As told to Gather

“We do not share a language, but we share a building, a winter and a kind of tiredness. Somehow, that has been enough.”

I work in a courthouse in a mid-sized Canadian city.
Official title: court clerk.
Unofficial job: explainer-in-chief for confused newcomers who wander in holding envelopes and anxiety.

I talk a lot. English, Yoruba, a bit of Pidgin, sometimes French if the Holy Spirit helps me. I gist with security, greet lawyers, ask the accused if they understand what the judge just said. My mouth is always working.

The janitor on my floor is the exact opposite.

He does not talk. At least not in any language I understand.

He is from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I still do not know the country for sure—his accent sounds like a Slavic soup and my geography knowledge is not that strong. Let us call him Ivan.

Our Love Language: Head Nods and Mops

I start work around 7:30 a.m.
Ivan starts at “only God knows what time in the morning.”

Most days, when I arrive, the floors are already shining like they went to private school. Garbage bins empty, washrooms smelling like lemon and bleach.

At first, we were just two strangers with keys to different parts of the building. A small nod here, a polite smile there. Those Canadian “hi”s that mean nothing and everything at the same time.

Then one winter morning, I overslept.

I rushed into the staff entrance half-frozen, juggling coffee, laptop bag and my dignity. I swiped my key card. Red light. Swiped again. Still red. The building was locked.

Through the glass, I saw Ivan in the lobby, mopping like he was in a music video.

I started knocking.

He looked up, frowned for half a second, then grinned like we were in on a secret. He hurried over, pressed some mysterious code, and opened the door.

“Thank you, thank you!” I repeated like a broken record.

I put my hand on my chest and bowed slightly.
He copied me—hand to chest, tiny bow.

Right there, without committee meeting or WhatsApp group, that became our greeting.

How To Gist Without Words

“Our friendship lives in eyebrows, mops and plastic food containers.”

After that day, we upgraded from the standard nod. Each morning:
Hand to chest. Mini bow. Overly dramatic “Good morning.”

His “good morning” sounds like “goo mahnin.”
Mine probably sounds like noise to him.

We talk anyway.

When the snowstorm hits, he points outside, rolls his eyes and shivers dramatically. I respond by hugging myself and making “I hate winter” faces. We rant about the weather in two totally different languages, but the meaning is clear: this cold has no respect.

One afternoon, I was eating jollof rice and chicken in the staff kitchen. He walked in, stopped halfway and sniffed the air like a cartoon character.

I laughed and offered him a forkful.

He tasted it and his eyes went wide. He placed his hand on his chest—again—and nodded like I had just shown him the way, the truth and the life.

A week later, he brought a small plastic container from his lunch bag and pushed it towards me. Cabbage rolls, meat, some sauce I cannot pronounce but now crave every winter.

We sat there like two children at break time, trading bites and grinning. No deep conversation. Just “mmm,” “ahh,” thumbs up and facial expressions.

Who needs subtitles when your tastebuds are talking?

The Day I Realised We Were Actually Friends

One time I travelled back to Nigeria for three weeks. When I returned to work, jetlagged and already missing fresh suya, the first person I saw was not my manager, not a lawyer—it was Ivan.

He froze mid-mop when he saw me, dropped the handle and marched over with his serious face.

Then he tapped his wrist like there was a watch there and shook his head, as if to say, “Where have you been?”

I burst out laughing.

That was the moment I realised: this man had noticed my absence.

Nobody sent him a memo. There was no out-of-office message in his language. He just knew his loud Nigerian hallway neighbour was missing and it bothered him.

We stood there in the corridor, acting out a full conversation:

• Me, imitating an airplane with my hand.
• Him, folding his palms together like prayer (was I visiting family?).
• Me, miming hot sun, then holding my stomach like I had eaten too much.
• Him, laughing so hard he had to lean on the mop.

If a stranger walked in, they would think two grown men had lost their minds.
In a way, yes. We have lost our minds and found a tiny piece of belonging.

Not Every Friendship Needs a Deep Talk

People often think friendship means long calls, heart-to-heart confessions, knowing each other’s childhood trauma. And yes, those things are beautiful.

But diaspora life also creates these micro-friendships that do not fit the usual script:

• The bus driver who waits for you when you are running in the snow.
• The grocery cashier who always tells you when plantain is on sale.
• The neighbour who quietly puts your parcel inside their hallway so it does not get stolen.

For me, it is a janitor who does not speak a word of English, and a Nigerian man who clearly speaks too much.

We do not know each other’s full stories.
I do not know his wife’s name.
He does not know I have kids.

Yet he moves his mop aside when I am rushing to court with a stack of files.
He picks up documents if they fall near the trash and puts them carefully on my desk.
I hold doors open when his cart is overloaded. I bring him chin-chin after every Nigeria trip.

We complain about winter together using only eyebrows.
We celebrate Friday with a shared nod of relief.

Is that not also love, in its own quiet way?

Why This Little Friendship Matters

Courtrooms are heavy places.

I see people at their worst moments—criminal charges, family breakdowns, immigration nightmares. Some mornings, the weight of other people’s problems climbs into my chest and sits there.

Then I hear the squeak of a cleaning cart coming down the hallway.

Ivan appears, nods at me, and does our hand-to-chest greeting with full drama. For five seconds, I remember that outside of case files and evidence and “all rise,” there is still ordinary human kindness.

“In a country where language can make you feel invisible, he reminds me that presence alone is a full sentence.”

I sometimes imagine what our friendship would look like if we spoke the same language.

Maybe we would meet for coffee, talk about politics back home, complain about rent, discuss our children’s future. Maybe we would fight about football teams.

Or maybe the beauty of it is precisely that we do not have the words.

We are forced to speak in something more honest: attention.

He notices my absence. I notice his effort.

In a world that keeps telling immigrants, “Prove yourself. Explain yourself. Translate yourself,” it is refreshing to have one relationship where I am not performing fluency.

For Every Newcomer Who Feels Invisible

If you are new in Canada and the loneliness is slapping harder than the winter wind, look around your own daily route:

• The security guard who always nods at you
• The cafeteria worker who remembers your usual order
• The bus driver who smiles back when you say “thank you”

You might already have the beginning of a friendship, even if you do not share a single common word.

Start with a smile.
Add a nod.
Share a snack if you can.

Not every connection will turn into a lifelong bond. But every small kindness chips away at that feeling of being an extra in somebody else’s movie.

As for me and my janitor friend, we will probably never have a deep, subtitles-on conversation.

And yet, when people say, “Canada is lonely,” I always think:

Every morning, somebody pushes a mop past my office door, looks me in the eye and smiles like we have survived something together.

That may not be the loudest kind of love.
But it is one of the reasons I still feel at home in this cold, confusing, beautiful country.