Knitting and new friends

Today I joined a bi-lingual knitting class at my church. The lovely lady in charge spoke both English and Spanish fluently. Everyone else spoke Spanish.

Except me.

It is weird to sit in a room understand less than 5% of what is going on. I got 'verde'. I got 'muy'. I got 'something, something, something, Amy, no habla Espanol.' About five times. It is humbling to have your name connected with... here she is but she doesn't know a word your saying. Hopefully I'll be semi-conversational in a short amount of time.

Good thing I already know how to knit!

I think everyone should sit in a room and not be able to understand for awhile. It gives an appreciation to what new people to our country have to deal with. I can't imagine living with a language barrier for most of my day. A good reminder to be nice to strangers. A smile goes a long way.

Even though I was new to the group, these women were very gracious to me. They looked over my project (stupid scarf) and I looked over theirs (christening gowns with matching blankets. Hmmph). One lady worked my project for awhile. Big challenge there. They didn't laugh when I had to rip out fifteen minutes worth of work and they all asked where I bought my cool chenille yarn.

I didn't exactly fit in right away, but I think I might. They did already know each other and of course, they already had the language thing going on, but it was comfortable after the first few minutes. Some of them had brought along the most common denominator for moms.... babies! One can always ooh and aah over a toddler, no matter what the language.

Hasta later, amigas. (See! I'm getting it!)