Trouble in Sin City

Switch gears. Every day is a new day. And believe me, with my brain in its present state, that's more than just a cliche. My cognitive deficits, God bless 'em, conspire with every sunrise to dust the chalk off yesterday's slate.

How much have I said herein of Roy and Abdul, our exchange students? I am finally learning to pronounce Roy's real name. It goes something like this--Yoi-skay. The actual spelling is nothing like that, but phonetically I'm beginning to get a handle on it.

Sadly, the students are not speaking to each other these days. This is because of something that happened in Las Vegas. The details are sketchy, and neither is saying much about it.

Did I mention that Roy and Abdul had gone together to Vegas? Yes, it was their vacation between terms at the University. The whole thing cost a couple bucket-loads of money--nice work if you can get it. My wife, along with a few other young women, volunteered their services in the capacity of a guide (with some small consideration, of course), but Roy and Abdul would have none of it. They made it quite clear, albeit in broken English, that they could handle the trip on their own.

In hindsight, I consider it to be one of life's great miracles that they returned to Portland at all, for I had not, in all honestly, been able to imagine how they would succeed even in finding their own hotel room.

They went, they saw, they conquered--and then came home on separate planes, their friendship no longer intact.

We asked whether they had had a good time. Yes they answered. Yes, yes, very good.

Then that night I heard them arguing in Roy's room. The argument had something to do with money.

Roy, I promise you the money was given by me. You should remember better.

No, Aba-duul, I am not forget.

Roy I promise, you should remember.

Just a moment, Aba-duul, just a moment.

No, no, I promise. It is certain.

So it went. It is difficult to make much of such duels of bad grammar, but it was clear that something had happened and things were not well between them.

The next day I talked to Roy.

Roy, what's going on with you and Abdul?

Mmmmm . . . He did not want to talk about it.

I pressed him.

Is it money?

No no no, not money, no. Aba-duul, he is late every time. Many times we have miss the bus. I told him, Aba-duul hurry. I told him many times.

I guess he is kinda slow, I said.

I told him many times. But he goes his own piss.

Now I knew this could not be right, so I asked Roy to repeat the phrase.

His piss, Roy said, carefully accentuating the word. He goes his own piss?

I asked him to spell the word.

P-a-c-e. Piss.

Well, that cleared it up perfectly.

In any case, Roy and Abdul have not spoken since that night in Roy's room. The pass each other in hallway or kitchen, turning their shoulders, loudly silent, like two offended lovers. They no longer walk to the bus together. And they make no further plans for exotic travel.

Roy gravitates toward me, and Abdul toward my wife.

And let me tell you, I got the best deal there, because Roy's English is far superior to Abdul's.

The Lost Weekend

Abdul and Roy have decided that they want to go somewhere out of town for the Memorial Day weekend. After holding a conference in Abdul's room upstairs, they came to us with three ideas for a place to go:

1. Seattle.
2. Lincoln City (the beach).
3. Canada.

Roy, having the better command of English, took the role of spokesperson.

"We want go Seattle," he said. "How far?"

"Well, just about 3 hours from Portland. By car."

"Car?"

"Yes."

"How long by bus?"

"Three days."

"Ahhhhhh!"

At this point Abdul interjects, "I want Canada."

"It's nice to hear someone does," I say.

"Canada?"

"Yes."

"How far?" Roy says.

"Farther than it's worth. Much father, in fact."

"Farther than Seattle?"

"Much farther."

"We will go to Seattle," Roy says, sounding pretty definite.

"How will you get there?"

"How?"

"Yes. I mean, you could take the bus, but it is much shorter by car. You could rent a car."

"Rent?"

"Yeah rent, you know, menyewa."

For some reason I continually slip into the Indonesian language when trying to explain things to Roy and Abdul, even though they are, respectively, Japanese and Saudi Arabian.

"Okay, we will rent. How much the price?"

"Well we can look online."

"Ahhhhh . . . I don't have license."

"Okay. That's a problem then. We're back to the bus. But, where will you guys stay in Seattle?"

"Stay?"

"Yes, once you get there. What will you do, where will you stay."

"Ahhhhh . . ."

"How about you just take a bus around Portland? There's a lot you haven't seen yet right here at home."

"Maybe Canada," Abdul says.

So goes, so far, the planning phase of the journey. The point of destination is leaning more and more toward a day at the mall . . . but nothing is yet written in stone.

Let No Man Tear Asunder

For you church goers out there, and those of you who are married as well (i.e. those of us who have already a two strike count), have you ever noticed that when the pastor, in the course of his sermon, says something you feel is particularly needful for your mate to hear, and you look over at your mate to see if the proper revelation is taking place, you find that your mate is looking right back at you with apparently the same anticipation as regards yourself?

Ah ha! You see? There you go then--don't take it from me, take it from the pastor.

It is an odd phenomenon to be sure, and I always wonder if anyone else has experienced the same.

How is it that we are expected to learn something which we already know, which at the same time somebody else--specifically your mate--stands in need of learning? And how can she, or he, who does not know, who most likely very recently made a point of not knowing, be looking at you now as if he or she actually knew all along, and moreover the pastor just proved it!

Well, I don't know . . . maybe odd things seem particularly odd to me.

Church is so often one big deja vu moment. Especially if you listen. But we've kind of given off doing that lately. My wife fills out the gaps in her appointment book, I draw pictures of dinosaurs on the back of the bulletin (in the convenient space where sermon notes are supposed to go). It always seems like we're starving by the time it's all over.

Nowadays we take Roy, our Japanese exchange student, with us. In fact, Roy insists on going. Roy speaks and understands very little English, but during the sermon he listens very closely--raptly, one might say. Himself a Buddhist, at least nominally so (we all gots to be somethin), Roy focuses, sitting forward, never slumping; nor does he jot entries on his calendar; nor does he draw dinosaurs; Roy listens. He stands when it is time. He sits when it is time. He does not sing, but he listens to the songs.

What does Roy hear, I wonder? Is it all about language, a divination of foreign sounds. Is it all about diction and vocabulary--a new phrase, a familiar word, a revelation of grammar. What does he hear, and what comprehend?

Who is this man, the object of words--who but the ultimate word itself? And what is the cross, and the Word on the cross, other than the ultimate end of comprehension?

Is this what Roy understands, or something like it?

I can only wonder.

Baby Talk

My wife seems to have decided that English for the native speaker of another language is best conveyed through baby talk at a high volume. Given, in addition, that her own native tongue, which is Indonesian, renders her perpetually unable to produce the th sound so common in English, our exchange students, at the mercy of their tutor, are beginning to sound like Tweety Bird, from the old Warner Brothers cartoon.

I tot I taw a puddy tat.

Say goodbye to fluency, boys--Hello to comedy.

In the meantime, our Saudi student is finally beginning to warm up a bit to the dogs. He no longer runs, for instance, or tries to fend them off with a chair. He has learned, as we ourselves have had to learn, to sometimes just let the toothless Chihuahua bite his ankles and continue on his own way, with said Chihuahua trailing behind, gums clamped tenaciously to the pant cuff.

Now Roy, whose name we still cannot pronounce, has always gotten along famously with both dogs. The Chihuahua continues to bark at him, out of fairness I suppose, but he also sleeps with him many a night, forgetting his hatred of human beings for up to 8 hours at a time.

This is where the open trade of culture comes in, folks. We have only recently learned that Abdul is not afraid of the dogs in the least--as we had naturally, given our own customs and culture, judged him to be. No, what he is afraid of is that one or the other of the dogs might touch him, which in turn must initiate a thorough washing of his person, which in itself is something a person doesn't always have the time or inclination for.

Dogs, you see, are considered dirty. More than dirty really. The word is too tame. Filthy would probably be more suitable. Especially if wet.

Come of think of it, I myself avoid touching the wet dog as religiously as possible--so I am after all at least some part Saudi.

Muslims, when they pray, must face Mecca. This was quite the kerfuffle when Abdul first arrived, for there existed a question as to just which way was North. I guess you have to know where North is before you can figure out anything else. I kept pointing up, but this did not seem helpful.

Abdul retrieved his laptop at this point and brought up a satellite photo of out neighborhood. We zeroed in on our house. North, he said, North, which way is North?

I cannot help but think that no matter which way one positioned himself, he would eventually end up facing Mecca, or at least only miss it by an arm length or so. Last I heard, the world was still round, right?

In any case, the question seems to have been resolved--such that I can now say with very little doubt that if you stand in the middle of Abdul's room upstairs and face the window which looks down on the trash in our neighbors back yard, you are in fact looking directly toward Mecca.

I still think UP was a better idea.

A Walk Among the Gods

A rare occurrence took place in Portland on Saturday. The sun came out. Moreover, it stayed out.

This is something that our exchange students had not yet seen during their stay thus far in the Pacific Northwest, so it was very exciting. We took the opportunity to teach them the English word, sun. Sun. Sun. We pointed to the sky. Sun!

No Portlander has seen this particular heavenly body in a good long time, and so the word, I think, sounded nearly as foreign to us as to them.

The weatherman says this phenomenon will likely last one more day.

In any case, I took the opportunity to chaperon Roy, our Japanese student with the unpronounceable name, around some of the nearby sites of interest in our neighborhood. First we drove to the top of of Rocky Butte, from which one can enjoy a panoramic view of the city and the distant mountains. Then we drove back down the hill to the Grotto.

The Grotto is a Catholic shrine with trails and statues, fountains and flowers, a book store and a church, all nestled within the embrace of tall Douglas Fir.

We saw Jesus, of course (in stone, I mean), and Mary, and assorted Saints (most of whom I am unfamiliar with, not being a Catholic). We saw Jesus as the baby, Jesus as the man, Jesus on the cross.

And as we walked, I was struck by the utter hopelessness of trying to explain this religion to someone who speaks very little English. Yes, there he is as a baby, and that's his mother, Mary. Who was he? Well, see God . . . you know God, right? . . . well God came to earth as a man and lived among us. He did many great works and taught people about the love of the Father. And then, uh . . . well, then they killed him. On the cross, see?

The people killed God?

Well, yes, but of course God cannot die. Jesus rose again from the dead. After they killed him on the cross.

Frankly, the whole thing sounded ridiculous to me. And I'm a believer.

There was one stone column that bore only the word peace.

What is peace, Roy asked?

Yes, what is peace? What indeed?

Is it the trees, the flowers, the pathways, the fountains? Is it the quiet in the air except for the howling of the leaf blower nearby?

Or is peace simply something that is in short supply, and getting shorter all the time?

Fresh Off the Boat

Today two new foreign exchange students will be getting off the train, so to speak (or boat may be better) to shack up with us for a while--one from Japan and one from Saudi Arabia. Looks like I will have to make reservations for the bathroom for some time to come.

I know there's not much of a chance that they will be as invisible as Mamdouh was. He had a real talent for that, not shared by many (human beings). Though he has left us, he is still floating around town somewhere. Every once in a while he will call. Hi Richard. How are you. I'm fine. Maybe I come on Saturday. And that's about it. As can be readily appreciated, he continues to struggle somewhat with English.

But that's okay. I myself continue to struggle with Indonesian. Part of the problem is that the language includes both the official textbook word for a thing, and then also the word that is not in the books but which everyone actually uses.

Money for instance. The correct word, the one you will find in the dictionary, is uang. The word that is used in speaking is duit. I suppose it is rather like dollar and buck.

So perhaps we speakers of English are just as guilty as they.

So now our house is to become the battleground of four languages--English, Indonesian, Japanese, and Arabic--and whatever sub dialects there might be. Add in Labrador and Chihuahua, and this could become a bit confusing.

That's where Starbucks comes in. My table, my laptop, my coffee, my sanctuary.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Mamdouh is leaving us. I think. Or at least he said so a few days ago, although his things yet remain in his room. A mystery from beginning to end, he has decided that he and one of his friends will move into an apartment together. Despite the fact that his bank account has been overdrawn for the last few weeks now. Go figure.

But we will miss Mamdouh. Actually, we missed him even while he was living with us.

Not to worry, though. Another exchange student from Libya is on his way. It is said that this one knows more of English, and desires interaction and cultural exchange. We shall see.

Avonex once again kicked my ass last night. Strange. I had gotten to a point where it was often hardly noticeable, and now suddenly I'm back to the flu like symptoms again. This being the first of the year, I must see again whether I can get financial aid in order to afford another year of misery. Oddly enough, I'm not real excited about it.

No Problem

As far as I can calculate, our foreign exchange student, Mamdouh, knows, with confidence, no more than seven words of English. These are Yes, No, Hi, Bye, Now, and No problem.

As a rule, foreign exchange students will tend to learn more of English as they mix in with our conversation and culture. In the case of Mamdouh, however, I believe he has actually learned less of English than he started with.

I asked him the other day, for instance, whether he would prefer a piece of toast or a waffle, and he said Yes.

I asked if this meant he wanted both, and he said Now?

You see how it goes?

At another time I had loaned him my cigarette lighter for a moment. When, later, I could not find the lighter, and asked him about it, he told me that this was No problem.

I expressed my feeling that it may not be a problem to him, but it was, in fact, a bit of a problem for me.

Yes, he answered.

We have not seen Mamdouh for three days now. While the rest of the city lies frozen in the present blizzard of snow and ice, Mamdouh is out somewhere driving with his buddies in his new Camry, no snow tires, no chains, no experience.

It is, as he says, No problem.

A Rumor of Arabia, Part II

Now you see here is the perfect example--Yesterday (Tuesday) Mamdouh returned to the house at about 10 a.m. from wherever he had been all night, promptly went to bed, and slept throughout the day and the following evening. My wife and I went to bed at perhaps midnight, and then somewhere during the witching hours, Mamdouh arose and slipped quietly away into the night once again.

Does this seem a bit mysterious? It seems so to me. Where could he be going? What might he be doing?

We know that he has friends, fellow countrymen, who live downtown and also go to the University--but do they all stay up through the night and sleep out the day? The question does not change with added characters. One merely wonders now what all of them are doing.

It may seem odd, given the multitude of more reasonable suspicions that might have entered my mind, but my first thought was that he might be a vampire. In fact, I still haven't ruled it out. After all, is this pattern not typical, even classic, for characters such as these? By day they take to their coffins, to sleep away the hours of light (or maybe they read books or do knitting--something, in any case, quiet and bloodless and only dimly lit). Then comes the night, where violent secrets come to life, wherein the chains of light are severed and the creatures roam free, ravenous, stalking the coed and the bag lady alike, for the taste is for blood, not for beauty (no matter what comes out of Hollywood).

I think, anyway. Although I'm not an expert on vampires. It strains the imagination, such that in the light of day even I cannot fend off disbelief.

And yet . . . did I imagine it, was it the wind, or the neighbor playing his TV too loudly, was it the freight train down by the slough . . . or was it a howl that I heard, a wolf-like gasp of thirst trailing from the open window of Mamdouh's ghostly coach (a 2003 Camry) . . . Maaaaam-doooooo-oooooooo-ooooooouh . . . .

A Rumor of Arabia, Part I

It seems that my entrepreneurial wife was right—hosting a foreign exchange student is a lucrative side business, assuming one is lucky enough to get the right student.

I suppose one could end up with a student who actually wanted to talk, or watch TV together, or go to the mall, or share details about his culture, or eat with his adopted family—and of course that might prove irritating.

But with Mamdouh it has been more like hosting a ghost, or a mouse you happen to see scurry across the porch from time to time. We find more often evidence of his presence than the actual corporeal entity. His underwear, for instance, on the counter top in the bathroom. His five packages of pita bread in the fridge. Cheese from home. The peanut butter cookies on his closet floor.

He is a specter, a rumor. There is more of idea about him than actual existence. Sometimes you can smell cologne as you pass his room, but that is all, for he is not there, it is only his scent, an odor of verbena, a whisper, Maaaam-doooo-ooh . . .

Yesterday I actually forgot his name. I kept thinking Marmaduke or Monsoon or Timbuktu.

I did talk to him recently. I think it was on Sunday. He had been out all night, came in sometime during the wee hours, and slept through the day until about 8 on Sunday evening.

“Wow,” I said. “You slept through the whole day, Mamdouh.”

“Yes,” he said.

And then he was gone.

T.P.

One of the hidden costs in hosting a foreign exchange student is for toilet paper. Actually, it's not all that well hidden. One notices this sort of thing. I am not yet sure where exactly all this toilet paper is going. I mean, I am perfectly aware of the natural purpose toward which it is to be most generally applied, yet I am not fully convinced that quite this much could be disappearing toward the satisfaction of this purpose alone.

Compounding the mystery is that there appears to be no trace of the route it has taken in the process of this rapid consumption. I have discovered none of it in other rooms of the house, nor in the waste baskets, nor have I seen even so much as a square of it trailing behind anyone's shoes.

My dog used to eat the toilet paper--fresh off the roll, thankfully--but he broke this habit long ago, having traded it in for the dirty socks that he gets from the laundry room.

So it's not the dog's fault. For once.

Aside from that, however, Mamdouh makes himself relatively cost-free. He does not eat, for instance, anything other than potato chips as far as I can tell, and these he buys for himself. A while back he bought a package of cookies for the family that no one likes, and so these he ate as well. He does not even drink our Folgers Instant Coffee. He is perhaps too accustomed to the real stuff back in his own country.

It turns out that Mamdouh's government, or his embassy, or educational sponsor--anyway whomever his handlers are--want him to transfer his studies to Seattle. This because there is a larger Saudi community there. But hold on a minute . . . I thought the point of foreign study was to mix and mingle with foreigners--learn their culture, learn their language by being thrust among them without escape.

I do not understand the basis of their desire to move him. And aside from that, we love him, and we don't want him to go. And he doesn't want to go either.

Perhaps we can find a way of granting him asylum. We'll see.

Lost In Translation

If you have ever thought that multiple sclerosis is hard to understand, or to describe to others, try explaining it to an exchange student from Saudi Arabia.

Mamdouh has been living with us for about a week and I figured he must have noticed by now my halting gait, my general incoordination, my recurring moments of cognitive breakdown. I decided to tell him all about it over a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

This is where the trouble began. Lost in translation from the outset. I had hoped that the words multiple sclerosis, or even the initials MS, would have a sufficient world-wide following to count as a given, an automatic beginning, a linguistic springboard to a more complete comprehension--like the general agreement which exists with terms such as OK, or AIDS, or JLO.

No such luck. The utterance of these two words, as far as Mamdouh was concerned, might just as well have indicated that I had something stuck in my throat and was trying to schpit it out.

Next I tried the word disease. I believe he understood this word. But the grasp of meaning where one word is concerned, as I quickly realized, cannot have extended to an understanding of why I was sitting there pointing to myself and saying disease, disease. If anything, he was probably wondering whether he should get in touch with his advisor at the exchange program.

Forging onward, where any sane Saudi might have wisely opted for silence, I began to caress my own legs and ankles, explaining that I could not feel them (even, ironically, as I sat there feeling them). They are numb, you see? Numb.

Say that word enough times and pretty soon it doesn't even make sense in English anymore.

Did I give up? Of course not. It was time now to talk about my malfunctioning brain. Leaving my numb legs behind, I pointed to my head, sort of forward from the ear and toward the temple, as one would do in positioning a pistol.

I was not only continuing to fail in my efforts, but was doing better at it all the time.

I cannot say that Mamdouh ever came to understand that I have a disease called multiple sclerosis. I do believe, however, that he did at least come to understand there is something wrong with me.

Surrendering at last to the uncrossable gulf, I took out my pack of Camels, shook out two, and together we smoked, united at last in a fellowship of bad habit. Perhaps one day I will end up with a disease that is more familiar internationally and thus avoid all this trouble in translation.