each act of kindness they showed me laid a rock in the road toward deconstructing the way I approach life and myself. I think that was the greatest help of all.

Camdyn Breazeale is from Belton, South Carolina. She is graduating Fall of 2024 with a B.S. in English and Spanish. Following graduation, Camdyn plans on attending law school and pursuing a career as an attorney.