Under my Umbrella

I had a fairly confusing experience on my way home from work on Friday. Although I feel the experience has only just begun.

So I had just turned off the main drag onto my high street. I was approached by two Korean ladies. I would say they were in their mid 30’s. They said ‘Hello’, which was a good start. Then their natural Korean flow streamed out. All was fine though as they handed me a computerised, English, questionnaire. The questions were of a religious genre. Number 1 was, “What is your chosen religion”? Multiple answers, I circled ‘none’. A few more questions followed. One recited a verse from the Old Testament (I think!) I worked my way through, with some ease, all the questions. I had the ability of not knowing any of the questions so I simply circled ‘none’, ‘don’t know’, ‘other’ and/or ‘no thanks’.

Then just as I thought the street meeting was winding up, they heckled over three more Korean women. The heckling was loud, impatient and very much desperate. The three additions to our party were, in all honesty, more my cup of tea. And that is exactly what the 5 invited me for. (The new girls to the party spoke better English. A few familiar words were branded. ‘Presentation’, ‘Sign’ which was accompanied with the swirl of her right hand.) I had to refuse the cup of tea as I was meeting a friend shortly. However, what I had picked up from the brief chat was that they wanted me to watch their English presentation and then sign some kind of assessment paper. We arranged to do this on Tuesday night at 7pm. It wasn’t that straight forward though. Before agreeing on Tuesday night at 7pm, we went through pretty much every hour and every day that preceded it, with me trying to explain and divulge my reasoning/excuse for not being able to meet at that point.

We exchanged numbers and email and waved goodbye with one final confirmation of our meeting time and place. I have ABSOLUTELY no idea what I’m going to be doing on Tuesday. Neither do I know where they will take me. Even what I will be signing or what they will be presenting. It could be a religious lecture in English, then I sign my life away to weekly prayers and rituals. It could be watching a performance of some kind by a daughter of one of the ladies, and I could find myself with some extra after school lessons (which I’ve heard pay well). Who knows? Either way I’m looking forward to my experience and will embrace it like nothing else…… even if they do make me prayer or chant or sway around on my hands and knees – I’ll be there with bells on!!

Wish me luck……

(p.s. all the above took place under umbrella's, it was raining hard!!)

This picture is of my 'Free Talking' class on Thursday. It consists of animals and where they live. Plus all the kids wanted to be either on the Lion, in the shark, swimming in the pond or riding the chicken. Most amusing.