You said it pardner

Yesterday we had lunch with a few people from a local NGO working on
land management issues and two people from the Japanese embassy working
on grassroots projects in Ethiopia. We went to a place called 'Rodeo'
which was heavily decorated with Texan paraphernalia and the interior
used a lot of wood. The menus, and even the plates, were shaped like
cowboy hats. There was a cowboy boot stuck to one wall and all the
serving staff wore red cowboy shirts.
Our group had pushed two tables together. To my left was a Japanese
woman from the embassy and to my right an Ethiopian guy from the NGO. We
were celebrating his transfer to the World Bank at the end of the week
and the purpose of the lunch was to introduce everyone the guy he would
pass the baton to. The common language amongst everyone was English and
many of the people knew each other already so conversation was laid-back
and friendly, but at some point the Japanese people fell into Japanese
and the Ethiopian group fell into speaking Amharic. At one end of the
group there was an Ethiopian woman flanked by two Japanese people and
she sat there in silence, too far from anyone that could speak Amharic.
For a moment I considered telling her we could switch seats but
abandoned the idea when I realized that would completely divide the
groups. After briefly joining the Japanese conversation, I turned and
initiated conversation with the guy on my right in English, which
sparked others to switch to English. I glanced over and the Ethiopian
woman was now speaking with the Japanese woman in English and they were
sharing portions of their meals. I felt as if I'd helped wrangle this
rodeo back on track. Then someone ordered another bottled water in
English and the waitress brought tomato soup and bread rolls.