English Lessons

About a month ago I was walking down the road to my favorite bakery, when a young man stopped me to say hello. The people here are always curious about me, so this was no surprise. I told him my name and even gave him my email, figuring that, like most of the people I’d given it to, he’d never actually use it, but keep it in his book to show his friends that he knows an American.

But, only days later, this man, who I now know as Rajeev, actually did email me. We’ve been communicating via email for the past month or so, and we finally met in person again yesterday evening.

Rajeev is seeking my friendship, as well as my help improving his English. I am more than happy to provide him with both. We’ve decided to meet twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and we had our first session yesterday. I think the best way for him to improve his ability to speak English is simply to have conversations in English. So we just talked, while sipping our tea. It was really enjoyable.

Rajeev was shy, though, and very apologetic for his poor English. I was impressed, though, and I kept telling him that his English is a heck of a lot better than my Malayalam, which is actually an understatement. Still, he wants to become better, and I admire his willingness to learn. He certainly has more motivation to learn English than I do to learn Malayalam, which, now that I think of it, is probably why he can speak my language so much better than I can speak his.