So I started a German intensive language course a little while back. It began like this: On the first day, I showed up a little bit early to figure out in which room the course would be and take care of any first day paperwork that there might be, etc. I checked the flat screen computer monitor on the wall of the main hall and saw that my class was meeting in room 409. I proceeded to the classroom and took a seat with my back to the windows. There were a few other people sprinkled throughout the room already and several more entered and choose seats until all 10 seats were full. A smiling woman who appeared to be the instructor came in, set her things down on the front table near the board and kindly, but loudly, said "My nama ist Vera. Ick high-sah Vera" and wrote the following on the board: Mein name ist Vera. Ich heiße Vera. She then took a small stack of light blue copy paper and a marker and headed over to a woman on the far side from where I was seated. (The tables are adjoined together in the shape of a large U that occupies almost all of the space in the room.) Vera bent over in front of the woman like she was speaking to a shy child, placed a hand on her own chest, and said very slowly "Ick high-sah Vera. Vee highst do?" The seated woman raised both of her eyebrows and looked dumbfounded so Vera then gestured with her hand and had the woman repeat after her "Ick high-sah da da da" to which the woman added "Fernanda." Vera wrote this on one of the sheets of paper folded in half and created a tent-like name card for her, really for the rest of us to see. Vera then kindly and patiently repeated this with Jing, Hanna, Mei Fong, Shengul, Maria, Rosa, and Ana. Then she got to the 30-something looking guy on my left. She said the exact same thing to him that she had said to everyone else (and thus yielding name cards for each). The guy next to me replies to Vera, in an American accent with total disgust in his voice, "I don't understand nothing you are saying to me." She gets a smile on her face and looks a little surprised and says "Oh!". She then repeats what she has asked him and still doesn't get a name from him so she pleasantly points to each of the people she has already met and slowly, patiently reads each name off of the tent cards. He continues to look completely confused and then turns to me and asks "Am I in the right class? Is this the first day of the Basic Course?" Both Vera and I laughed and answered in the affirmative but I added in English, "She is asking what your name is." He flatly states "Will" and waves his dismissively waves both hands. She provides him a name tent card with "Will" on it and moves on, finishing around the U. She tries not to speak anything but German to us and proceeds to teach us greetings, conjugation, and the conjugation of the verb "heißen" (to be called). The second day of class she reviews things like "Ich heiße Wendy" and introduces the verb "kommen" which means to come. She explains in German that she comes from Deutschland and goes around the U again, asking everyone "Vo kommst do?" to which everyone replies with the country they are from. When she gets to Will, he is completely befuddled again, so I eventually whisper "I think she is asking where you come from." To this he replies to Vera "Chicago." She smiles, laughs a small laugh, and says "Nine, Will. Chicago ist ine Schtat (phonetic for "city"). Vas its ear-ah LAND?" By the way, the other answers so far have been Brazil, China, Iraq, China, Turkey, Guatemala, and Spain...Will looks stunned again. She asked the question a few times and finally he responds "America???" She nods yes and smiles and explains how to say it in German. Then it is my turn. In an attempt to be sensitive to any possible anti-American sentiment of the Middle Easterners that I don't yet know and considering that I really do not want to be AT ALL associated with this knuckle head next to me from the country of Chicago, I answer her question with "Canada" thinking "who will know the difference in here?" (The only other countries represented that were not listed above were Moldavia and Russia.) The questions continue around the room, I am relieved that my turn is over and that I am not on anyone's radar at this point. Day three: Just when I think I am in the clear and no one is going to remember anything about me, we have to go to the board and write the country we hail from, the capital and the language(s) spoken there. As she calls on people, this time in a random order, I am slightly panicked trying to remember if the capital of Canada is Montreal or Toronto. I am fairly sure the capital is not in the province of Quebec but still to be sure that it is in fact Toronto, I Google it on my iPhone, under the table. Yup, there you have it: Ottawa. Duh. Why does this Canadian not know the capital of her own country??? I can't wait for this lie to be over...
By the start of the second week, I have already admitted to the sweet girl from Guatemala that I am not from Canada (since she inquired about it), and am glad we have moved on to things in the grocery store. I spend the week stressing about masculine, feminine and neuter articles of every noun so it catches me completely off guard when at the end of the week, our assignment is to bring in a recipe-preferably FROM OUR HOMELAND-translated in German. All I can think is "does tapping a tree for maple syrup count? I don't know of any 'Canadian dishes. '" I google the topic, don't find too many options or anything I have heard of for that matter, so I email my friend who is married to a Canadian. Evidently after lots of laughter at my predicament, she emails me back a few options, one of which I had also seen on Google. That is the one I went with...Nanimo bars, or something like that. I am not enjoying being Canadian...
In the end, all I can say is that my husband and kids thought the entire thing was hysterical and wondered when I would fess up. I wound up telling my new friend from Maldova the truth about a week after she innocently asked me if we all learn French in school, as in, is it required. I finally told Vera on the last day of school. This was a great example to my kids at least about lies just growing bigger and bigger. Will still doesn't know...
