Aral Sea Adventurers Get-Together

“Here, look how small it is,” Gab pulled a pack of cards out of her purse. The cover proclaimed in a cheerful font -- ‘Monopoly Deal.’ 

“This is so much better than the board game. Easy to take with me anywhere.” 

“So, are we finally going to have a game?” I chuckled at her enthusiasm. 

“That’s the plan,” she grinned. This was our third get-together since our trip to the Aral Sea, where Gab had told us about the game and promised to bring it one evening to play. 

“Hope you don’t mind that this is the British version.” Gab was a British virologist who worked in Nukus for Doctors Without Borders. 

“Nope. Property is property no matter what you call it,” Dave assured her, implying that we were greedy enough not to care on which continent the property was. 

We settled ourselves down and started looking at the menu. The restaurant where we met was Turkish, favoured by expats, and yet they had still not gotten around to creating a menu in English. At the beginning, picking a dish used to be a big adventure, but the pictures on the menu helped. Now, having been there several times, we were almost in the position to choose with our eyes closed by simply pointing to the familiar place on the menu. The waiter arrived and we placed our orders. Our small group of Aral Sea adventurers was seated in a cozy private room which Dave had reserved for us the day before. The tourist season was in full swing and, in the past month, we had been turned away a couple of times because the place was busy with large tour groups. When we arrived, the main part of the restaurant was yet again fully occupied and, walking through it, we congratulated ourselves on being clever enough to make a reservation in advance. 

The door to our small private room opened and the waiter poked his head in. We just placed our orders, so they can’t be ready yet, went through my head. He stepped halfway into the room and announced, “Your friends are here.” Since all of us were already present we exchanged confused looks, and I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “We don’t have any friends.” (We still laugh with our friends every time we recall this hilarious encounter, and how unbelievably funny it sounded when I uttered this in all seriousness.) 

The waiter disappeared, replaced by a middle-aged man who quickly stepped in, followed by a girl of about fifteen. They lined themselves against the wall of our small room to make room for three more newcomers; two girls and one boy. The new arrivals seemed a tad older, but just as unsure of themselves. 

Who are these people and why are they here? went through my mind. A quick look at my companions confirmed that they were just as baffled. 

“Good evening.” The man greeted us. 

“Hi,” we responded, still unsure where all this was going. 

“I am a teacher at a local language school, and these are my pupils.” We nodded sagely, and the man continued. “They never talked to foreigners, and I hope you don’t mind talking to them just a little bit.” The mystery was solved. I had been approached several times in the past, mostly on the streets, by youngsters who would often join me in walking wherever I was heading, and we would talk. But this was a new strategy. 

I scanned the expressions of my companions. As an immunologist, Gab works in a lab and most of the local culture she gets is from her petri dishes. These young people presented a definite improvement to this and, looking at her, it was evident that she would enjoy talking to them. Dina, who is a psychologist and therefore gets her share of interacting with other people, looked amused but didn’t seem to mind. Dave habitually gets a kick out of these random encounters, and he never minds. 

That left me, and I am not a particularly nice person. In fact, at heart I am probably a bit of a curmudgeon who could live happily alone in a cave as long as there was hot water and the Internet, of course. I felt a twinge of resentment towards these young, hopeful people for intruding on our privacy. They just wanted to practice their English, I reminded myself and, with that reminder, a memory came rushing back to me from so long ago it seemed like another lifetime. 

I was about eighteen, living in what is now the Czech Republic. At that time, though, it was called Czechoslovakia and encountering Westerners there was rare. That summer I worked very hard at a garden centre, saving what I could for a special treat. It was a ten-day English language summer camp that boasted a real native English speaker as one of the instructors. 

Donna was my first encounter with a Westerner who was also a native English speaker. She was a Canadian from the West Coast which, at that time in my life, meant absolutely nothing to me. I was smitten by Donna, by her smooth flowing English, by her calm competence. I was in awe of every ‘eh’ that she, so Cannuck-like, placed at the end of her sentences. 

This was before the Internet, and before any phone apps promising to teach you any language in four weeks. All I cared for at that time was that she talked to me directly, pronouncing her words clearly and not speaking too fast. Donna delivered all of that. This memory came back to me as I sat there stunned by the presence of our uninvited guests. What would Donna do? 

I gave our unexpected guests a surprisingly genuine smile and said, “So what school do you go to?” 

We carried on our conversation for about fifteen minutes, exchanging information about our respective cultures, and one of the girls even sang for us. Then our small group of eager students left even before our meal arrived. 

“Well, that was interesting,” Gab smiled after the last of the youths closed the door behind them. 

“It sure was,” Dave added. 

I just chuckled. Occasionally, if you let it, life can be more fun than fiction.