Yes, he is an American.
So about two weeks ago I was minding my own buisness on the computer in the post ofice internet center. I was occuping mytime with checking email, checking my online sailing game, and reading news. I hardly notice the middle age woman as she sits down at the computer terminal next to mine. After about a minute of her sitting down, she gets my attention and asks me in Russian if I speak English. (BTW, should Russian and English be capitalized? I forget.) To her delight I reply that I do speak pretty good English and could maybe help her out.
We are looking together at this email message which she received and it says something like this, "Natasha, I look forward to meeting you. Your pictures are very beautiful and I am so happy that we found each other." There was a bit more, but I don't exactly remember. But then I realized that this was from an American man in the United States who was trying to look for a wife through an online service.
She dictated to me in Russian what she wanted to say, and I wrote the response in English. She asked me how I knew to write this or that, and I replied that I was actually from America and was studying Russian here in the Crimea. Well that just about made her night! She was so excited that she introduced herself and asked me a multitude of questions regarding the languge and my family heritage. It was great to hear her tell me that she would have never thought I was a Russian/Ukranian because I didn't look like an American.
Damnit! I had a couple of paragraphs down, but the computer didn't feel right and the rest is history. So, I'll start over and hopefully this time it will match the computer's standards.
So. I helped this woman write an email back to a man in the United States. They had found each other through some sort of Ukranian woman/American man dating service. He was 47 and a real estate lawyer living in LA. I had a difficult time translating his adjective laden information that he posted about himself. After trying to explain what sophisticated meant in Russian, without actually knowing what the damn word was, I just told her that I approve of him.
She liked what I had read about him, but wasn't sure about his picture. Ovbiously this thing had been taken on a Monday morning in his office. He wore a grey buisness suit and he was balding with a few whisps of hair left. He looked worn, like somebody spending too much of their waking hours in a brown Lexus during LA's rush hour. Natasha didn't seem to notice those details about his photo, but she did notice his skin color.
Is he Arabic?!" she asked frantically.
"No, well maybe. I don't know."
"Well, is he American?"
I took my head off of the computer mouse and turned to her. I explained to her that one can still be an American even if his or her skin color is not white. I assured her that in fact there were many different colored people in America, and yet they are all American. She seemed skeptical.
After this we talked some more. I felt akward and made up an excuse to leave for home.
Comments
Privet, Sasha!
My mother and I ran into a similar situation at the Saint Petersburg main post office in 200, if I remember correctly. We were simply filling out a Birthday card for my grandfather when my mother struck up a conversation with her. She asked for correct phrasing of some things about her life as well as general questions about the English-speaking world (I don't remember whether the man she was writing to was in U.K. or Canada or elsewhere).
I am just glad that this is one of those cases where the woman on the Eastern European end of an internet dating search is a real person. An acquaintance of my best friend got scammed 2 years ago when he ended up sending some money to a woman he had fallen in love with over the internet so she could get a visa and buy a ticket to America and then turned out the person was nonexistent. I am simply glad that the man your acquaintance was writing to is not going to get his heart broken (at least not in this way). And true, people back home don't perceive America as a country with any Arabic population.
Hear from you soon (Я читаю твой блог регулярно!)
Posted by: Marta Tarantsey | November 19, 2008 08:52 AM