A conversation

Ismail is the housekeeper of WCS office in Kota Agung. He is always smiling, finding something to do, offering you coffee or tea. He doesn’t speak much English, but would like to learn. We strike a deal, to teach each other. Today I have another, rainy afternoon to spend, we start chatting. The problem is that even the few English words that he knows, or the Indonesian ones I know, are incomprehensible in the dialect he speaks (very quickly). And he doesn’t help us with hand gestures (another talent I am grateful to my country for!). In any case, I believe we talked about all the different plants and fruits that grow in our respective countries (some of which have no translation, at least in my small dictionary, so I just accepted the existence of a winka fruit (or something like that), as he did for the olive.. the olive, the sacred olive! It is so fascinating to change perspectives. Then politics, how Bush was wrong in invading Iraq, how bringing freedom and democracy should not involve the killing of a million people, how England supported him, how the bad Berlusconi did the same, but now Italy brought back our soldiers. Then whether we have a king, I have the valiant (and hopeless) idea of explaining how our king escaped during the war, and how we kept him out of Italy, he tells me of the many kingdoms that once were, the communist coup d’etait, the republic. Distribution of different religious groups in Italy and Indonesia, the relationships.
And up to here, they are general arguments, if I miss something, it won’t be too damaging. But then he gets personal, he tells me about his newlywed wife, five months, when there is nobody in the office he has to sleep there, otherwise he can sleep at home, and after six years of this job he is bored, he would like to do something else, would love to do research with me. I am uncomfortable, I wish I could understand perfectly, also the tones, if he hopes I can talk to somebody about it. But he has good energy, the smile is clear. We move on to the dangers of climbing coconut trees (but another seed of uneasiness and inadequacy is planted..)