Coffee, Tea, Vodka, & Guinness

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Oh, language.

Early on in this trip, my father asked me if learning Modern Standard Arabic and Moroccan dialect in separate classes was like learning Italian and Abbruzzese dialect from Scots. While that model isn't quite right, it is close in its bizarreness.

Imagine that Bostonian English, New York English, Californian English, and Southern U.S. English are different in more than just accent - the are different in vocabulary and in some syntax as well. What I'm doing here is like living in Boston and learning both Bostonian English... and Shakespearean English. Possibly even Middle English (whan that Aprile with his showres soote...).

Also, in this version of the United States, when you turn on the TV people are speaking Middle English. And some of your high school and university classes are in Middle English. The rest are in the language of your former colonizers (which in my model can't be England. Pretend France colonized the U.S. I mean, they did. Right, Louisiana?)

The thing about fusHa is that it is standard, but it's not. And it is "closest to the language of the Qur'an" but it has, by necessity, been updated and simplified (and, in any given textbook, marked by at least one country's dialect). But because of fusHa's closeness to religious, sacred language, everyone is reluctant to update it MORE, and bring that weird Shakespearean English down to earth to be used on a daily basis.

Why is this a problem? Go back to my weird version of the United States. Say you want to go to the south to implement a literacy program. The people there speak Southern English. But the language of education and the news is Middle English. So to make them literate in ANY way you have to first make them Middle-English literate, and then get them reading things that will change their thinking, help them get jobs, etc. etc. And yes, I know there are those of you who can make sense of Chaucer and regale us with a recitation - but it takes a lot of extra work to understand that!

And if you wanted to teach people to use computers or whatnot in Southern English, you would not be able to find the teaching materials in that language. Rural women's literacy in Morocco is absolutely dismal - down around 10%. And they are being held back from reading and a whole lot else by the darija/fusHa split. And this is true for North Africa and the Arab Middle East - that is a whole lot of countries! (This is the part where I go look up literacy statistics to put my money where my mouth is.)

So yeah, that's the fusHa situation in a nutshell. Kind of exhausting.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Week 3: A Birthday, Schoolchildren, and Environmentalists

Outside of my dorm

This week began with my twenty-first birthday on Monday. It was low-key and quiet—but compared to the chaos that was last week, I was content with having a calm birthday. My roommate gave me a card in the morning and bought me a cake that we shared after dinner. The Belgians sang “Happy Birthday” to me in Dutch and Polish (they also take Polish as a part of their Slavonic Studies program). On Tuesday, my roommate and I made “breakfast for dinner.” We made banana-chocolate chip pancakes, hash-browns, bacon, and eggs for everyone in our dinner-swap. (We take turns cooking dinner for each other in pairs, Monday through Thursday). My friends Martijn and Koen were ecstatic, and kept going on and on about American breakfast food.

Wednesday was the most eventful day of this week--leaving me very tired today as I write this. Some of the international students were asked to travel to Angarsk (about an hour away) to help the university with an “international day” program. The gist of the visit was to expose students to the variety of disciplines and languages that they can study at IGLU. I went with three of my friends (English and Belgian) to lead sessions in our various languages (French, English, German) with highschoolers.

We arrived and were immediately treated like rock stars (some more than others, might I add). We were given coffee and sweets to eat before being introduced in their auditorium. After the opening information session, we went to a classroom to talk about ourselves in Russian. My friend Ashley, from Manchester, was the most popular with the students. They had so many questions about England and his perceptions of Russia. After speaking with students in Russian, we each parted ways to lead our individual language sessions. I had a lovely group of students for English. They were attentive and sweet, and one of them even told me when she walked into the room she didn’t know I was an American—she thought I was Russian. I really enjoyed speaking with them, and I told the teacher that I would gladly return to have another conversation hour. We had lunch in their cafeteria and then returned to the auditorium to hand out prizes to the three best speakers in each language group. After the ceremony was over, the boys I came with were bombarded for pictures and to exchange email addresses. We were each interviewed for their school’s TV station about why we decided to study Russian in Irkutsk before leaving. It was a great experience, and I have included some pictures of the school below.

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Koen being interviewed___ My English Classroom

Once we arrived back at our university, I went straight to my internship. There, I helped with internet-based advertising for the organization and then looked at the new website. I will be helping translate and design the website, in addition to teaching a beginners’ English class. I am in love with Great Baikal Trail and the people there. I have been meaning to describe them in an entry, and it seems the time is now.

When I first went the GBT office, I ended up going into the right building, thinking there was no way that it could possibly be correct, and went into the adjacent building instead. The adjacent building—though much nicer—was unfortunately a dentist’s office. I asked about GBT, and they told me to go next door—back to where I had started. So I walked across the snowy sidewalk to the adjacent building and pushed open the swinging door. The building smelled musty and looked deserted. I poked around on the bottom floor, and then saw a staircase. I climbed the staircase and stood outside 4 closed iron doors. The one marked “GBT” was locked, so I called my coordinator to say I had arrived. She unlocked and opened the iron door to invite me in. The office is a tiny space, the two connected rooms no bigger than a two room double in Hewitt at Wesleyan. There is a table with several benches and chairs in the first room and a few computers and a couch in the second. The first day, I went to meet my coordinator. I was immediately soothed by her presence and down-to-earth attitude. Her name is Natasha—she wears Lisa Loeb glasses and listens to Bob Marley.

After our first meeting, I agreed to come back in the evening to listen to an English class. I didn’t speak any English, but instead, I listened to their level. The office was packed with bodies, probably about 15 people. Some of the students spoke beautiful English, while others had never studied before and couldn’t say anything. My favorite part is that I got to silently people-watch for about an hour and a half. Remember how I described the Russian high style of fur coats, hats, and high-heeled leather boots? Not here. The people who volunteer for GBT are straight out of Wesleyan. There’s even a girl with dreds! Everyone was dressed casually and one boy looks like he regularly surfs around San Francisco. I was ecstatic—I had found my people, my Wesleyanite-look-a-likes, in the middle of Siberia.

After staying at the office for a few hours on Wednesday, I went home to eat dinner, say goodbye to two friends, and ended up staying up late with a friend who needed some support. I have absolutely no regrets about my four hours of sleep, but I'm starting to feel it. I have a meeting for GBT tonight, and I will try to take some pictures for next time.

In the meantime, enjoy the new photos! (I have a video to upload, but I can't get it to work..I'll be sure to post it as an in-between-blogs treat).

Winter Ulpan: Check! Blog...oh yeah!

As Lindsay so eloquently explained, it is really hard to figure out what to say in a blog. Shortly after my last entry, my ulpan (Hebrew classes) went from 10 hours a week to 30, and all thoughts of what to write in my blog went out the window. As I discovered during the last few weeks, my Hebrew grammar is a lot better than I thought it was, but I have the vocabulary of an eight year old with a learning disability (since I was eight when I lived here). When I discussed this with the ulpan coordinator, she suggested trying to test into a higher level. So I did. I'll find out how I did when I start my classes on Sunday *fingerscrossed*

I met my new roommate a few weeks ago. Her name is Noam. She is from Tel-Aviv, but she lived in Holland for a few years, and she's an English Literature/Psychology double major, which means she and I can both help each other by speaking in our native languages. So we agreed to alternate between English days and Hebrew days. She and I get along pretty well, and our first weekend together, she invited me to stay with her in Tel-Aviv. Her little sister, Roni, is my age and is a medic in the IDF. And her boyfriend, Ben, does something in intelligence. The four of us went biking (something I hadn't done in a really long time) in downtown Tel-Aviv. Roni pointed out to me some historical sights, and Noam pointed out to me the best stores in which to shop. We went to a poster shop, where Noam and I discovered we have the same taste in movies including The Rocky Horror Picture Show so we decided to go see it together that night. It was mostly the same as the U.S. except the intro was in Hebrew, and since elections were coming up, there were a few cracks about the top three politicians running for prime minister...I think. We also watched the first season of my new favorite television show: M'rachak N'giah (A Touch Away) about a Russian immigrant family living in an extremely orthodox neighborhood. In the show, the son (who is quite the hottie) falls madly in love with his next-door neighbor, whose marriage is being arranged. Drama ensues.

The following weekend, some family friends invited me over for Shabbat dinner. That night, their son brought some interesting guests: Three doctors who had come to evaluate the humanitarian situation in Gaza and a nun who had been translating for them. The doctors had worked in various countries. They told us about the situation and the non-Jewish ones asked questions about the Jewish customs we did for Shabbat (blessings for the meal, drinking wine, etc.). It was really interesting to talk to them.

That week, I went to the Israel Museum. Most of the exhibits are currently under construction, but I went to the Shrine of the Book (where the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed), the sculpture garden, and the history and art sections of the museum. I hadn't been to the museum since 1998, and I was startled to find that things were smaller than I remember. On the other hand, now that I know more about Israel's history, the documents that I saw (which included a record of what the leaders of the country thought would happen right before the Yom Kippur War, the speech that was in Yitzchak Rabin's pocket when he was shot (complete with borderline-creepy blood stains), and the Declaration of Independence) seemed much more interesting. .

That weekend, my friend Ari, who is here on the freshman program, turned 18 so we all celebrated by going out to dinner and then a bar. She started jumping when she got carded for the first time.

This Sunday, I will start my classes in the international school. If I get what I want, I will be in "Revolution and Reaction: East European Jews in the 19th and 20th Centuries," "Biblical Figures and Stories in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Art," and Hebrew. In March, I will start my class at Hebrew University on English lit in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which I will be taking with my roommate. In the meantime, I will enjoy my last few days of class-less freedom before Passover break in April when I will see all of you.

P.S. I promise to update more often from now on. Here are some pictures to make up for my lack of posting.