The Sound of Language Read Online Free PDF Page B

to see pictures of newly released movies and listen to new Hindi movie songs. Everyone in Afghanistan watched Hindi movies, Pakistani teleplays, and television programs from Iran. Raihana especially loved old Hindi movies and the songs in them.
    “It is the irregular verbs that are the most problematic,” Christina told her whenever Raihana complained about them. They would have a one-on-one class every Wednesday for three hours, when Christina would go through Raihana's homework.
    Uregelmoessig verbum. Raihana knew that term. These were verbs that didn't follow a set pattern and Raihana always made mistakes when using them.
    “You will get used to the verbs,” Christina said.
    “Jeg kan ikke , I cannot,” she said desperately. She didn't think she could ever get used to this language and its rule-less verbs.
    Christina laughed. “You will. When you start speaking Danish fluently, you won't even think about the verbs.”
    “Nej, nej,” Raihana said, shaking her head.
    Christina nodded. “You're learning Danish very fast, meget hurtigt.”
    Raihana glowed at the praise. When she came home, Raihana felt even better because she realized that she had had a whole conversation with Christina in Danish and had understood almost all of it.
    The class started every day with a different song that Christina played on the tape recorder. It was the day Christina played the song about solskin , sunshine, in Raihana's fourth week at the language school, that everything changed for Raihana.
    The talk of spring, sunshine, the song of the birds, and the buzzing of bees changed everything for Raihana.
    “My uncle make honey,” she managed to tell Christina. The language, as difficult as it was, was sinking in, much to Raihana's surprise. “I help him.”
    Christina had seemed very interested and the next week, Christina pulled Raihana aside during lunch and asked if she would be interested in working at an apiary.
    Raihana barely understood what Christina said, even though she spoke slowly. Finally, Christina got Layla to translate for her.
    “There is a man, an old man, his wife has died and he might need help taking care of his bees,” Layla translated with a frown. In Dari, she added, “I don't think you should say yes to this, working for some old man doesn't sound right. You come and work with us in the supermarket.”
    Raihana wanted to warn Christina that she really didn't know that much about bees but Layla's insistence that Raihana go to the supermarket with her for her praktik gave Raihana pause. She loved Layla, but she also needed to get away from her. And why not work with bees? Maybe she would learn something, maybe she would be able to practice her Danish more, something that wouldn't happen if she worked in the supermarket with Layla.
    So with Layla's warning ringing in her ears, Raihana, with confidence that surprised her, said yes. Yes, she would work in a bee farm for some old Danish man. She had no idea what she was getting into but since she had left the refugee camp, it seemed like getting into things that she didn't know much about didn't always turn out badly.
    Raihana came home with a somber Layla and told Kabir that she had been assigned a praktik. Raihana was nervous about his reaction. She knew Layla wasn't pleased about her decision and knew that Kabir wouldn't be pleased either.
    “So you'll join Layla's cleaning army?” he joked as soon as they came home.
    Layla sighed deeply and Raihana bit her upper lip nervously.
    “What happened? You didn't get the supermarket job?” he asked.
    When neither woman said anything, Kabir became impatient. “Is one of you going to say something or are you both going to stand there like statues?”
    The words tumbled out of Raihana and with each word she could see the growing disapproval on Kabir's face.
    “No,” he said, shaking his head after she was finished, and then looked at Layla. “Didn't you tell her that she should say no?”
    “She wants to do