A New Neighbor

by Cindy

We have a new neighbor. Well, kind of. We've had the same neighbor for awhile but over this last break, he went home to get married (arranged) so now his wife has joined him. In order to welcome her to her new home, I took some food over. However, you should know that I had to go though a mental checklist before I could show up...does she speak English? Her husband is a professor here at the University, in Jeff's department in fact, but that's no guarantee that she speaks English. He's from Tunisia so he speaks French, Arabic and English....would her husband be opposed to having a Western woman around his wife? I was easily able to figure out all would be okay when he brought her up to campus to meet everyone and show her around.

So, time to cook. I usually go with a traditional American dish - apple crisp. Most people are okay with fruit based dishes and oatmeal and cinnamon are found in many cultures so this usually gets pretty good reviews.

I took it over one day last week and I think freaked her about a bit when I rang her doorbell but she was very receptive once I told her why I was there. She invited me in, introduced ourselves, and we looked at some of her wedding photos. She doesn't have the photographer photos yet but her uncle gave her a book of snapshots before she left Tunisia to move here. It was a nice visit, about 45 minutes, and we agreed to have tea/coffee in the coming days. She really wants to practice her English with me. She's lived in Montreal and taught Marketing there but that was all in French. She hopes to be able to teach here but English is her third language and her weakest so she needs to practice. I think it's better than many people here but she's quite critical of herself.

I was able to invite her to a Christmas brunch on Monday so that should be fun. One of the ladies on campus is a Master Chef and she holds cooking classes for us every other week. This coming week, she's preparing a typical Christmas Finnish meal. I'm delighted that my new neighbor will be able to join me, meet many other people here on campus and (possibly) have one of her first experiences with Christmas.