Bit Seventeen

One easy way to tell if you are becoming friends with someone who speaks a different language is by seeing how often you make each other laugh. This is something I have discovered in my conversations with Zahrah. Mostly due to her ease with the English language, there have been several times recently when one of us has made a joke about something we were talking about, and we both have laughed about it.

I have noticed a similar progression in my moments with another Muslim friend, Dr. Ahmed. Every Thursday morning, I spend an hour visiting with Dr. Ahmed (not his real name). Born in Somalia, Dr. Ahmed has seen the fall of his native country from beauty to chaos. (Currently, because of civil unrest, the entire country is without any organized form of law and order.) He grew up in a part of Somalia which was colonized by Italy, so once he was ready to pursue a higher education, he moved to Italy.

Dr. Ahmed spend 10 years in Italy. So, each Thursday, Dr. Ahmed and I meet to speak in Italian. Having only spent 9 months there three years ago, our sessions are more of a lesson for me than a time to chat. However, he uses part of this time to practice his skills in English conversation as well. Our conversations range from what we did over the past week to political events around the world.

Many of our moments of laughter are created because of my clumsiness with the Italian language, but there have been a couple of times when we have chuckled together at cultural differences between America, Somalia, and Italy. For example, the word "parenti" in Italian is used to refer to one's parents, but includes all other relatives as well. We laughed at the thought of an English person introducing their entire family as their "parents."

I guess it all chalks up to the fact that everyone enjoys laughing, it's a universal language!