Me Talk Pretty - Part I

With apologies to David Sedaris, a continuing series describing things that I find difficult to talk about in Arabic:

Brunch

As far as I know, Arabic's root system doesn't really accommodate portmanteau words. There is no meal called "fatghada" (brunch) that can be eaten with a "mirhawka" (spork). So I could only describe my post-lesson brunch plans as follows: "it is a chance to eat a very big breakfast with more meat. We eat it after the usual time of lunch. My friends love this because they arise late on Saturdays and Sundays. Because we live in New York, there is a requirement to wait in a long line." I didn't mention the "bottomless Bloody Mary," a discussion which would have been sure to cause offense on many levels.

Desalination Plants

I offered the idea of solar powered desalination plants as a solution to Egypt's growing population/water issues. I described this as a system where "the government steals salt from the water of the ocean and the government is able to do this because the sun in Egypt is very hot and the desert in Egypt is very spacious. There will be a big wall for the sun that is doing these things. Doing this the government does not need very much olive oil!"

Population crisis? Solved.

The Plot of the movie "Inception"

Not easy to do in any language, but the highlight of my attempt was explaining how "a man of business puts a team of idea people into the brain of another, bigger man of business. Inside his brain, they grow a new idea. There are many problems and much quarreling. Also, there is skiing inside the head."

Stuck in Traffic

I've heard the foreign service testing and clearance process described as "a long journey". It's certainly long in temporal terms, but I'm not as sure that much ground is actually covered. I prefer instead to think of it taking a cab in a crowded city with a friendly, mildly drunk driver. There's a general sense of unease, punctuated with terror, exhilaration, and, occasionally, bursts of nauseatingly frenetic activity which leads you to believe that you're getting closer... until your driver once again slams on the breaks and you wind up lying on the floor in the middle of a pile of papers.

The appropriate analogy for adjudications would probably involve a traffic cop who wants to "quickly" make sure that you've never had a serious traffic violation (like aiding and abetting terrorists or forgetting to signal) anytime in the last ten years. I've been pulled over for the last twenty weeks or so while they review my file for whatever red flags were inevitably raised.

Heaven knows that the Chadhas always signal,* so I'm confident we'll ultimately receive a favorable decision. That doesn't stop me from making my bi-weekly update call to the security clearance customer service line. I don't generally like to bother people, but the advice that I've received is that these things sometimes need a gentle nudge. In my case, the real mystery has been over who needs the nudging, since they're having trouble tracking down who my assigned adjudicator is. My calls have prompted a few emails, which I imagine to be equivalent to blowing the car horn a little, and, as everyone who has ever lived in Cairo knows: constant honking is an elegant and efficient solution to intractable traffic issues.

*This is literally true in the case of Ms. Chadha. I have never seen a more conscientious driver in my life. You could set your watch by the position of her hands on the steering wheel, provided that the time was always exactly 10 :10.

The Grand Plan

If it's not obvious already, I'm trying to learn Arabic. I'm doing this in part because I have a genuine interest in learning the language - I'd love access to all of those centuries of great literature, so much of which has never made it into translation. In Egypt, everyone who asked me why I'd choose to study Arabic naturally assumed that I was some sort of spy. I'd protest that I was actually joining the State Department, but that was really too fine a distinction for people who associate the word "State" with their own massive security services.

The truth, though, is that a huge motivating factor is all of the tasty bonus points I can earn from Arabic's status as a "Super Critical Needs Language." A score of at least "2" on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale would add an additional 0.5 points to my Oral Assessment score. For people like me with a score on the lower end of the range, the language points mean the difference between hope and the security of choosing a guaranteed start date on our own terms.

I've spent most of the past year studying independently, including stints in Morocco and Egypt. Over the last few months, it's just been me and my tutors at Arab Academy, a program that has led to success on the test before. Unfortunately(ish), I've recently returned to full-time work as a federal judicial clerk (once again practicing law properly!) which has taken a shocking amount of time away from my studies. Still, it's coming along. I'm starting to think I may have some hope of passing is thing, which seems incredible given that this time last year I didn't know my alif from my baa.

Since the requirements of "adulthood" require me to take a break from traveling for a while, I'll have to turn the discussion over to the adventures of learning Arabic. And what an adventure it is. I do miss being on the road, though. I don't mind admitting that hearing the call to prayer in the background during a session with my Cairo-based tutor made me a little nostalgic. I'll find out next week whether waking up for a 7:00 AM tutoring session in any way resembles the unpleasantness of being woken up every day by a blasting sunrise call to prayer.

Signs That It's Time to Go Back to Work - A Short Dialogue

Me: So how late do you have to work tonight?

Barber: 'fraid I'm here 'til 9:00.

Me: On a Friday?! Who gets their hair cut at 9:00 on a Friday night?

Barber: Not many. Lucky for me, today is Tuesday.

Me: Right. That's right. Tuesday