Language Loligags

*note* I know you will probably want to tar and feather me for putting off the next installment of village pictures. Read this anyway, you'll like it.

As I was walking home from work today I was swarmed by children. They are all, as near as I can tell, members of the same family which lives in a shack right behind where I work. Technically they are squatters on our property, but we don't really care. Anyway... I have been getting to "know" some of them, mainly the oldest girl (6ish years old) for the past several months. Our deep relationship consists of "hello" and "what is your name?," since that is all the French that they know. I should really greet them in their own language, but theirs is not one of the four local languages in which I have learned the typical greetings.

Tonight though, six of them came to greet me and shake my hand. They tried speaking to me in their language, and I tried to repeat what they said so as to at least pretend to have a conversation. And I just kept shaking hands. The girl switched into the trade language, which I am supposedly learning, and she said something that included either the word "money" or the word "friend." They sound similar and I am always getting them confused. So she was either professing her friendship or asking me for money. By that time I had shaken each hand at least three times so I bid them farewell and continued on my way. The girl followed me for a while and then eventually went back home. I trundled onward, wondering what all had just transpired.

When I got home I swung by the boutique downstairs before going up to my apartment. There I had an interesting conversation with my friend M, who runs the place. He speaks the trade language fluently and he also speaks some French, so we get by (despite both having heavy accents in French) and I am hoping to pick up more of the trade language from him. As I was hanging around, another of his friends came in and they started discussing wrestling in the trade language (I knew what they were talking about because I recognized the names of the wrestlers). The friend asked M something and he said to wait 10 minutes. The friend something else and M said, "okay, 5 minutes."

After that guy left M and I chatted a bit more and then I told him my initial purpose for coming; I needed to buy an egg. Unfortunately I have a very hard time pronouncing the word for egg in French (oeuf) and he didn't seem to understand me. He told me to come back in 5 minutes. I asked him to repeat himself and he told me to go up to my apartment and come back in 5 minutes. I figured he must have missunderstood me entirely and was inviting me to go do something in 5 minutes with him and his other friend. Several customers walked in just then so I left, not knowing what else to do.

I got back to my apartment and discussed the interchange with my roommate, who explained to me that when you ask for an egg in the boutique, it means that you want a hard-boiled egg. That is why he had told me to come back in 5 minutes. In order to buy a regular egg, you need to ask for "un oeuf non préparé." (a non-prepared egg).

I was very tempted to not go back down. I was feeling kind of tired of not being understood and I would rather just escape to Facebook where people speak English. But I went back down to the boutique and bought the hardboiled egg, since I had technically asked him to make it, and then I bought a regular egg as well. Whew! One language dilemma solved anyway! Now I just need to decide what to do with these eggs.