Well, I guess this is for me to do...

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

... considering that I'm the reason she's here, and given that she won't be able to introduce herself for a while yet. We have a new student at the school, as of today; we brought her back from Afghanistan last night under somewhat unusual circumstances. When I stop slamming my head into the desk at my own stupidity I may just share the story.

Her name is Sooraya Qadir. She speaks Dari and Pashtun, and not a word of English, hence her not being able to introduce herself just yet. (She and I are going to be spending a lot of time working on her English, however, so hopefully that will change soon.) Obviously, she's coming from a very different culture than ours, and it's liable to take her some considerable amount of time and effort to adjust.

I won't get into details, but she's not been treated all that well. So if everyone could please aim for 'kind and nonthreatening', I'd very much appreciate it - and refrain from throwing anyone in the lake.

Comments

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Considering I don't speak either of those two languages, not sure how much help I can be, but let me know if you can think of anything for me to do. Where is she going to be staying right now? And since this wasn't a planned pick up...does she need any of the essentials? I may not speak many languages but I am a fantastic shopper.

[x-blink.livejournal.com]

are those similar to arabic? 'cause I speak that, a little. you've seen my arabic grades ;)

I'm rusty, but not that bad.

[x-crowdofone.livejournal.com]

Lemme know if there's anything I can do to help, while I'm still here? Like, for example, if you can translate a list of her favorite foods for me so I can either take a shot at them myself or leave them lying around where Lorna can jump on a new culinary challenge, maybe?

I swear, as soon as I get to the point where it stops being a guaranteed recipe for brainsplosions, I am so going to send dupes out for language-immersion.

[xp_daytripper]

I seem to remember Doug writing a journal program for Manuel when he was first here, that translated from Spanish to English and back again. Maybe he could knock something like that up for her?

And I don't really want to know how exciting things were, do I? I'll drop tomorrow, see how people are doing.