When you know your language lessons are useless...

...when your didi* who speaks no english turns up at your door and bursts into tears and you don't know how to say "what's wrong, don't cry"....when you only finally realise after a painful session of your limited understanding of Nepali and her acting skills that the reason she is crying is that her nephew is dead and her husband is in hospital in Malasia after they were both attacked and you can't even say "I am so sorry for your loss, are you alright? Is there anything I can do to help"... when all you can do is stand there dumbly or offer a hug to this tiny lady who has nothing and yet has lost more than you can even imagine...when you want to tell her that you are so angry that immigrant workers like her husband and nephew, who are so often the poorest and most desperate, are also the most vulnerable, that it shouldn't be this way, that it is unfair that she only saw her husband for the first 5 months of their marriage before he left to work abroad 3 years ago ... but instead all you can say is "naramro" = "not good/not lovely"... when you spent the last 2 hours learnng how to say what you did this morning and all you now need to say is "im sorry that this happened to you, it is ok to cry"


*didi - literally means older sister, but is the name given to the lady that comes to your house to clean etc (most nepalis have a didi, who come and help out)