When she came to the door she was not empty handed. She bore two super cute outfits for my baby girl and some bananas for dinner. I was completely floored with the gesture. I was thinking to myself that she hardly knows me and that she was not even asked to bring anything for dinner. All she said is that it is a Russia tradition to bring something and that she had such a wonderful time shopping because she was able to buy pink for once (having all boys).
When she came in I introduced her to my wife who speaking more Russian that I can greeted her in english and then in Russian to which Alena was yet again surprised. Dinner was a blur with home made spaghetti sauce (my wife's is the best), tea, and great conversation. We ended up making a video for her Russian friends to see us back home. After a few more pictures because Alena is a photographer we continued to make small talk for a while until my wife pulled out a Russian children's book that we bought when we were in St. Petersburg (the Russian one not the florida one, although they are sister cities!). Alena helped my wife read through the first couple pages and work on her Russian vocabulary. A few songs on the guitar later and we bid Alena goodbye until next week where we will once again sit down to a meal and hopefully enjoy ever more tantalizing conversation. I suspect this will be a life long friendship.
That picture is priceless ;) I am so glad our students have super cool Americans like you all to interact and exchange with. I am equally as inspired that we Americans can learn so much from our international friends as well.
ReplyDeleteIt is SO COOL that you are becoming such great friends with Alena! We can only hope that we have this much sucess with our conversation and tutoring partners. It's interesting that even though there are so many cultural boundaries that you'd think would hinder a really close friendship, there are some people you just click with, no matter what language you speak!
ReplyDeleteYour wife sounds like a language prodigy, and I'm sure it is fun for Alena to teach Russian to Americans, as well as the other way around.
I can completely relate in that I already feel a strong friendship forming with my conversation partners. I told Joyce on my second time meeting her that, forming a friendship was my main goal of our sessions anyways. She seemed to agree.
ReplyDeleteThat was such a sweet gesture for her to bring the bananas and outfits for your daughter! Alena sounds like a genuinely nice person :).