Bavel Comes To The Five Towns
By: Anessa Cohen
This is a story my husband Haim told me that is too cute not to share:
“Today, my Indian neighbor knocked on my door. It’s unusual for her to come over in the middle of the day since she’s usually at work, so the first thing I asked her was: ‘Is everything okay?’ After assuring me that everything was fine, she asked me to please come over and speak to her gardeners.
“Okay, so I was thinking that I’ll go over and speak to her Honduran gardeners with my Machane Yehuda Ladino-Spanish. So, over I go to see what I can do, and after I introduce myself, I attempt to explain to them what my neighbor is worried about and finally we agreed that he understands me and I understand him, and I thought my work was done.
“Here comes my wife now, who takes one good look at the work they’re doing and says to me in Hebrew that the brick wall they’re building around the garden will have a problem with flooding because it has no outlets and the water will end up cascading into our garden and we’ll have a ‘tohu v’vohu.’
“Since I didn’t want to have a fight with the neighbors over this, I tried to convince my wife in Hebrew that it’s not a big deal, but she forces me to talk to the gardeners again in Ladino-Spanish, to tell them what needs to be done with the wall they’re building so there will be no water buildup.
“Again, I speak to the gardeners in Ladino, this time with both my arms flapping like a goose to make sure they understand me. My Indian neighbor did not understand what the commotion was about, so I explained to her in English that I’m trying to avoid a problem for her.
“In the interim her husband joined us and I think he asked her in Hindu what the problem was and they spoke for a while in Hindu, then the husband approached me and, flipping back to English, said: ‘Can you explain to me what the problem is?’ I explained to him that the gardeners were building a brick wall around the garden and his wife is worried where the water will go and my wife is saying it will overflow and cascade into our garden. He then asked me, ‘So, what are we going to do?’
“By this time my mother-in-law walked out of the house looking for my wife and sees the commotion and asked my wife in Yiddish, ‘What’s going on?’ I do not speak Yiddish, but I realized what my mother-in-law was saying and she answered, ‘Everything is ok!’
“Then my mother-in-law, a gardening expert from Poland who does not give up easily, stated, ‘You do realize that the gardener has to put weep holes in the brick wall so the water can seep out, right?’
“Both gardeners were standing there for a while, listening to all the different languages being spoken, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. We are all still standing around the garden, each person speaking a different language, and now my Russian neighbor, who probably saw the commotion, came heading over to us from across the street to find out what was going on since it’s not every day that we have a commotion on our block.
“There’s no way I’m going to attempt to explain to my Russian neighbor everything that happened and at this point, I’m starting to feel like I’m back in Bavel trying to put a garden in. I took a deep breath, sighed, and muttered something under my breath in Arabic, then shook my head and walked away.”
This is what happens when I allow my husband to write the article for me! n
Anessa Cohen lives in Cedarhurst and is a Licensed Real Estate Broker (Anessa V Cohen Realty) with over 20 years of experience offering full service real estate residential, commercial, and management services. She can be reached at 516-569-5007. Readers are encouraged to send any questions or scenarios by email to [email protected].
