Two incidents happened today that made us look like clueless Americans in some desperate need of help.
The first:
I went to a coffee shop this morning on campus. As I was putting the lid on my cup by the counter with all the sugar, cream, straws, etc.. a girl looked at me and kindly asked if I would hand her a "servi."
"Excuse me?"
"A servi"
Having no idea what a 'servi' was..I went with my best guess, which was another 's' word...sugar.
Wrong.
"No...a servi." Her voice got a little more stern.
Hmm, next best guess...another 's' word...straw.
Nope. Wrong again.
"A servi!" This girl was losing patience and I started to get nervous.
I pointed to the cream. Wrong.
I pointed to the lids. Wrong.
"Oh my soul...a servi!!"
Okay..she was angry.
I pointed to the stir sticks. Wrong again.
I was sweating by this point.
"I'm so sorry!" I said with a helpless laugh.
Finally.. I pointed to the napkins. Of course, the last thing.
"YES! A servi!"
As I handed it over, she grabbed it from my hand and started to mock my cluelessness with her friends.
I thought it was hilarious, but apparently she didn't. But in all honesty.. she could've helped me out a bit. Clearly, I wasn't understanding "servi" ...so maybe repeatedly asking for a "servi" isn't the most helpful? A gesture would have been nice, maybe a little sign language, another description of the word..? Anything.
Anyway.. servi means napkin. Now I know.
The second:
Amanda stood in line today at the school cafeteria during lunch. A young man came up from behind her and asked, "Are you in kue?"
"Huh?" was Amanda's response.
"Are you in kue?"
"In kue?"
"Yes, in kue. Are you in kue?"
"Ummm, I don't know."
"Are you in kue?!"
"I dont know. What's kue?"
"Are you in kue?!"
"I know that you are asking me if I am in kue.. I got that. But I don't know what that means..."
"I'm asking, are you in kue??"
Alright, apparently South African students don't understand that repeating the same sentence is actually not very helpful. Especially when the issue at hand is not that we can't hear them but that we can't understand them. Anyway.. kue means line. Now we know.
4 comments:
hahahah ali.. it's not "kue" it's "queue". and people in america use that too... :) but i wouldn't have known what a servi was either. oh goodness.
In Spanish, "sirvilleta" means napkin... and I think the British call them serviettes. You can put that in your journal ;)
Thanks for the laughs Ali
G
Oh my goodness... These are so funny. I can totally see you in that napkin situation just loving it and starting to laugh as the girl gets more and more angry... haha!
Hahahaha o my goodness. Maybe learning French in high school would have helped. That is funny! It seems like they wanted to make you feel dumb. O gosh. All part of learning about a new culture
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