I'm mute and deaf now. I can't understand anything that people are saying to me. Their mouth talk so fast and their eyes can't even hold a stare into mine. I can't read or guess what they are talking about.
Oh, before we go deeper into this long story, I'll make it short as possible of course, I'd like you to meet me. So, my name is actually pretty simple. It has only 4 letters! And can spell it with only one breath, maybe just half of it. I will remind you again, it's an easy and simple name. So, my name is-
"Hey, city-kid! Do you understand what I say?"
That's not my name. But I can understand his question. I just don't know how to answer it. I just nodded, the universal language thing, and of course he understood.
He chose to keep stared at me, gesturing that he waited for me to answer it out loud with my voice. Then, I followed his request. I say a word to him with my voice. He laughed, a lot, which made everyone curious. And of course, to be the nice social-butterfly figure, he told everyone what I just said to him, while mocking the way I talk.Â
After making everyone's day full of happiness, he took a breath to calm his laugh for a second and faced me again while sweeping his happy tears in the corner of his eyes.Â
"It's always weird to hear the way you talk, townie. Is there any thought of practicing to speak our language? At least the basic one I suggest."
What kind of rhetoric question is that? Of course, I do have. It's not just a thought, I already did that in my 4 months of living here. I practiced a lot. I practiced really hard. I analyze every single person's pronunciation on some words and how they react while saying it. Well, thanks to him. From now on, I believe that even if I practiced for a hundred times, my accent will forever be weird in their ears. That's why I chose to be mute. Forever.
Things like I said above happen sometimes, not so regularly. And it has been 4 months since the day I moved here. My family said that it's normal though if I still can't catch up with the others. But yeah, I am still a stranger to people.
Just say that I'm completely mute right now. Thanks to him. But I'm half deaf aka I still can understand people. Only if they talk to me right gazing at me. Fortunately, I can understand the teachers. It's because they talk in front of the class which is gazing at the audience, gazing at me, while explaining their courses. Sometimes they make jokes too.
My favorite teacher who always found time to have her inside jokes, teaches the most difficult subject for me. As you can guess, she teaches the language I've been fighting for. Well honestly, I rarely understand her jokes. But, the way she tells jokes makes it funny to me. And of course, I ended up laughing. Finally I can interact with the teacher and have the same reaction as my other classmates. I've never been happier.
