Family Reunion

     As it turns out, elderly gentlemen are internationally the most wonderful people a person can meet. I had to pleasure of making the acquaintance of one such gentleman at a Bulgarian family reunion of sorts that took place in the apartment where I’m living a couple nights ago. I usually live with Ayla and and her mother, originally from Bulgaria. This week two old friends from Bulgaria are visiting, a mother and grown daughter. One day I come back for the evening to find a neatly dressed white-haired man in his seventies napping in a most dignified way on the couch. Ayla’s mother, Shusha, excitedly greets me and explains that the man is Ayla’s grandfather, it’s his seventy-fifth birthday, he just got off the bus from Sofia, and she is making köfte (my food vocabulary is disproportionately strong, a fact which Shusha has noticed and takes full advantage of).

     The apartment, cozy with three inhabitants, reaches the point of extreme festivity with six. The table is set in the living room overflowing with köfte (meatballs), bread, salad, assorted beverages, and the omnipresent sunflower seeds. We toast his birthday and commence conversation characteristic of those too long apart. Everyone else in the room knows Bulgarian, while three know Turkish and two know English. Conversation and stories are in Bulgarian, punctuated with realizations that I don’t understand a word, which result in random asides to me in English or Turkish.

     My favorites are from the grandfather who once he realized I am learning Turkish, began speaking to me in such. He mostly comments on how sweet I am ‘ne tatlı!’, also comparing me to Heidi (you know, from Germany). I am delighted by his extended story involving the languages he learned in school (Turkish and Russian, but never English), how pleased he is that his grand-daughter has learned even more, and also that I am learning Turkish. He also, kind of incongruously, jokes that he is surprised I am white, because my president is a black man (that needed translation into English). Halfway through dinner he says, ‘when you get married, you must invite me to attend!’ He asks after my family, and how many siblings I have. I promise to him twice that I will say hello from him to my parents.

     The evening is a real treat, being the only such family gathering I’ve attended in many months. I was surprised first to realize how included I felt, despite not following a word of conversation. Second I realized that the real surprise is not how included in the conversation I felt, but in the family. Not only did I not speak the language, but I had just met most these people who have know each other for decades. All the same, I experienced the same warmth as if I had been another cousin.

     The idea with a homestay is to practice the target language in a natural environment. I do get that practice, but the non-linguistic benefits of a family as well.