At first, I was afraid to open my mouth at a meeting.
I had a funny American accent.
You know, even if I would have known all of the right words, and when nouns are girls and when the nouns are boys, I still say things with an American R.
I was sure everybody would laugh at me. That's what I was used to in the States, whenever anybody spoke with an accent - even if the speaker was from another region in the States.
I was surprised when the entire audience listened. Carefully. They were interested. They didn't laugh.
I spoke to other people about it later on. Apparently, Israelis actually respect an American accent.
The case is not the same regarding people with accents from certain other countries. However, for some reason, they stop and listen when they hear an American accent.
To this day, I don't understand why, but I was born in the place that offered me the "right" accent.
On a later occasion, I gave a paper in a conference. That broke down all of my defenses, since the audience was so accepting.
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