Over the last few weeks, I have been having wonderful 5-10 minute conversations with a mom of a little girl in Matthew's class, while waiting for them to get out of school.
This mom is originally from Brazil. She moved to MA in 1999 and has 3 children. The little girl and twin one year old boys.
We haven't had any problems understanding each other, so I just figured that she was proficient in English.
The other day I sent out an email to the few mom's I've met asking if they had any coupons for a local zoo that we went to. The next day at school, the mom mentioned that she couldn't reply to me because her husband wasn't home to type the email. I said surprised "You don't know how to write in English?" She said "Only very little".
I sent her an email the next day through a site I found a few years ago, when joking with my father in Italian. It was a free language translation site. You type in your message and then choose the language you would like it translated into.
So this morning, she replied to me in Portuguese! When I went to the site and put in her message this is how it came up:
a lot obliged by the informacao of the site of traducao. Like this
that I will have a little time I am going to open this site. I like
very of converse with voce! Any day of these would like that voce and
his son came here at home for us visit. Good end of week!
Keeps
Monday.
Kisses.
I am loving this so much....and laughing. Not at her but the way the site translated it for me. I said "I'm a Voce!... Keeps Monday!"
Now what I have learned being the people person I am, is that what is in a person's soul and heart is what I look at when making friends. I am hoping this person will not only have similar values and morals as I, but also hoping they are raising their children that my son will have contact with - with the same beliefs. I don't need anymore friendships in my life where people are superfluous and not real. I want someone that is going to show my son that his family is just as important as any family we love and think is important.
I already know from talking to this woman that she struggled with infertility and now has twins, that her family is far away (Brazil) and she has had to raise her children and face life on her own with her husband and just have the strength to get through every day.
I told her Wow! And I think sometimes PA is far! Brazil, I can't even imagine.
The good note I want to leave on today is this.
When Eric and I were on our honeymoon in Cancun a million years ago, we were eating dinner in this little restaurant. There was a man there from New Zealand and he spoke maybe two words of English. I spoke few Spanish words. Just enough to get me to ask where the bathroom was, thank you, your welcome and andelei andelei to a bus driver who was driving slow.
When we sat next to that man, I'll never forget our wanting to converse. Our trying with him to talk to him, and him to us. All of being frustrated at not being able to express what we wanted to say. He was just a man, sitting at a table, enjoying his vacation from another country, over some drinks. Everyone in Cancun that works there was so wonderful and pleasant that even meeting a stranger next to us at the dinner table was a nice experience, so this lack of conversation was like someone putting on the brakes.
The mom I met from Brazil, is a woman. With the same inside as me, the same blood flowing through her veins to pump her heart, the same lungs to breathe, the same eyes to see and the same heart to break, the same challenges to face being away from her family, facing infertility then caring for twins and a four year old. She is a woman and a mom with the same worries, aches, goals, wants, wishes and dreams, pride for their achievements and basic love for the babies that she carried in her, that she would die for, that she wants only the best for.
I am not going to let language stand in my way of this new friendship. I wish more people would see human beings this way. There would be less wars and more hugs and love.
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