Oh no!...
... The horror!
In an effort to assuage my guilt at being a horrible and mean person who publishes sometimes-not-nice things (which apparently I should blame entirely on my parents), I spent the evening volunteering at a local, non-profit refugee center, which was desperately seeking an Arabic-speaking volunteer for a "career training" class it hosted tonight.
I delved into the deepest waters of my language abilities and found myself attempting simultaneous translation from English to Arabic for a young Iraqi man who just moved here two months ago.
I would like everyone to know that translating is no run in the park. In fact, I'm not even sure I translated half of the stuff they were saying because I was either too slow or didn't know the words. My poor little victim, Muhammad, was a great sport, and smiled and pretended to understand me through the entire evening, but I think I was totally non-sensical a good portion of the time. I think even the 15 or so Russian immigrants in the room were onto my lack of skills, as I caught one woman laughing at me as I attempted to explain something to Muhammad in Arabic long after the Russian translator had gone quiet.
Speaking of Russians, I'd like to say a not-nice thing here right now... one of the Russians in the class was dressed exactly like Borat! I mean, exactly like Borat!
Same grey suit, bad hair, and the finishing touch?... a pair of cream colored pleather disco loafers. It was pretty unbelievable, and for a moment, I wondered if he came from Borat's real life village. I tried not to stare, as the lecture involved proper professional behavior, but I also found it amusing since the meeting focused on professional dress and inappropriate clothing... oh, and wearing deodorant, which I thought was pretty good advice, even if I didn't know the Arabic word for it.
Anyway, I gave Muhammad a ride home, and lo and behold, as I should have expected, he invited me inside to meet his wife and twins, who are 14 months old. Long story short, I was there for more than an hour. His wife was lovely, the twins were the cutest children ever, and I am now his wife's English language teacher once a week. She doesn't have a driver's license, they don't have a car, and she has two small children to lug around so we all figured it would be easier if I went to their apartment to teach her lessons. I'm actually pretty excited about it because she doesn't speak any English, which helps my Arabic skills, and I'm also just happy to help them.
Well, it's past 11pm, I'm pretty tired, my brain feels like putty after translating for two straight hours and then talking in Arabic for another hour-plus so I think I will watch an episode of The Office and fall to sleep.
Ma'salaama!
3 comments:
Either you're kidding or your life is a sitcom.
Haven't laughed so hard (with you? at you?) since you had some shared yogurt story while in Turkey. The blog is set to get very interesting - what with multiple infants, foreign languages, and an American Gladiator battle of the bloggers. I scoped out M's blog and saw that she had recent shoulder surgery so feel confident you can take her. BTW - For those that haven't taken BLOG 101 yet, how did you find her blog and how did she know you wrote about her on your blog?
That's cool about your new gig as an English teacher. And perhaps Borat can hire you as a fashion consultant!
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