It is, yet again, another gorgeous spring day. Kabob left early this morning to meet his new language helper at the university, so Chickpea and I were on our own for the morning. After writing a few new phrases on index cards to practice, we walked down to the neighborhood park. At one point, there were 13 children at this miniscule playground, and none of them were older than 4. Chickpea had a good time digging in the sand and swinging with them, but I was a bit surprised that her preference was to play alone. Either that, or with me as her playmate. She’s either getting used to mostly being around me, or she’s still a little freaked out by the new language. I’m not worried about her, but I would like her to find maybe one special playmate that she can spend regular time with.

With lots of little kids come lots of young mamas (or grandmas, or nannies), so there was plenty of fresh blood for me to practice the language with. I think I’ve got the hang of the basic greetings, “how are you?”, “what’s your name?”, “what is your child’s name?”, “how old is s/he?”, and “where do you live?”. I can also ask “what’s your nationality?”, but it comes across as an odd topic when you’re the foreigner, so I’ll just have to practice that with some other expat who doesn’t speak English. If people ask me these questions in return, I’m good. If they start going off on what they saw on the news last night, or the funny thing their aunt said on the phone, they’ll be given the deer-in-the-headlights look. The other moms are plenty friendly, but I can tell they just don’t have that much to say to me. It felt weird to be swinging my kid alongside them, and for them to be gabbing and laughing around me while I smiled politely. In some ways it sorta felt like Elaine at the nail salon – are they talking about me? What are they saying?

My goal this week is to meet three neighbors. There’s a sweet older woman who lives on our floor that has told me “I’m waiting for you to come.” I think I’ll start with her first. I also want to go upstairs and talk with the English-speaking couple and ask them which apartments have small children. In some ways, I want to just start knocking on every single door – but that’s 44 apartments, and that’s definitely drinking from the firehose right now. I just want to start off strategically and go first to the ones that might potentially have friends for Chickpea.

There’s also a women’s-only gym one tiny block away, and I’m thinking of joining. I think it will be a good place to meet women, and not at all in the conventional way people sign up at gyms to meet women. Apparently it’s done in the exact manner of those Curves gyms in the U.S., and that weirds me out a little. They also weigh you every time you walk in the door, which is intimidating right from the beginning. But I figure I already look like an idiot when I open my mouth, might as well throw the rest of my pride out the window.

posted: 07 April 10
under: culture