Não falo português! - Part II

Coimbra, 29 August 2008

Even following their advice, I thought it would be strange (or rude?) to call a Portuguese person on the phone and greet in English. Therefore it was quite a relief when I managed to schedule my first stakeholder interview this morning – yay! With the help of my thin Lonely Planet phrasebook, I learned to talk to people on the phone:

-Está? (this is the phone greeting, like moshi-moshi in Japanese, or oui? In French.)
-Bom dia. Eu queiro falar com o (…) por favor? (Good morning. I would like to speak to (…) please?
-….. (don’t understand, guess: This is s/he.)
-Daqui falar Jane Wardani, uma estudante dos Estados-Unidos.
-….. (don’t understand)
-Desculpe, não entendo Portugues. Podia falar inglês? (Sorry, I don’t understand Portuguese. Do you speak English?)

If you speak Portuguese, you can probably tell that I’ve butchered the language.

Each time I called a person, I woud start with the above. A couple of people hung up on me. Maybe it wasn’t a good time to call and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I fought the creeping feeling that I had done something wrong and should go back to America. I swallowed hard, put the nagging thoughts aside, and decided to continue calling the next day and enjoy the rest of the day at the Mondego river park (which is called Parque Verde, or Green Park).

Then Sara, a researcher collecting survey data, also on the perception of the river Mondego, taught me a phrase that would become the most useful phrase during my stay in Portugal:

-Eu estou a estudar a percepção dos habitantes de Coimbra do seu rio Mondego. (I am studying the perception of the habitants of Coimbra on their River Mondego.)

Bingo!

I followed her around Parque Verde while she dropped off questionnaires at café tables at the riverside park, and as I went around the city of Coimbra armed with this phrase I got various responses. A very unpleasant bourgeois-looking couple severely criticized my presence, among other unsavory remarks they made about Sara and me. Most people were helpful when I as much as try to say this, though. A staffperson at the Museu da Agua in Coimbra was exceptionally so, showing me the collection of books housed in the museum about Rio Mondego, Coimbra, and the Polis program. She said I could come back and look at them if I needed to, which I did.

Another lifeline I had was French. I had been told that some of the older generation of Portuguese may speak French, as many of them migrated to France during tumultuous times in the 1970s. I ended up conducting one of the interviews in French, with an architecture and urban history professor who did his PhD in Sorbonne in Paris. The housekeeper at Residencia Coimbra, where I stayed 3 nights, was married to a French man and spoke perfect French. Other than these two though, French was not as widely spoken as I had thought.

Não falo português! - Part I

Lisbon, 28 August 2008

In my original research plan, written optimistically in faraway Berkeley, CA, I proposed interviewing users of riverside parks and spaces in various cities in Portugal. I thought it would complement well the research of two other Berkeley students, Kristen and Nadine. Kristen observed and described riverside parks and different types of users. Nadine’s approach was from the urban design standpoint, studying the configuration of space at and within the 0.25-mile radius of the waterfront. I wanted to talk to people and ask them for their stories with their waterfront. A little like how I had presented the Clarks’ story in Portsmouth, NH.

I knew that not speaking Portuguese was going to be a problem, but not THAT big of an issue. In my mind, I would be greeted by enthusiastic participants speaking animatedly in English with a Portuguese accent. After all, the students I met at a hydrology workshop last April spoke English at very high levels. I also was introduced to a student collecting the data for a related project, asking for people’s perception of the waterfront. I thought I could help with recruiting participants for her surveys.

After a couple of days in Lisbon, where the hotel reception staff barely spoke English, I began to have doubts. Then, I spoke to two environmental planning professors at the Instituco Superior Tecnico (IST) in Lisbon. And the doubt deepened. They recommended I spoke instead to local stakeholders and conduct more in-depth interviews. These local stakeholders would represent highly informed and engaged citizenry, some more directly involved with the rehabilitation program than others. They were also more likely to speak English. Following their advice, I swallowed my pride and proceeded with contacting some of the stakeholder they recommended.