2 Languages 1 Convo

I went to down to Pentagon City Mall this weekend just so I could see what I was missing way up in the nothingness of Laurel/confirm I wasn't actually missing anything.  The technical name for the mall is "The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City" because the mall is basically filled with clothing stores.  Basically it looks like a big fancy Tyson's Corner or Columbia Mall.  The latter is 15 min from my house.  Needless to say, I wasn't impressed.

What did impress me were the pair of Ethiopian ladies that tried to goop me and confuse my mind with their east African trickery.

So I'm walking, right, and as I pass these two obvi Ethiopian ladies, one of them stops to ask me a question.  It went something like this:

Lady:  Excuse me...
Me:  Yesss...
Lady:  lawfhweufha awlifwei aowiefja;owe
Me:  *literally pauses for like 10 sec and stares blankly* what??...
Lady:  *looks at me like I'm playing a trick on her* How do you get to Macy's?
Me:  Oh...yeah...this is my first time in here so I don't know where anything is.  Sorry...
Lady:  That's OK *walks away*

OK, America, I think know I'm not crazy, but now I'm starting to second guess myself.  I know she said "excuse me" in English...that's how I knew she was talking to me.  But her second question was def not in English...at least I think.  I literally couldn't understand a word she said...I couldn't even make out the word "Macy's", and that's an English word.  I mean, I know I  must have looked like a dang fool to her because I remember that pause being hella long.  Sometimes I'll hear things in English but they might sound funny or the person said it really fast so it doesn't compute in my mind, thus I assume it's not English.  I don't think this was the case; I think ol' girl for real switched up the languages on me mind convo.  She trapped me with English then came strong with the Amharic from behind.  Didn't even see ti coming; I'm impressed.

Now I'll have to be weary of English-speaking Ethiopians too...