That Tower of Babel

The Romanians were back today. Or probably more accurately, the Romanians had never left, and I returned to find them still there.
As usual, I got to class early, and when I walked in, I heard voices, fans buzzing, people running around, and in a matter of seconds, complete silence. I didn't think much of it--mostly, because I suspected that they would still be there (homelessness usually isn't a brief problem)--, and I started setting up the downstairs classroom. When I'd finished, I went upstairs to prepare my classroom, and what did I find? Underwear of all shapes and sizes was lying out to dry all over my tables and chairs. I stood there probably a full minute, wondering what to do. I did not want to touch strange underwear. So, for lack of a better idea, I left the underwear, and went into the nursery to find toys that I could set out for the children to play with during class. When I walked into the nursery, there the Romanian family was...all of them, huddled together on two lumpy mattresses. I noticed several of their eyes flutter and then clamp closed suddenly. I whispered an apology and stepped out. I then had no idea what to do. I couldn't set up my classroom because of the underwear. I couldn't get the kids' area ready because of the sleepers. So, I sat down at one of the tables, underwear all around me, lacking inspiration.
About a half hour later, I decided that my best course of action would begin with picking up the underwear. So, I used the thumb and pointer finger approach--barely touching the fabric with just those two fingers--and I piled up their "unmentionables" in another room.
About then, the mother walked in, and started looking around the room with these really panicked eyes.
"Are you looking for your...erm...your underwear?" I asked. No response. I tried again, this time in French. No response.
I started miming the question, "Are you (pointing at the women) looking (hand over eyes, head moving back and forth) for your underwear (this is where it gets tricky: I started stepping into "something" and pulling it up like pants)?"
She started nodding.
I pointed to the other room. "I put them (setting make believe panties on the table) in that room (pointing to the room in question)."
She nodded again, and walked in to get them.
She returned with her things draped over one arm, and pointed down to the floor. "Cours?"
"Cours....yes....there is a French class here today."
She then pointed to her wrist and said something that sounded like "hora?"
"It starts at 2 (holding up two fingers) until 4 (holding up 4 fingers)."
Clearly, this didn't make sense to her. So, I walked out of the classroom and held up one hand as if to say, "Just wait a minute."
I closed the door, opened it, and then entered again, and said "Two", holding out my two fingers. In one hand, I held an imaginary suitcase. I closed the door behind me, and made a huge production of opening the suitcase and placing things arbitrarily around the room. Then, I said, "Four", holding up the four fingers, and walked back around the room, collecting my imaginary objects and placing them inside the imaginary suitcase, which I locked before walking out and closing the door behind me.
"Comprende?" I asked. I have this theory that, whenever someone is speaking a language other than English or French, everything they say and everything I reply somehow morphs into badly pronounced, not quite grammatically correct Spanish. It's hard to say why.
Still, she nodded that she did understand, pointed at her chest and motioned at the door.
"No, No!" I said. "You don't have to leave." I pointed to the nursery where she was staying and said, "No one" (I waving my pointer finger back and forth) is having class in here (indicating the room.) You can stay."
However, she seemed to take this as, "No one should stay in this room. You should go," and rounded her family up and had them out the front door in minutes.
I stood at the door, watching their rapid retreat, and thought, "That wretched Tour of Babel--if it weren't for that, we wouldn't be having these problems."
However, they were back at 4 o'clock, with a new television. (Yeah, that seemed a little weird to me too.) But they were all smiles and graciousness, despite me having touched all their underwear, so I have that to be thankful for.
And we can always look at the bright side: with constant language barriers, life becomes like one big game of Charades.