The other day I was in my house, washing some dishes after breakfast. As I turned around toward our front door, I see a young boy, about 10 yrs old, standing in the doorway of our house. He’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t place him. The look on his face tells me that the look on mine must be shock. He stands there, feet planted, and says only one word-- “Bola”—while cupping
his hand together repeatedly. After a few seconds and with a complete mental block, I look over at our dishes and point to a bowl in a questioning manner. He looks at them, then back at me, and once again says “bola.” This time he looks around behind our door and spotting the basketball, picks it up and walks out. It is only then that I realize he is our friend’s son, who often lends that basketball to my housemate.
I promptly facepalm and laugh at myself for a few minutes, not knowing what just happened. Oh, the hilarities of language barriers!
Scene two:
I am sitting in a coffee shop the other day, and happen to
be skyping my friend. She is talking when out of the corner of my eye I see
something outside the window that catches my attention. There are 3 people
walking down the sidewalk—a man and 2 girls. The first girl has a hospital mask
on. The second is carrying an IV bag above head level, with the cord running
from it to… the first girls hand! It’s hooked up! The man is walking behind
them, all three strolling along in no hurry. As I describe this to my friend on
Skype who has noticed my wondering eyes, all of the sudden, I find myself
asking her, “We don’t do that in the States, right?” I am confirmed in this,
and so continue watching. They stop at the corner, and the women with the IV
bag hands it off to the man before turning back and leaving them. They stand at the corner for a minute before finally continuing on. I wish I could have gotten a good picture of it, but the place they stopped obscured my view of the women with the IV in her, and it was a little too far for a camera to get good shot, anyway.
I’m not really sure how one goes about closing a story like that. what does one say? ’Don’t let an IV stop you from living your life’?
