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epitome of incomprehensibility
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Sometimes my conversational_energy steers towards irrelevance. She was sharing that she felt lonely here because she hardly met anyone else from Zimbabwe.
I could have just commiserated, not felt that I had to fill the space with, "Yeah, I don't know anyone who's from Zimbabwe." I thought about it. "So, there's a pretty big community here of people from Ghana. At least a few from Nigeria. So yeah, they might have more people to speak their first languages with" (she had mentioned language too).
But the last part made her smile. "Ghana and Nigeria are pretty far apart. They probably wouldn't speak the same languages."
"Oh." I felt embarrassed for not being clear. "I mean, in separate communities." I drew two air-circles in the air above the table.
But the embarrassing part wasn't about Africa or ADHDishness. It was more me being, well...when Julia was like that with me, I'd joke, "Are you troubleshooting me?" But Julia can actually troubleshoot well! And even if the other student had been asking, "Kirsten, do you know anyone from Zimbabwe that you can introduce me to?" I didn't need to say "no" so elaborately.
Language, though. I bet there are a few other Montrealers who speak Ndbele. Like, I know it's spoken in South Africa.
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