Mysterious Cousin

It would appear that language barriers do not deter child’s play. In a similar way to infants playing side-by-side, kids will play freely with one another despite not understanding a word the other says.

My children’s ten-year-old cousin flew solo from France for the first time last week. In the lead-up to his much-anticipated visit, I’d taught them some basic French words, which they’d been practising.

This was the first time the twins were meeting their mysterious French cousin and Master Eight was too young to remember their last encounter when he was one. All he had to go on was a photo on his wall and several of the two of them together in his album.

Finally the day arrived when they would meet. Master Eight, who’d already claimed him as his friend, raced into his nana’s house in search of his long-lost cousin before I’d even parked the car. Apparently they bumped into each other down the hall.

“Bonjour,” Master Eight declared boldly.

“Bonjour,” replied the blond-haired, blue-eyed garcon. And with that they were firm friends. They were already walking off together by the time I made it inside.

That evening, I noticed their adjacent play was, at times, much the same as when they last met, nearly eight years earlier, except this time with a lot of hand gestures and body language.

Apart from the ipad, hide ‘n seek proved a hit – who needs to speak the same language to hide and seek? – and at one point I heard Master Ten teaching Master Eight how to count in French.

So well did they hit it off that Master Eight stayed for a sleepover. I guess at least there wouldn’t have been much talking late into the night!

They continued teaching each other their language and when it got too hard, asked my brother, fluent in French, to translate. According to Master Eight, his French cousin needed to practise his ‘r’s’ and according to Master Ten, his English-speaking cousin needed to practise his (guttural-sounding) ‘kkkkrrrrrr’s’.

As for my own bilingual skills, it turns out it’s not only the Parisians who have no time for someone with broken French, as I discovered many years ago while buying a crepe off the side of the boulevard and delightedly putting my five-years French training to the test. Even my ten-year-old nephew rolled his eyes at my try-hardy attempts, which can only have got rustier over time.

The first day he came to my house, for some familiarity, I showed him the photo in Master Eight’s room of himself several years earlier with his dog.

“Voici, c’est tu avec ton chien,” I said pointing at the picture and this making sense in my head.

He looked before looking back at me questionably.

“Chien? Dog?” Had I got that word right? “Woof,” I attempted.

He flashed an ill-supressed grin, clearly deciding his aunty Jodi was a tad nutty, and quickly left the room.

Undeterred and determined to put my five year’s study to use, I steadfastly refused to give up. The next day we walked the loop walkway. The kids, who’d scootered ahead, know they have certain points along the way where they have to stop and wait for the adults.

“Continues tout droit, et arretes a la chat,” I instructed.

He shot me a baffled look but followed his cousins nonetheless, whom I’d already told to continue on ahead and stop at the seat.

“Was that the word for chair?” I asked my brother when he caught up. “I couldn’t remember the word for seat so I said ‘chat’ for ‘chair’.”

“Um, you told him to stop at the cat.”

No wonder the poor boy looked confused.

Culturally, he eventually adjusted to wearing bare feet – something unheard of where he comes from, didn’t quite get the hang of hugging in greeting as opposed kissing cheeks, nor the concept of a mince and cheese pie, although the pastry was familiar, and was delighted to see his first kiwi.

Both the meal and bed times also came as a cultural shock. One weekend, during a sleep-over at my house, after struggling to eat an early dinner by French standards, I tried putting the two older boys to bed at 9pm.

“Dans le lit,” (in the bed) was all I could think of to say, when he was still hovering over his mattress on the floor of Master Eight’s room.

“Pourquoi?” he asked.

“A cause de il est neuf heures,” I replied, stating the time to be nine o’ clock.

The only word I understood from his response was ‘dix’ for ten so I took it he was telling me his bedtime was ten o’clock.

I looked at him disbelievingly and, once again, indicated towards the clock and his bed.

“I think I had a little argument with your son about his bedtime,” I said to my brother later.

“Yeah, he told me aunty Jodi doesn’t believe him that his bed time is 10 o’clock on weekends,” he grinned.

I’m not sure if he ended up thinking his aunty Jodi was mean or nutty or both but I must have made some sense for, by the end of his trip, he was seeking me out when his father wasn’t around to translate, much to my pleasure. And, when it came to saying goodbye at the end of his holiday, after kissing me on the cheek, my affable French nephew tolerated a hug.