Welcoming spring, new colleagues, old languages...and red hair

Spring is here (again!!) which makes me really pleased. It was quite a set back getting snow last week and looking out on a winter landscape. But now the birds are singing and the weather is mild and lovely. I guess most of the snow will be gone soon and we will be able to eat lunch outside. Can't wait :-D
On that happy note I would like to welcome our new colleague, Melvin from El Salvador who will be tackling our South American market and our Spanish speaking authors. Melvin has Mayan-Indian roots so he's been trying to teach us a few words. Mayan is, for us, a very exotic language. So far I can (or could because I have already forgotten) say bread and some other random word. I have also learnt a few Nepali words, though that has essentially nothing to do with Mayan or Melvin. I mentor a really talented young author from Nepal who told me so many lovely things about Nepal that I got intrigued and bought a phrase book sporting useless Nepali phrases. I guess saying "bread" is more useful than saying "my room has not been cleaned". Mind you, it probably depends on where you are. Not sure Mayan gets you very far in Nepal, or vice versa. Anyway, the languages are both very old and rather intriguing and I hope that we will one day have books in both of these languages. And many more minority languages too of course.
Personally I would like to learn Zulu, Japanese and Russian. Not for any specific reason at all really, except that they sound so distinct. And if I can hear the difference, then I assume I can also learn them.
And finally, when I got into work this morning, I was joined by three red haired and happy colleagues. Not quite sure what happened, but it must have been nice because they were all very happy. Or could it be that it is spring?