I should have paid better attention in French class

I’ve spent the better part of the last decade wishing I were bilingual. Unfortunately I have never managed to reconcile the desire to know French with the desire to learn it, and thus I am – for all intents and purposes – unilingual.

Most of the time this isn’t such a problem.  I suppose I’m lucky that at least my unilanguage is English, which as far as languages go is arguably The One To Know (at least as opposed to some tonal pygmy tribal language from deep in the Amazon, though I doubt those dudes get out much for it to matter to them anyways). Still, living internationally I am always crazy impressed by the number of languages that other people have mastered, and am jealously in awe of their dedication and ability, while swallowing the shame of being a Canadian who can’t speak French.

Benin, as I mentioned previously, is francophone; Mika and her family, are German, and I am blindingly inadequate. Lucky for me, everyone is quite obliging of my linguistic disabilities and therefore all our conversations are conducted in at least two (and regularly three) languages – usually consecutively, and often with hilarious consequences (which includes enthusiastic renditions of “love is in the hair” by a French guest whom apparently insists on using up all the extra H’s that his countrymen usually neglect).

Mika and Dani (her Mom) are fluent in English, and Rada (her Grandma) speaks only enough English to make it very funny when she proclaims “I speak good English!”.

I will say, however, that my French is getting better – there really is merit to the idea of going somewhere were you have no choice but to try. As an added bonus, swearing in German is coming more naturally to me now as well. Also, having someone’s grandmother always introduce you (in French or German) as “this is Heather, my granddaughters friend. She only speaks English” is a motivating factor; meeting a guy who speaks about as much English as you do French, also provides some inspiration.

Enter: The Package.

On our second day here, Mika and I were lounging by the pool (which is pretty much all we do) and while the beautiful day vied for our attention, it was rivaled only by an equally beautiful body across the pool . As the sun glistened off his muscly pecs like in a cheesy music video, Mika and I had no choice but to sit and watch in appreciation for a while. We named him The Package, on account of his teeny tiny bathing suit and, well, you fill in the blanks…

I ignored him of course when I got into the pool. Even when he swam over and greeted me with “salute. Ca’va?” I brushed him off with a dismissive “ca’va bien”. (All the while in my head all I could think was Scheisse and go away, you’re too pretty for me).

I told him that I don’t speak French (it wouldn’t have taken long to become blatantly obvious) thinking that it would make him go away, but instead he switched to extremely broken English that included an l-bomb within the first few hours (for which he has been forgiven because I’m too distracted by his six pack to care).

The Package is 25. A student (sociology – what do people with sociology degrees do except go back to school for something else?), currently has 2 weeks off (I refuse to utter the words ‘spring break’), and lives not too far from here. Our conversations consist mainly of each of us saying “what did you say?” or “I don’t understand” in each of our respective languages, and after a few hours of chatting (read: trying to chat) my brain turns to mush and I sometimes admit defeat, press my index finger over his lips and say “shhhh”, which is thankfully universal.

Silence is ok sometimes though, especially since he is so nice to look at; when he showed up the day after we met and was lounging by the pool in jeans with an open shirt, Dani said “he looks like a Tommy Hilfiger advertisement”. How lucky for us all that it’s true.

I keep telling him that he is too young for me and he should go away, but he’s a persistent little bugger. 

Interestingly, I’m pretty sure this is exactly how Stella Got Her Groove Back.

Anyways, I’m sure he’s said some stuff totally worthy of Guys Say The Darndest Things, but the language barrier is a bit of a problem so what I can share with you is this:

When The Package showed up for the second day, I was sitting with Mika, Dani and Rada, protesting that he is younger than my little brother and that is simply too young  and Rada had this advice for me: (in French) “life is short” then (in English) “make boom boom”.

I love Europeans.