MUSINGS BY JOAN #34
Volunteering has its ups and downs. Mostly it is very satisfactory, but sometimes it leaves you shaking your head in wonderment. I had one of those days on Saturday.
Both the 'significant other' and I have been guiding at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens on Friday afternoons for many years. We both love this fabulous 100 year old home that belonged to industrialist James Deering and sits on Biscayne Bay just a few blocks north of where we live. Like most guides, we pride ourselves on knowing the contents of the home extremely well and love to tell all the wonderful stories about life at the mansion in the early 1900s.
But back to my experience on Saturday. Earlier in the week an e-mail had arrived from a member of Vizcaya’s staff, desperate for a volunteer to lead a reserved tour on Saturday morning at 11am. “Reserved tours”, we are taught, mean the group has paid in advance and usually gets preferred treatment.
Benard was out of town and since I had nothing special planned, I volunteered to take the tour. On Friday, when I was at Vizcaya for my regular tour, I ran up to the administrative offices to find out something about the Saturday group so I could be fully prepared. Not so easy. No one had any information other than the unpronounceable name of the group which seemed to be very French and had something to do with a saint. I worriedly mentioned that I don’t speak French, and was assured that they would have a translator with them.
Saturday morning I showed up several minutes early to read up on any thing of French provenance in the house, with emphasis on any items that smacked of Louis XV. Primed to impress with all my wonderful francophile knowledge, I felt reasonably sure I was good to go despite any language barrier. Promptly at 11am the guard at the front entrance informed me my tour had arrived and were on their way in. I muttered “Bonjeur, mesdames et monsieurs” a few times under my breath, the absolute limit of my French, and walked out to the entrance foyer to greet the group which I envisioned had just arrived from Paris via Air France.
Actually, they hadn’t come from quite that far. What they had done was come by bus from the area in Miami known as Little Haiti, about ten miles north of Vizcaya, and they were a group of 21 middle aged-to-senior citizen ladies and one or two gentlemen, all dressed in their Sunday-go-to-church best. They only spoke Creole, the language of Haiti, with a severely limited knowledge of English, and there was no translator. I had a feeling I was in deep trouble.
Forty five minutes later, I was exhausted and strangely exhilarated. I didn’t understand them very well and they certainly didn’t really understand me, but they were having a wonderful time. I found that if I spoke very slowly, did a lot of pointing, and enunciated like mad, about half of them could follow along. The rest just looked around in awe as we marched through the house. For some ungodly reason, one little lady sidled up to me at one point and asked me in pigeon English, "Meester. . .he Jewish?". I’m not sure what she saw in the house that made her ask that, but I stifled a giggle and responded that he was a good Presbyterian, of impeccable Scotch/English ancestry. I could literally hear Mr. D. turning over in his grave at that question.
Bottom line, it was a learning experience for all of us. Haitian refugees all, now living and working in Miami, they were on a wonderful church outing to an absolutely beautiful waterfront mansion unlike anything any of them had ever experienced before. I found myself wanting desperately to make the visit memorable for them, and hopefully I did.
As I said goodbye to the group at the end of the tour, the woman who seemed to have the best command of the English language stepped forward, smiled at me, and said in a soft but clear voice, “Lovely presentation.”
I’ve never had a better compliment in all my years of guiding.
# # #
Photo caption: Magnificent Vizcaya, circa 1916
Volunteering has its ups and downs. Mostly it is very satisfactory, but sometimes it leaves you shaking your head in wonderment. I had one of those days on Saturday.
Both the 'significant other' and I have been guiding at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens on Friday afternoons for many years. We both love this fabulous 100 year old home that belonged to industrialist James Deering and sits on Biscayne Bay just a few blocks north of where we live. Like most guides, we pride ourselves on knowing the contents of the home extremely well and love to tell all the wonderful stories about life at the mansion in the early 1900s.
But back to my experience on Saturday. Earlier in the week an e-mail had arrived from a member of Vizcaya’s staff, desperate for a volunteer to lead a reserved tour on Saturday morning at 11am. “Reserved tours”, we are taught, mean the group has paid in advance and usually gets preferred treatment.
Benard was out of town and since I had nothing special planned, I volunteered to take the tour. On Friday, when I was at Vizcaya for my regular tour, I ran up to the administrative offices to find out something about the Saturday group so I could be fully prepared. Not so easy. No one had any information other than the unpronounceable name of the group which seemed to be very French and had something to do with a saint. I worriedly mentioned that I don’t speak French, and was assured that they would have a translator with them.
Saturday morning I showed up several minutes early to read up on any thing of French provenance in the house, with emphasis on any items that smacked of Louis XV. Primed to impress with all my wonderful francophile knowledge, I felt reasonably sure I was good to go despite any language barrier. Promptly at 11am the guard at the front entrance informed me my tour had arrived and were on their way in. I muttered “Bonjeur, mesdames et monsieurs” a few times under my breath, the absolute limit of my French, and walked out to the entrance foyer to greet the group which I envisioned had just arrived from Paris via Air France.
Actually, they hadn’t come from quite that far. What they had done was come by bus from the area in Miami known as Little Haiti, about ten miles north of Vizcaya, and they were a group of 21 middle aged-to-senior citizen ladies and one or two gentlemen, all dressed in their Sunday-go-to-church best. They only spoke Creole, the language of Haiti, with a severely limited knowledge of English, and there was no translator. I had a feeling I was in deep trouble.
Forty five minutes later, I was exhausted and strangely exhilarated. I didn’t understand them very well and they certainly didn’t really understand me, but they were having a wonderful time. I found that if I spoke very slowly, did a lot of pointing, and enunciated like mad, about half of them could follow along. The rest just looked around in awe as we marched through the house. For some ungodly reason, one little lady sidled up to me at one point and asked me in pigeon English, "Meester. . .he Jewish?". I’m not sure what she saw in the house that made her ask that, but I stifled a giggle and responded that he was a good Presbyterian, of impeccable Scotch/English ancestry. I could literally hear Mr. D. turning over in his grave at that question.
Bottom line, it was a learning experience for all of us. Haitian refugees all, now living and working in Miami, they were on a wonderful church outing to an absolutely beautiful waterfront mansion unlike anything any of them had ever experienced before. I found myself wanting desperately to make the visit memorable for them, and hopefully I did.
As I said goodbye to the group at the end of the tour, the woman who seemed to have the best command of the English language stepped forward, smiled at me, and said in a soft but clear voice, “Lovely presentation.”
I’ve never had a better compliment in all my years of guiding.
# # #
Photo caption: Magnificent Vizcaya, circa 1916
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