Foreign Language Withdrawl & The Not-Learning Blues

I was reading an article on Matador Travel tonight that clicked a light bulb in my head.  The thing that gets me the most about being home (and by ‘gets me’ I mean makes me stir crazy and starts the intense longing for another long-term journey) is the lack of foreign language. Living abroad I’m [...]

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Moments on the Road to Translation

I ordered my omelet in Turkish and the man behind me ordered his in French.  I only knew what I had ordered and what he had ordered.  It wasn’t until the chef looked questioningly at me that I realized the man hadn’t spoken in English.  The chef didn’t understand and the man in line couldn’t [...]

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What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You.

I’m lying poolside in moderately-rural Western Turkey.  It’s rural enough that I’m seeing women swimming fully covered for the first time.  Next to me is an over-sized speaker blasting Western dance music.  It’s the middle of the morning on Sunday and the music seems out of place, but that’s secondary at this point. One of [...]

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Your Input Is Requested

I don’t think they actually wanted our opinion of the performance. I think they just wanted us to enter the theatre.

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Shantaram And The Lies It Tells About Mumbai

I think Gregory David Roberts based the dialogue of his Indian character Perbukar , in his classic 800 page set-in-Mumbai novel, Shantaram, on the people of Rajasthan, not Mumbai. And I think he got a lot of the details wrong about Bombay. When I first read Prabu’s dialect, the bit about “What is your good [...]

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Bridge of Faith

I believe there are very few cultural gaps that cannot be bridged.  As the sole actress and sole mime on this Dekeyser & Friends fellowship, I have quickly become the resident non-verbal communicator with the Turkish world around us.  Somehow my speech seems to be clearer, my hand gestures more precise, and, honestly, I imagine [...]

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Sometimes It Isn’t So Easy

Scene: I have just called reception to get Shubhangi’s room number at our hotel in Abu Dhabi: 1523. I dial “1-5-2-3″ and get the hotel’s room service. The following ensues: Me: Hello. I’m trying to reach room 1523. Room Service (RS): Yes. You just dial it and then the number. Me: Excuse me? I don’t [...]

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Protected: Life Without Titles (Please revert to old password)

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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Turkish For Beginners

Check out my first video dairy for the Dekeyser & Friends Foundation on the D&F World website! Click HERE!

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100 Things To Love About Paris – Le Foot

Doing a little Métro reading this morning (over someone else’s shoulder), I spied this headline: Sea, Foot and Sun: Miami est la paradise des footballeurs.  Now, I know the French love using, not only English words in all things hip, but also full-on English sentences.  The trouble I’m having, however, is this word “foot”. “Foot” [...]

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