Cut your Brain

We continue to plug away at Albanian. 

I have gone through many phases in my Albanian language learning. 

You know how they talk about pregnant brain? 

Well I don't care what anyone says, that is a true fact. 

The last few months of my pregnancy with Taliah my brain just would not work. Like there was no space in it for anything new. 

I could barely put my dishes away in the right place. 

Conjugating verbs? Ya right. 

I would sit in the lessons and just listen to Cory and our teacher. 

I zoned out, got angry or fell asleep. 

Now, my brain is coming back. 

I have seen Cory and Blerina look at me a couple times in shock like, "she's back!" 

I don't think I realized how bad it was. I knew there was a road block in my brain but I didn't know how obvious it was. 

I have probably learned more in the last month than I did in the 3 previous months combined. 

And I am really enjoying it. I don't feel discouraged anymore and even though I know this will take a long time, and a lot of hard work I feel excited about it, not hopeless. 

We are hearing so much. It's so weird to know what people are saying but not be able to answer them back. 

The other day I went on a visit to one of my bible study girls house. 

Her mom asked me how old I was when I got married. 

"3 years." I said with a smile...

Everyone exploded. 

I thought she said how long have you been married...

I know why they say you have to be willing to embarrass yourself...I do that all the time anyways so I'm glad it's not a new experience for me for people to laugh at me in my face. 

Another thing we have learned is that even though you may know all the words to say something, that's not necessarily how it is said. 

In fact, the Albanian language is very literal...

You do not catch a cold. A cold catches you. 

You do not make a decision. You cut your brain. 

You do not call someone on the phone. You take the phone. 

The word for young and new is the same. 

If you are in another room and you cannot hear the person talking to you you are supposed to "take your head out." 

Something does not smell good rather the air that is falling smells good. 

If you want to ask someone what they are doing you can say "how are you passing the time?" To which the answer is "Good." 

So, even as we learn words we realize that it is a whole different ball game to put those words together correctly. 

More and more we see the reality that you don't really literally translate things. You have to learn to say it as it is said in that language. More often than not there is no literal translation. 

We will be learning this language until we die. 

But it is beautiful and we love learning it together.

And we are thankful that even though we are kind of mute, at least we are not completely deaf anymore. 

In fact, we can hear when people are talking about us. And it happens more often than I realized. 

I hear people saying "Is she Albanian?" or "She doesn't speak Albanian." Or "Where are they from?" 

So sometimes I answer when I'm standing right there and people are trying to figure it out. 

"I'm American." And then they just smile, kind of embarrassed and kind of surprised that I am speaking Albanian. 

They are actually really encouraging about our language learning efforts. 

When we speak Albanian they will say "Oohhhh you are learning Albanian?? Very good!" 

And one of the phrases they have that we will use until the day we die is "Avash, avash," which is something like "little by little." 

Avash, avash we will learn this language and this culture and this country. 

And one day, our kids will be correcting us on everything thing we pronounce and say wrong. 

What a day that will be! 

And here is Shiloh with her "Mamby," who has become a part of the family.