The Third Conversation - Because

There has been a recurring theme in my conversations with Bandar: English. And I don't mean that because all of our conversations have been in English (though they have), but rather that we tend to talk a lot about how little sense this langauge actually makes. It began today with the word Wednesday, a very strangely spelled word.

As the story goes, Bandar was reading in class this morning when he came to this word that he thought he didn't know. He summoned the teacher to his side and asked the meaning of this "Whed-nes-day" only to discover he already knew the word. At least, he knew how the word sounds and what it feels like to say it and that it means the middle day of the week. Initially, he didn't believe that this "Whens-day" could ever be spelled "Whed-nes-day", but the teacher insisted. Bandar pressed for an explanation but was greated only by a "Because."

Uh...because?

According to Bandar, it's a magic "because". It's the response to every English question he's ever had!

Why isn't enough spelled "enuff"? Because.
Why do "know" and "no" get spelled differently? Because.
Why do we spell "cul-chur" as culture? Because.

It became a joke between us. Bandar or I would look at the other and respond to a question with a shrug and a magic "Because." And then we'd laugh.


We were having a grand old time in fact, and in between laughs Bandar told me the three questions he had since coming to the United States to study:

1. Why is there a "k" in the word know?
2. How is that Asians can differentiate between Japenese, Chinese, and South Korean just from looks?
3. Who is this man that created English? Because I want to find him and kill him.

We laughed at that.

And in between all these laughs about the dumbest language to ever form on this grand planet, we talked about movies. In Saudi Arabia, they don't have movie theaters ("cinemas") and so the experience we all take for granted is still thrilling and novel to Bandar. It's the food, the seats, the atmosphere, everything. You can buy the DVD in Saudi Arabia as soon as the film premieres in theaters across the world, but it's not the same.

What is the same, though, is the movies. Apparently films transcend cultural bounds and can easily provide a common ground. We talked about Tom Cruise and the newest Mission Impossible movie, about movies soon to come out, and movies I never saw because I was too young to see them when they first came out. Notable among the last catagory is The Godfather. When Bandar found this out, he jokingly insisted that I leave right then and go watch it. We laughed and then I think I committed myself to watching it over spring break. I'm looking forward to being able to come back and tell him I saw it.

Today for the first time, I think Bandar and I started really being friends. It took weeks and three conversations, but it happened. How? Why? I don't know. Because.