oh gah, i can't wait to speak patois Cajun and have boiled crawfish and suck the heads! all salty. and some catfish. and whatever the Cajun neighbour down the street hunted with his bow and arrow and cooked in his pit in his backyard and what he's grown in his garden.
and some damn gumbo, collard greens, fried okra and cornbread with coffee made over chickory fire so you can taste the chickory in your cup and cane sugar to sweeten.
for DH to go to Papa's barber, Gonzolo, Papa will translate, Gonzolo doesn't speak English and nor do his staff.
a pollo gordita in Fiesta, in little Centro America where people try to sell you chicle in the car park, or TVs or clothes or hubcaps or just whatever. buy the girls embroidered oaxaca dresses in the patio outside the shop and huarches to wear in the heat.
to the Middle Eastern quarter to speak French to the Moroccans, their beautiful French, and order the baba ganoush and the falafel and listen to the radio as we eat and sip mint tea.
then go to the ballet that night, in the theatre built just for the ballet, one of the best in the nation.
i remember being in my last year in high school, in our mandatory World Area Studies class, and an Israeli man asked to speak to the class (a Palestinian as well, many others, too).
and his starting his speech with, 'I can't really speak now because I'm about to weep. I have counted at least 7 different races in here as you all sat down, but no one is fighting. Quite the contrary? Do you all know how lucky you are?'
this is in Houston, TX, population 4m, and that's probably not counting those who are not legal, and guess again if you think they all have brown faces.
now come and tell me 300m+ of them don't know how to fecking cook?!