Calculus, a universal language of its own

Its a slowly progressing morning, not looking forward to the day's all long only activity, a total dread really. Am sited in front of the nutrition store, currently working as a nutrition assistant in a refugee settlement. 

It is an important job, but I hated the job. Its was a very demanding job, and I was overly qualified for the role. So, you can imagine feeling reduced to overseeing the hand out of rations, for a rather nerdy person. 

My team, the support staff and I, organize for the day- arrange tables, organize an education session, bring out rations from the store, put our records and registers in order. As we nonchalantly await my supervisor to give us a green light to begin, Justin, passes me a note. On it, scribbled a well thought out formula solving a maths problem in detail. 

Never, in my life did I think Calculus would be the bridge to a warm friendship of two multilingual strangers with no common language. 

In an instant, I felt a tingle of excitement run down my spine. As if in the midst of French speaking Congolese and Burundians, I had found my tribesmen. From a land of strangers, I could recognize my own!

I asked, "Justin, you integrated this?" 

He scribbled an integration of x on a piece of hard paper torn off a box of CSB (corn soy blend) we were about to ration out that day. He smiled back like the sun brightening the darkest corners of heart. I felt light hearted and warm really. 

"Ya, tis me. You know to do it also?"  

We shared the same burdens and anxieties in mathematics class in different cultures and countries apart.  

Well, all is history, Justin and I went on to be the warmest of friends albeit our struggle to communicate. I enrolled for a French class in language school, and he, bought an English dictionary to improve his English.