I’ve entered Week Three of French language training, and my Arabic’s never been better. It’s been about 15 years since I returned from Peace Corps (EGAD!), and, quite honestly, I struggled mightily with the languages.
Languages don’t come naturally to me. There’s zero aptitude
there, and this six months where my job is to learn French … well, let’s just
say I’m terrified. In the end it will be okay, I know, but getting to the end
of August may kill me.
Right now, though, responses are popping into my head for
all of the questions. Unfortunately, they’re in Moroccan Arabic instead of
French. I guess that’s because I heard French all throughout Peace Corps, and
when someone there would say, “Bonjour!” I would respond with “Sbah Lehir!” “Au
revior” sounds strange; signing off is “bslama.”
In class, when questions come to me, I can’t string together
a response in French, but the Darija springs to mind, fully formed. Where that
was 15 years ago, I don’t know. (“Manarf” in Darija. I can’t think how to say
it in French. Je something.)
It’s going to be a long, long slog. And with the time change,
it’s even sloggier. My plan is to walk to work on a daily basis and now it’s
dark and flipping cold early. It’ll warm up eventually, but I’m bringing hot
chocolate with me so I can warm up when I get there. It’s only a mile, but a
mile in 34 degree-and-windy weather is brutal.
Today, I had a meeting right after class and it finished up
15 minutes before the shuttle came to take people home. It was nice, albeit
windy, so I opted to walk. Because I was walking, I decided to hit the grocery
store to buy some tea. I was already laden with my books and bag, so I wasn’t
shopping, but when I got here, I bought enough stuff to last months, so I am
only cherry-picking food right now. Yesterday it was carrots; today it was tea.
As it turned out, the tea was on sale, but I had to root
through to find sweet tea. Since I was wearing a fairly puffy coat (love LL
Bean!) and wrangling two things hanging from my shoulders, getting the money
out was a feat. It was $2.53 and the cashier asked if I wanted to round up.
Now, I’ve heard this isn’t the thing to do because the grocery store can give
your money to whatever charity it sees fit and not necessarily the one they’re promoting,
but I didn’t care. I was getting hot in the store in my heavy jacket, I was
lugging two bags and a gallon of tea and I still had five blocks to go once I
paid. SI handed over my $3 and said, out loud, that he could round it up and I
trusted that karma would come my way.
And I got out of there. Since I was here two months ago,
they moved the entrance to the grocery store so it’s an extra block away, and I
was just ready to get home and out of the wind, especially because I hadn’t
juggled my load to put my hat back on. Instead, I held on as best I could and
headed the last five blocks to my apartment.
Three blocks in, I was shifting stuff around and trying to get a grip when I glanced down. Right at my feet was a folded-up dollar bill. It took a whole three blocks for the good karma to come back around.
