Making friends with immigrants…and others
And ppl say that we should not talk to strangers! Hmmmphf, yes, good advice for the kiddies but as a well functioning adult, I say: how else does one make friends?
So partly for “migration study” research and partly b/c I just love to learn about others, I talk to all the immigrants in the city that I can find. An easy way to do this is to frequent small shops or convenience shops.
So far, so easy. (PS this is exactly what I did when in Japan to find Japanese Brazilians.)
And now I have a new friend, Mansour. He’s from Afghanistan and he’s been around for not that long…he has a great accent, having lived in England for several years, and now he’s learning French! YOU KNOW when he told me that, I was SOLD–we were gonna become fast friends 🙂
If I had more time, I could tutor him but that would probably be a bit too much for my sched at the mo’ considering that I have to focus on my regular day job.
Oh well, as he works near my place, there is ample occasion to chitchat. It’s fun 🙂
The other day, I had Lebanese “pizza”…yeah so I don’t really know what that is either, but one’s gotta support the small shops in town or else they’ll go under. So the girl at the counter taught me a few words in Arabic but they didn’t stick. I’ll have to go back there with a pen and paper. And it’s good to know that there are ethnic shops around with yummy hummous and fresh cheeses 🙂
Today on my walk back after the run, I met a guy from Mali. Now another area I’m interested in is remittances i.e. the money that immigrants send back to their homelands. So he told me a bit about the money flows that he sends from Geneva to his family…it’s always so fascinating to hear these types of stories.
A couple chats here and there and one’s life is enriched. PPL are so cool. So I say, let’s get out there and make some new friends 🙂
water and immigrants!
And at the Saturday market, I learned about a new way to prepare fennel. Just add cream! Obviously my produce guy was French 🙂
Ciao bellos!!!!