First Days

“We have a meeting with a lawyer” my husband reading the mail which came in the brown envelope. Yes, I said, finally we have a lawyer Great! How can we get to go to Vancouver to see our lawyer and then maybe to the beach for a walk?”.

I asked.”You need to take three buses to Surrey and one skytrain to get to Vancouver then one more bus to take you tothe lawyer’s office” my husband replied.
“No, No, No, I am not taking that many buses I exclaimed with a still happy face looking forward to going to Vancouver from Abbotsford where I lived. I wanted to spend time in Vancouver and walk all around the city and visit all the landmarks. My husband was looking at me, and said in a serious voice “Shanga , It’s the only way we do not have a car yet!”.
“We woke at 5 am. We start walking past the beautiful lake which was between the house and the first bus station.lt looked beautiful with the white Riles but I feel only sadness.
We reached Vancouver after many hours and were so happy to find our lawyer’s office after walking around the same place three to four times! We walked in and knocked the door. I was fretting.How will it be? What will he ask? How can I answer with my little English? A man in a suit unlocked the door.”Do you have appointment?” I said “yes70k wait”, he said that without looking at us or giving us a smile, I stopped smiling and tried to be serious like him.
After a few minutes, he opened the door and said “come on in”. We tried to sit on the chairs unsure whether to say anything or not. He looked so busy?Who is Shanga”? I said “me” quickly. He said “tell me about yourself”. I felt relieved.”I am from Kurdistan, I was a journalist and I had to leave be-cause…..””Stop stop”, he started to ask me specific questions and I tried to answer, but he seemed frustrated and I felt stupid. He told me to slow down,”Don’t answer my questions before listening”.Then he brought in an interpreter who shookhands with us and said “chawaanibashi” in Krmanjikurdishdialect…
We started again, with questions and answers,the interpreter rounded his head to us and asked “tanaskrd?” My mind froze.) asked my husband, can you translate it for me please? I don’t understand the interpreter’s Kurdish dialect!The lawyer is perplexed.”It’s the same language! Why you don’t understand each other?? If you listen carefully, then you can understand:’
In Kurdistan I was fighting for women who suffered from lack of respect in society, but here in Canada a lawyer was chiding me and everything was going wrong! We finished our first meeting without understand-ing each other. We missed one bus from Alder-grove to Abbots-ford and the next one will come after an hour and half.Then we will go home walking past the lake without seeing it’s beauty.