Beauregard Street in Alexandria, Virginia, is a world that would be unrecognizable as American, save for its telltale architecture. Life in these parts rarely unfolds in English, and when it does, it's spiced with Asian, Arab, African, or Latin American accents.
When we moved into our apartment just off of Beauregard Street last year, we were one of two American families that lived in our building. We welcomed the tapestry of smells and sounds that greeted us. Fragrant Indian spices lingered in the corridor long after dinner had been served. The happy notes of traditional Ethiopian tunes escaped from car windows to give a warm "hello" when our neighbors returned home from work. Young Moroccan men spent long hours on the steps outside trying to talk over each other in their unmistakable Arabic patois. The neighbors have come and gone throughout the last year, but the sights, smells, and sounds of the neighborhood have remained, for the most part, unchanged.
It's a rare chance that we get to interact with our colorful neighbors. The park in the complex affords us the greatest opportunity to speak with the foreigners who blanket the area. Last night, we trekked to the Yellow Slide a few hundred yards from our apartment. When we arrived, a little girl in a bright pink jacket was swinging with her mother on the swings. She looked to be about our daughter's age. Brynja immediately beckoned the girl to the Yellow Slide. Her mother followed closely behind, and it didn't take long for me to realize that they were Ethiopian or Eritrean. The mother chatted with me in her bubbly accent, each syllable popping from her lips as though they were buoyed up by some happy spring. I liked her immediately, if for no other reason than that she sounded cheerful.
"How old is your daughter?" I asked her, as the mother lifted Brynja onto the slide. I hadn't given permission for her to touch my daughter in such a familiar way, but after a year of teaching ESL to immigrants, I was aware that they didn't have the same kind of hang-ups Americans have about touching kids who aren't their own.
"She's two and a half," the mother replied. I shouldn't have been surprised that she was so old but spoke so little. After all, she probably only ever heard English outside the home. She spoke only a few words to her mother on the playground, in whatever language the mother had brought from her own country.
"What's her name?" I asked.
"Ruth," the mother responded. RuT, not RuTH. Undoubtedly spelled Ruth, but the th sound simply does not exist for most non-native English speakers.
"Hi, RuT!" I forced myself to say, pronouncing the hard t at the end. I sheepishly added a thsound, enough so that I could feel good about saying it the way I felt it should be said, but so quietly that the mother likely didn't catch it. I don't know why I did this.
The girls played for a while, chasing each other down the slide. Brynja yelled out her English commands and suggestions to Ruth, none of which she could probably understand. They had fun, nevertheless, as they communicated in ways that only children do -- laughing, smiling, touching, chasing.
A short while later, a boy of about eight wandered onto the playground. Ruth was getting tired after the 5,342,235 time down the Yellow Slide, so I was happy to see new company, because Brynja was only getting started. The boy was a beautiful chocolate brown color, and the smile he flashed as he enticed Brynja to chase him was wide and white. He said nothing for twenty minutes, and then finally he spoke in unaccented American English. I made him for a first-generation American. Had he remained silent I would have assumed he'd just come from East Africa, judging by his appearance.
Then it was time to leave. Brynja was finally convinced to bid adieu to the wide-smiled "fast boy" and the Yellow Slide after we pointed out that Ruth had left a couple minutes before. Until next time...
