Today I took the bus to my parents to pick up some yarn for a delivery order, a good excuse to get some knitting in too! While knitting on the bus some people came and sat down across the aisle, and we began to chat. It was a Father and Daughter from Libya, the father was here to study at DU. He began to ask me (at his daughter's bequest) about the names for what I was doing and where the supplies could be bought. It seems his daughter crocheted at home and wanted to continue here. I learned that crochet is the same in Arabic (as well as most romance languages) and yarn is "lana" (which is wool in Spanish). Since the moors brought the skill to Europe they got to make up the words!
People all over the world engage in handicrafts, so this woman so far from home saw me knitting just like her mother had done and we found common ground in talking about yarn. It feels good to know that these universal skills can be away to understand people from very different cultures. (And considering I always look for the LYS when I travel, I'd say we're not really all that different!) Crafting really is a universal language.
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