We're now learning the numbers in Arabic. Sounds easy? It's not!
Anyways, our teacher sometimes diverts and tells us interesting stories in Arabic to liven up the classes. Today's story was about a king who was trying to teach his son the value of money. One day, he asked his son to go out and work and bring home his wages. Instead of going out to work, the son asked his mother for a dirham (currency commonly used in the Middle East). When he got home, his father asked him for his wages and the son presented his dirham. The father threw the coin into the fountain and told him to go back to work the next day. The same thing happened the next day... the son took a dirham from his mother and gave it to his father and the father threw it in the fountain. The 3rd day, the son was a bit puzzled by his father's behaviour, but instead of asking his mother for money, he actually went out and worked. In the evening, he presented his father with the dirham that he'd earned and just as his father was about to throw the dirham into the fountain, the son grabbed his hand to stop him. (i.e. how can my father throw the dirham I've sweated to earn into the fountain!!)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Middle Eastern TV
We didn't have a TV in Iran, so we're fortunate to have a TV and a satellite dish in Damascus. We get all the Middle Eastern channels here (MBC, Dubai One, Fox, Iranian channels) and we also get Ahlul Bayt TV and all the other international ones too (CNN, BBCWorld etc).
Its weird watching Indian films dubbed in Arabic - it just souds sooo wrong (they don't dub the singing and dancing). Fox airs a whole host of 'straight-to-DVD' films and also all the crappy shows that never went past a second series. Oh and there's an episode of CSI on every other hour - there are only so many gruesome murders and rapes I can cope with in one day.
All the swear words and nudity scenes are blocked out. But the funny thing is that if the swear word is made up of 2 words (e.g. mother f@$%^&) then they don't bother to beep it! And even though nudity scenes are cut out, they still air shows where adultery is the main theme.
It's probably a good thing that the TV here is crap - it means we get more studying done!
Its weird watching Indian films dubbed in Arabic - it just souds sooo wrong (they don't dub the singing and dancing). Fox airs a whole host of 'straight-to-DVD' films and also all the crappy shows that never went past a second series. Oh and there's an episode of CSI on every other hour - there are only so many gruesome murders and rapes I can cope with in one day.
All the swear words and nudity scenes are blocked out. But the funny thing is that if the swear word is made up of 2 words (e.g. mother f@$%^&) then they don't bother to beep it! And even though nudity scenes are cut out, they still air shows where adultery is the main theme.
It's probably a good thing that the TV here is crap - it means we get more studying done!
Arabic Classes
We're now entering our 4th week of Arabic classes. We have an amazing teacher who has developed his own programme. Its really cool - we learn grammer rules without even knowing that we're learning them! We also study saying of the Prophet nd analyse the grammer and also a 3rd book which has reading comprehension passges. We have classes 5 days a week (Thurs and Fri are the weekend for us)
Our teacher keeps us on our toes. He has quick fire questioning sessions and god forbid if you are sleeping! you miss your turn! He has also figured out what our weaknesses are... for example, one of the students has issues in determining where the 'is' in the sentence goes, so the teacher ALWAYS asks him.
Our classes are in the afternoon - a little different to Qum (where all our classes were in the mornings). It just means rearranging the day so that homework, housework and cooking are done in the mornings, class in the afternoon, shrine of Sayyida Zainab for evening prayers and then home for dinner.
Our teacher keeps us on our toes. He has quick fire questioning sessions and god forbid if you are sleeping! you miss your turn! He has also figured out what our weaknesses are... for example, one of the students has issues in determining where the 'is' in the sentence goes, so the teacher ALWAYS asks him.
Our classes are in the afternoon - a little different to Qum (where all our classes were in the mornings). It just means rearranging the day so that homework, housework and cooking are done in the mornings, class in the afternoon, shrine of Sayyida Zainab for evening prayers and then home for dinner.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Garbage
I realise that we were a bit spoilt living in Qum and having the orange-clad street sweepers cleaning the streets every night and picking up our garbage. It was a little too good to be true. In Damascus the garbage is picked up once a week, umm, no make that a month, umm, maybe annually? Actually I'm not sure. In my month here I have only seen one garbage truck. Instead there are little piles of garbage here and there.
The sadder thing is seeing people going through the garbage and trying to salvage things that they can sell.
The sadder thing is seeing people going through the garbage and trying to salvage things that they can sell.
Airplanes
I've taken a lot of flights this year and passed through more airports that I can remember.
Watching the safety instructions are often a good indicator of how the rest of the flight will pane out. Take BA for example.They show a safety film that features an English mother, coloured father and mixed race children. Very politically correct. Emirates on the other hand flicks between actors wearing national dress and ex-pats (4/5ths of their population is not Emirati after all). While all the 'better aircrafts' tell you to turn off ipods, blackberrys and laptops during taxi, take off and landing, the poorer relative (Iran Air) tells you to turn off your first generation game boy. Does anyone actually still own one of those?!
But the airport that takes the biscuit is Damascus Airport. The only excuse I can give them is that they must have built it with the intention of only sending out 2 flights a day.
When you first get there, you have to pay 50 lira ($1US) for a trolley.That's not an issue - even Gatwick trolleys are a pound. The issue is that about 3 porters come and try and 'help' you with your luggage, even though you (a) didn't ask for help and (b)can manage perfectly by yourself. And of course they expect a tip.
The second issue is that everyone departing has to enter the airport through one door. That's right, one door. And Arabs don't know how to queue. And you get 5 'senders off' for every passanger also trying to squeeze in. And once you get to the front, there is one guy trying to check everyone's passports. Not fun nor the best way to start a long haul flight.
The next step is getting your luggage scanned - that is all the luggage, not just the hand luggage. Even though the metal detecter beeped on every second person, no one was searched!
Finally the check in desk. As mentioned previously, Arabs don't queue. So its fun and games again.
For a 3rd world country the duty-free isn't half bad. But getting on board the plane is another scramble. First there's the queue at the gate, or should i say 5 queues that merge into one. Then when you do finally get to the front, they guy checks EVERY single page of your passport. Even though the passport has already been checked at the airport entrance and twice at security and there is no way on earth one can get to the gate without the correct stamps, they still feel the need to check everything again.
Oh well, at least there is some consolation in that the next flight I take will be out of good ole Heathrow.
Watching the safety instructions are often a good indicator of how the rest of the flight will pane out. Take BA for example.They show a safety film that features an English mother, coloured father and mixed race children. Very politically correct. Emirates on the other hand flicks between actors wearing national dress and ex-pats (4/5ths of their population is not Emirati after all). While all the 'better aircrafts' tell you to turn off ipods, blackberrys and laptops during taxi, take off and landing, the poorer relative (Iran Air) tells you to turn off your first generation game boy. Does anyone actually still own one of those?!
But the airport that takes the biscuit is Damascus Airport. The only excuse I can give them is that they must have built it with the intention of only sending out 2 flights a day.
When you first get there, you have to pay 50 lira ($1US) for a trolley.That's not an issue - even Gatwick trolleys are a pound. The issue is that about 3 porters come and try and 'help' you with your luggage, even though you (a) didn't ask for help and (b)can manage perfectly by yourself. And of course they expect a tip.
The second issue is that everyone departing has to enter the airport through one door. That's right, one door. And Arabs don't know how to queue. And you get 5 'senders off' for every passanger also trying to squeeze in. And once you get to the front, there is one guy trying to check everyone's passports. Not fun nor the best way to start a long haul flight.
The next step is getting your luggage scanned - that is all the luggage, not just the hand luggage. Even though the metal detecter beeped on every second person, no one was searched!
Finally the check in desk. As mentioned previously, Arabs don't queue. So its fun and games again.
For a 3rd world country the duty-free isn't half bad. But getting on board the plane is another scramble. First there's the queue at the gate, or should i say 5 queues that merge into one. Then when you do finally get to the front, they guy checks EVERY single page of your passport. Even though the passport has already been checked at the airport entrance and twice at security and there is no way on earth one can get to the gate without the correct stamps, they still feel the need to check everything again.
Oh well, at least there is some consolation in that the next flight I take will be out of good ole Heathrow.
Out and About
Funny things have a way of happening to me, but nothing to report so far. Unless you count the incident where I wanted to buy 2 carrots and ended up with a kilo! (The lowest coin here is 5 lira and many fruits and vegetables cost 10 lira for a kilo, so its not really possible to buy a quarter kilo of something!). I had to put carrots in everything I made for 10 days!
The other thing is, unlike Iran, you can buy eggs individually!!! But they still come in a plastic bag, so half of them end up breaking on the way home. At least I can buy what I need, rather than buying to the nearest half kilo.
The other thing is, unlike Iran, you can buy eggs individually!!! But they still come in a plastic bag, so half of them end up breaking on the way home. At least I can buy what I need, rather than buying to the nearest half kilo.
Arabic Classes
Not being one to sit at home and do nothing, I started Arabic classes to try and get a head start before school starts in September. I'm hoping to join the Imam Khumayni Hawza (religious school) to learn Arabic, but in the mean time, the Husband and I started the University of Damascus Arabic books. Although I have studied Arabic Grammer before, I was finding that while I could understand the Qur'an and prayers, my Arabic wasn't helpful for say buying a kilo of tomatoes in the souk.
The books teach Modern Arabic and jump from the basics (Alphabet and joining letters) straight to present tense verbs. I must say that I much prefer the teaching methods of our UK Arabic teacher!
The books teach Modern Arabic and jump from the basics (Alphabet and joining letters) straight to present tense verbs. I must say that I much prefer the teaching methods of our UK Arabic teacher!
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