Make New Friends

So again I don’t really have a picture to go with this post because it seemed a little awkward to ask for one! You will see why…

On Monday I wasn’t supposed to be at school. I had no classes, and it was a personal study day for my test Wednesday night. {hence why there has been no updates} I was about to walk out after spending longer than I planned in the student lounge. I saw 2 Italian girls that were standing at the door to the office staring as if trying to find something among the masses of paper notices that cover the door. We said the usual “excuse me” and gave a half smile in greeting. I then made my way to the lunch room to meet a friend. A few minutes later the two girls walked in and asked accented English asked “do you know Italian?”
I have been in a conversation like this before, my first day of class in a world where I did not speak Italian. I knew how to say hello, good bye, and excuse me at that point. Now I was prepared when I answered “a little” for the next question. “Would you like to practice English and Italian with us?” “Yes, when would you like to meet?” And thus yesterday I had my first meeting and “tandem” conversation.
I was nervous and told them. I also had a ton of fun. We laughed. We tried new words. And they made me speak in Italian, which was good but really hard. I laughed when one of them said “ok, it’s time for you to speak in Italian for 30 minutes. If you do good and don’t make very many mistakes we will say good bye in English.” And all I could think was Well, I guess we are saying bye in Italian…
I think that the real victory for me is that I have wanted to meet Italians. But the Italian students are very closed off to us Americans and it takes time to build relationships. And a few days ago I was feeling as if there was not enough time for meet to meet Italian students. Today when I went into the lunch room at our class break one of the girls was there. She called out my name and smiled. We did the traditional greeting of a hug and 2 kisses. “Did you like yesterday? Do you want to do meet again?” And then she turned and said “I want you to meet my friends…”

I walked away feeling blown away by blessings and so very thankful for new friends.