9.03.08 WTF Wednesday

Category: dribblings

today i got to meet my new conversation partner. i know i explain this every semester, but let me do it again for those of you just tuning in. every semester (except summers) i volunteer in the conversation partner program at the local jr. college. this is one of Stormy Wunderblatt’s projects. and she’s the one who talked me into volunteering. and now? i’m kinda hooked. this will be my third or fourth year. i can’t remember.

basically you go to the college once a week and talk to an international student for an hour. it’s the same student every time. so after a while you’ve made a new friend. it’s awesome. i figure i’ll never get to visit all those awesome places but this way i can talk to awesome people from awesome places. last time my partner was from russia and she was so cool. but i was spoiled because she spoke english really well.

this time my parnter is from brazil. she, too, is sweet. however, she doesn’t speak a lot of english… and i don’t know any portuguese, so basically we’re screwed. even so, we managed to talk for an hour as best we could, which included lots of, “i don’t understand,” and “sorry. no. what?” and then lots of laughing because what else can you do?

her name is pronounced ah-LEE-nee. and like i say, she’s from brazil. but you know what is bad ass? she’s a firefighter! i know! how cool is that? she’s the only female firefighter in her department. she says it’s her and 85 guys. can you even imagine?
me neither.

anyway, i felt like a loser telling her i worked in a library. i mean, “oh, what do you do all day? rescue people and put out fires and see really sad things happen all the time? that’s so great and noble. hm? me? i… shelve books. yeah. it’s pretty… gratifying.”

so anyway she’s a firefighter and a vegetarian. i feel terrible about the vegetarian thing because she can’t drive here and only has the school cafeteria for her meals. she says she eats a biscuit for breakfast and a salad for lunch and dinner. i said, “what about fruit?”

“only apples! apples, apples, apples!”

“what? no bananas?”

“ayiee! if ONLY banana! but no! only apples! don’t show me an apple anymore! i can’t!”

“heh, so you’re tired of apples?”

“always apples. i eat all day apples.”

so i think next time i’ll bring her some bananas. poor thing. she eats cheese but not eggs and she says that the milk here is very different. we couldn’t communicate exactly what was different about the milk but i think what she was getting at was that it’s too watery.

once she learns some more english i think it’s gonna be a lot easier to communicate. i have to remember to slow down though. i talk too fast. and it’s also hard to remember that we talk different than other cultures. here’s an example of that very thing:

“how long have you been a firefighter?”

“i don’t understand?”

“how long…erm. your job. okay wait.”

“job?”

“okay you-” pointing at her “have been a firefighter-”

“yes.”

“how long?”

“long?”

“oh okay here. how much time… have you had… as a firefighter?”

“ah, i see. for the first day in a week there are 24 hours. then sleep with 8 hours. then it is 24 hours. like that for week.”

“no, i mean, nevermind.”

so that’s how it goes most of the time. isn’t it awesome? luckily she has a portuguese/english dictionary and that was a great help.

anyway, my conversation partner rocks, thanks Stormy!

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