There was one woman in our class, Valentina, that never participated in any of that kind of dialog as she can’t speak a word of English and perhaps only two words of Norwegian. She is from Russia, and she’s a fairly hunched over, wrinkled up little old woman who never understood a thing that was going on. I was shocked to learn she was only 55, because looking at her, I was sure she was 70. Whenever she was called upon to give an answer, she just nervously looked back and forth over her shoulder hoping the person behind her would pipe up, or she’d look to other Russian women in the room to translate just what it was she was supposed to say, then she’d always shake her head, look down, and say nothing.
The day we learned about the names of stores was the first time she spoke in class. We had the names of every possible specialty store written up on the board and were about to go on to the next subject, when this little old Russian lady pipes up very loudly and shouts out in perfect English, “sex shop!” The entire classroom burst out with hysterical laughter and The Good Teacher Inga couldn’t bring herself to even say a word for at least five minutes as she kept doubling over with tears streaming down her face. It was the most unexpected input, from the least likely source. Valentina didn’t even laugh herself as she was completely clueless as to why it was so funny.
I told Kory this story when he got home from work. I also lamented over the fact that all the women in my class are married to Norwegian men and it’s obvious there is no possible way for many of them to be communicating with their husbands as they don’t know any Norwegian and their English is negligible. Kory said to me, “I don’t know why you are so shocked by it. It’s the perfect relationship.”
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