He grins back! That will be so good.

He hesitates, waiting in case she wants to try to say anything else or ask something.

She waits too, for a moment, and then goes back to her work.

He leaves. For a while. If she's still at it when it gets hot he'll stop by again.

She's still there, but taking a break from engraving the wagon to sit in the shade and sketch something.

Good, he's glad she takes breaks.

He leaves her some water.

She wasn't running low yet, but after yesterday that's a fair enough concern; she thanks him, takes a drink, and gets back to her sketch.

He leaves her alone for another while.

Next time he stops by he brings fresh fruits and carrots.

It's reasonably enough lunchtime, so she pauses for a break; she leans against one of the wagon wheels where it casts a shadow and pats the ground next to her to invite Vaayo to sit.

He sits and watches her.

She watches him back, for a few moments, and then looks thoughtful.

She points to herself, and then signs: "Dosk." Points to the bird, signs again, "Nawi." Points to him.

"Vaayo," he says out loud, enunciating carefully. He would give her a sign if he had a sign, but he doesn't.

"Vaayo," she repeats back, in her own voice this time, and then signs to Nawi for a few seconds without him translating. Then: "Vaayo work?"

He signs his name so he'll remember it.

He thinks about how to explain himself. It's not going to be easy, he can tell already.

"Vaayo work." He thinks for a while and then smoothes the dirt in front of him and tries drawing. Three boxes. In one box he draws a row of growing corn. In another he draws an adult with several children. In the third he draws a hammer and knife. Then he makes a dot outside all the boxes. "Vaayo," he says, then touches the dot.

Huh.

She gives him the words for "farm" and "creche", and "make" he already knows. Then she draws a box around his dot and looks at him questioningly.

"Three person. Farm person, creche person, make person. Vaayo... not three."

...fair enough. She shrugs and nibbles on a carrot.

"Dosk make-person?" He gestures at the three pictures of things a person can do.

She nods. "Dosk make."

Nod.

He has so many questions and so few words so he'll just wait and see if she wants to try to say or ask anything else.

She really should get on teaching Nawi the language, soon. Can she even explain that she wants to, though?

Well, she can try.

"Nawi speak -" conveniently, the sign involves pointing to her mouth, that should give him a clue. "Vaayo speak. Dosk not speak." She looks questioning again: does he get it?

Yep. He nods and doesn't look lost. He waits for her to say more.

"Nawi speak," some new word, which she doesn't try to translate. "Vaayo speak...?"

He guesses she might mean the language. "Yuyaem," he says, enunciating very carefully.

She nods, and takes a moment to teach Nawi this word too.

"Dosk and Vaayo work Nawi, Nawi speak Yuyaem. Vaayo work Nawi?"

He doesn't know how to teach a language at all, he definitely doesn't know how to teach a language to a crow...

"Vaayo work," he agrees. But he looks pretty confused.