The cafe conversation and where things come close

This summer I've been away from Stockholm a great deal, working at a cafe back in my hometown. And what can I say, after being in Vårberg for almost a year now I've been missing the immigrant kids over there. So I guess one day I just couldn't take it anymore (okay, I'm over exaggerating a little) and started talking with some immigrant kids here in Kumla.

I was actually working at the cafe that day when one of my sisters' old classmates and his friend came and sat down. Both from Iraq. I started talking with these funny little guys and offered them a special price on the sweets if they wanted to sit down and keep my company for lunch and teach me some Arabic (let me just tell you that this cafe is like a library cafe, meaning it's quite slow sometimes so you actually have time to do that). They got very excited about that so we sat down. We talked and had a lot of fun. After a while, a guy came by that was a friend of Hamoudi's (one of the little guys) parents. He sat down and joined the conversation. He had only been here in Sweden for five months, leaving his family behind in Iraq, fleeing for his life all over Europe until he came to Sweden. He knew very little Swedish so Hamoudi helped translate.

After talking a while he told us his older brother had just died in one of the bombings in Baghdad three days ago. We all looked at each other with sorrow in our eyes. He almost started crying and so did we. Placing our hands at our chests as if to say we wanted to grieve with him. He looked at us and gave us a warm smile. At this little cafe in this little town the four of us, coming from so different backgrounds, sat together like friends and talked about the war and what's actually going on in the big city of Baghdad. I can just tell you that there is something divine happening to you when you experience the humanity that goes beyond nationality.

Like friends we also got to laugh real hard together. Well, for the most part they laughed at me for having the wrong translations sometimes of some Arabic words. This thanks to the rowdy little boys back in Vårberg (I'll deal with them later ha). Most importantly, what happened during this little cafe conversation I think was that we got to experience the language that is cross-cultural and learn from each other in doing so. I hope we'll meet again. InshAllah.

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"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."