Three bad boys who gave reading a bad name

Tags

Books, Classical Arabic, Colloquial Arabic, Cultural differences, Culture, expat, Family, Reading, Social behaviours

I am an obsessive reader. I read everything I can get my hands (or eyes) on. 

I suffer withdrawal symptoms when I haven’t got enough reading matter at hand (and despite being a reading addict I am quite selective about what I like to read, which makes my daily foraging task doubly difficult). 

When I first came to the Middle East my confessions on the subject were met with suspicion.

Hello! What are you doing?

I’m reading a book.

Why? 

It soon became apparent that most of my my bright, charming, lovely new friends hated it with the same passion I hated chemistry in school- and as I came to realise, for pretty much the same reasons: incomprehensible, deadly boring stuff somebody forces upon you for no obvious benefit. As filled with pleasure as a fork in the eye.  

A young Syrian guy I know went to London and he came back full of praise and awe. Everything was so beautiful, he said, but there was one thing I didn’t understand: people read everywhere, on the tube, train, side of the road, cafe, you name it. His mate listened to this account in disbelief, then said: “You must have been in a university district of some sort,  they were probably studying for an exam.”

Every time reading comes up as an entertainment option people shudder in horror. 

So when I said to my inner detective, dear Watson, we must get to the bottom of this, here’s what he found: 

1. There are two Arabic languages. There is Fusha (classical Arabic), the language of books, university lectures, news, serious stuff. And there is colloquial Arabic, which people speak every day and which, by some accounts, bears as much resemblance to Fusha as Dutch does to German. 

Now if you or I had to read the latest Nick Hornby in the language of Beowulf, we’d probably also find that a type of torture. Students are made to read a lot in school and all of it is in a difficult (though beautiful and poetic) language they don’t speak. No wonder the memory of it all is akin to my chemistry nightmares.

I know somebody who needed private tutoring during university to cope with the language of the courses. Eventually, he decided it would be easier to just switch to English.  

2. Reading is seen as a solitary occupation. You basically sit and read and ignore the rest of the world. Now here this is a big no no. The social structure of big families with very strong ties, in permanent verbal contact, means you are very rarely on your own. 

It would be supremely rude of you to sit in a corner engulfed in Pride and Prejudice while Uncle Ahmad is relaying the latest news of your cousin. And if you are on the bus alone, your phone rings every 2 minutes for much of the same, so no time at all to open that Orhan Pamuk novel you thought you might like. 

Obviously, this is a huge generalisation. There are people who love to read, who master the two languages (and more) with an intellectual ease that makes me green with envy. 

But for those who don’t, I have a suspicion that taking the combined baddies of Forced, Solitary and Hard out of the reading would make it fly.

Book clubs, dialogues, reading circles, a spoken follow up to anything you read would just inject life in its tired veins. Take the word of a reading junkie:)

My taxi e su casa

Tags

Arabic, expat, Life in the Middle East, Snacks, Taxi drivers, travel

There is something magic about any taxi ride. 

A short meeting with a complete stranger. Thousands in a lifetime.

Thousands of faces fragmented in rear view mirrors, thousands of bums on

sinking back seats, thousands of repetitive words.

For the traveller, a taxi driver is often the first port of call. If you are lucky, they are a source of helpful information and fascinating insight into the culture you are visiting. You end up quoting their wisdom in conversations about what unemployment in country X is at.

If you are not, they may scar you for life. I know of a delightful older gentleman who was put off foreign travel for life after meeting a taxi driver in Cairo.

I met a taxi driver in India who ripped me off so thoroughly I spent the first few days of an otherwise fascinating trip screaming at my own stupidity in the mirror. 

Here I have been very lucky. I take taxis often and meet an array of interesting, generous, world wise gentlemen.

Very often they are accomplished multi-taskers. They drive and text and eat and smoke simultaneously, throwing you into shock and awe.  

They turn around to envelop you in a huge warm smile just as you pass a mad junction, millimeters away from somebody’s plunging car. Your heart skips a beat. They offer you a cigarette, a nut, a crisp, a sip of their coffee.

I have been offered a range of snacks that would make a street market stall pale with envy. Raisins, walnuts, peanuts, grapes, pastries, zatar bread, small slices of apple.

At first I hesitated, then I was told they are good for me and I must. So now I gratefully nib on their snacks while trying hard to interest them in the subject of weather (I am inordinately proud of my ability to describe 4 key weather conditions in Arabic, an ability I seem to inflict mainly on taxi drivers)

The taxi like a small living room. 

 

Why are we so obsessed with weekends?

Tags

Chit chat, Cultural differences, European abroad, expat, Expectations, travel, Weekend

I’ve had several revelations since I moved here. Having to do with Europeans abroad and how we roll. And expect the world to roll.  

We are obsessed with weekends. 

“How was your weekend? What are your plans for next weekend?” we chirp merrily at whoever crosses our path.

Upon being thus questioned, people here scratch their heads and try hard. “I sit with my family” they say. More scratching. Benevolent confusion. What the hell is she expecting me to say? 

“Ok, but what did you do?” we press on energetically.

The truth is not much. It’s just not that big a deal. A few hours of not having to go to work. Good. You eat and talk to your family and then eat some more.

Next weekend you do the same. What is there to talk about?

But we won’t stop. Worried that the weather is not of sufficient variety to allow for extensive chit chat, we desperately cling to weekends and holidays.

“And your last holiday?” we ask hopefully.

“I sat with my uncles”. Little changes but the tense. 

I kept at it. Until one day a guy stopped me as I was forming the word “how”. “Was” never came out.

 “Please”, he said. “Don’t ask me about my weekend again. When I do something I’ll tell you.” 

He hasn’t yet been in touch. 

 

 

Spring has sprung in the Middle East (1)

Tags

Change, Colours, expat, life, Life in the Middle East, Seasons, Spring

You know it’s spring time in the Middle East when:

The sky is so blue it hurts your eyes and the beige buildings suddenly and inexplicably look a bit orange

The versatile tribe of ants who live in my cupboard is back in business

The trees are in bloom

Young girls have traded their high heel boots for open toe pink pumps 

Headscarves are getting higher and higher and pinker and pinker  

Taxi drivers leave all windows open and a flag flying over the driver’s window (a smart and patriotic way to get the breeze in while keeping the sun out)

More young men lean against walls engaged in chatting, smoking, staring, laughing or any other vertical leisurely employment they can think of

Little sun birds are courting energetically and tiny feathers drift over yesterday’s cup of coffee left on the balcony

The man who sells peanuts is not wearing his woolen hat

The white-clad men smoking argyllas and speaking to similar looking men on their i-phones instruct the waiters to remove the cellophane lid that has enveloped the terrace since November

The street cats look fluffy and purposeful as they patrol the bins (on top of which they occasionally fall asleep in the sun)

The sugar cane juice hut has more customers than the falafel place next door

So you wanna speak my language? Top 4 reactions to the struggles of a language learner

Tags

Adult learning, Arabic, attitudes, communication, expat, Learning a new language

You try hard. You want to learn the Local language of this wonderful new place you find yourself in. You love the place, you love the people, you love the sound of the language.

You passionately want to give it a go. 

At night you sweat over the past simple and the irregular plurals and even swallow a vowel sound that your mouth and all your ancestors’ mouths have never produced in the history of vowels.

And then, one beautiful morning, you go out into the world and proudly say “I like peas” in Local. 

And that is when, regardless of where the wonderful new place is and what Local sounds like, these 4 friends will always come out of the woodwork.

1. The Cold Ignorer

This guy will listen to your little peas confession, ignore it completely and loftily answer in his splendid American accented English. He doesn’t have the time or the inclination to listen to anybody butcher his language. He will not play your game. It is foolish and flawed and best ignored in the interest of real communication.     

2. The Benevolent Pedagogue

Now this guy means business. He will listen to you with an expression of amused encouragement and then never let you go. He will drill you in how to say “peas” in Local until you are blue in the face and hate the little green buggers. The Pedagogue will demonstrate with gusto and then make you repeat and repeat until he can triumphantly exclaim: “Now do you hear the difference?” Of course I don’t, you secretly sob, while acknowledging out loud that you do indeed, and what sort of deaf fool could claim otherwise?

3. The Entertainment Seeker 

The E Seeker finds you and your linguistic attempts hilarious. He will order you to speak Local at any opportunity and then fall off his chair laughing pea size tears. He will call his mother, he will call his mates, if he can he will arrange a TV crew to come and hear you speak Local. Fun fun fun. 

4.The Gentle Liar

This guy knows you can’t speak his language. He sees right through your pathetic little efforts. But for some reason he wants you to believe you can. So he will mime ecstasy when you bring your peas into the conversation. He will swear he has never heard anybody sound so convincing since his grandfather last ordered peas in the local pub.  

 

Let’s move on to Lesson 2. How do you like your peas, ladies and gentlemen?