Missing Home

Filed in archive Latin Chat , Latin Culture on January 24, 2007

Reading this post - Spanish radio soothes the homesick in U.S. heartland - at Hispanic Trending, this quote got me thinking:

"If you're homesick and you're lonesome and it's all about language ... you'll go where you feel welcome, and a lot of comfort is with language,. (...)"

This is so true. I grew up in Brazil, and my primary language is Portuguese. One of the things I really miss, living in a "hispano hablante" country, is speaking Portuguese.

You can learn another language really well, but you'll always feel more comfortable speaking your own language.

Each language has its own way to express feelings and thoughts, and that goes deep within us.

What's the name for the feeling of missing somebody? In Portuguese, it is called "saudade". It's a substantive, and it has no translation. We say, "Sinto saudade de você". Literally translated: "I feel saudade for you". The correct translation would be "I miss you", but it's note the same.

At least not for me.

Of course there are many other things to miss. Music, specially from my childhood.

Food, not only the recipes my mom use to cook, but ingredients that can't be found here. Oh, the fruit! Mango, I love mango... here it's too expensive, and not easy to find. Papaya, carambola, graviola; tropical fruits only found in Brazil.

And the bananas... we have bananas here, but they come from Chile and ecuador, and are quite different from Brazilian bananas. Besides, in Brazil we have a lot of different types of bananas: prata, maçã, nanica...

What about you? What do you miss from the place where you grew up?