The memory of Egypt inspired little images, fragments of travel, reflections on language as I walked back from Sahara. I love the fluttering of images and insights that happen when walking.
When my nephew David was around four he had just learned about Spanish and seemed fascinated that there was a language other than his own. We were at Kingsland Bay, busy with a project of gathering dried seaweed on the rocks and dipping it in the water, when a Canadian couple drifted by on their sailboat. Over the water we could hear the foreign sound of their French conversation. David went still and stared as the boat passed. Then he turned and whispered in my ear "They don't talk regular like us, they talk Spanish."
Once, when I was in Paris, someone stopped me on the street to ask for directions and I was just delighted to be mistaken for being Parisian. Then later at a café, I used my high school French to order what I thought I was a drink and a pastry. When the waitress came back with two drinks and a funny look, I held my head high and sipped both of my beverages with an air of "Well this is how we do it in my country."
There was Ikeda-Sensei, in Japan, who told me it was only in English that she could admit that she didn't get up early to make breakfast for her husband who left for work before her. She said that, due to her generation and culture, her lips couldn't physically form the words in Japanese. On the other hand, there was Sato-Sensei who, when introducing me to his middle school class, translated my response to a student's question, "Do you have husband?" with the more modern day, "SHE TOO BUSY TO MARRY!"
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