Monday, December 11, 2006

Ivrit-English-German (Ivgerenglit)

I am working in a daycare center for elderly people! I had the expectation and was afraid, that I would not learn any Hebrew at all during the year, because these old Jeckes would just speak german! How wrong I was. On my first day at work, I was greeted by the crowd in Hebrew. I seated myself next to an elderly man and tried to start a conversation in Hebrew and quickly moved over to English! Well, he did not understand a word but was listening modestly. I then said, meefo ata (where are you from)? And he said Romania! So I had the option of learning Romanian or our conversations would end up being monologes.
I kept looking, but wherever I went they would only speak Hebrew and Arabic, mostly coming from Marocco and Jemen.
So I had to learn Hebrew to communicate… which is nice! However in the beginning I had to speak with words, hands and feet! That was fun, however not easy! And it really made me think about my parents, so now my father is a doctor and my mother a nurse, since describing ergo therapist and Works Counselor with your hands gets really complicated!

Another day, I was in the kitchen at my working place getting some coffee for the elderly people that I work with and I had a discussion with Jamima, our cock!
Well, we had the “cosher control” (a group of rabbies, which inspect the kitchen, whether the cosher rules are followed and then provides a certificate) in our house the day before, and everything was approved. The only thing not cosher was probably me, the goi (a not jew) preparing the food!
Anyway, so I asked her if it is ok to prepare meat and diary in the same microwave and so we got into this long discussion, where she explained to me, what is cosher and what is not and she listed all the animals, which were cosher and then she ended up saying: Adam Rishon did not eat bazaar!
Since Jaminas english is still in the improvement phase and my Hebrew as well we usually speak our own mixture of both. So this is the way we spoke. Adam Rishon did not eat bazaar! (Adam Rishon = First Human; bazaar = meat)
I figured she meant the first human beings. My mind started thinking and I saw my ancestors 30.000 years ago, sleeping in caves, hunting wild beasts and then not eating the meat! Why would they then hunt in the first place? Well this confused me!
So I then asked out of curiosity, When did mankin start to eat meat?
And she said: Well after Noah!
Noah right… Noah, that guy from the Bible, that Noah?
I think I must have looked at her very interesting! I felt somehow she was pulling my leg. I looked at her for another 10 seconds! And then I realized… man… we are even fighting over the history of the Prehistoric Age!

No comments: