The Big Trip, Part 4

Our first full day in-country was spent in an Arabic language class. Anyone who knows me well will confirm that I am the sort of person who is big on being prepared. The arsenal of stuff I had with me to placate/entertain/distract/mollify the girls while we were in transit was impressive, and worked pretty well. For some reason unbeknownst to me, I neglected to bring any of that with us when we went to this language class. Perhaps the cumulative lack of sleep I was already experiencing took its toll. I don't know, man, but that was a serious blunder on my part. As we kicked off the class, both girls got tired & antsy and started making noise. Our poor instructor, who was really quite awesome, got a little flustered and stopped talking. My general reaction was, "Don't mind us, we'll get this under control in a minute, just carry on." That wasn't how she was rolling, though. I get it. When you're teaching language, the students really need to be able to hear the pronunciation, which is hard when there are screaming kids present. So, here I am, trying desperately to calm the girls down, and everyone is staring at me. AWESOME. We did manage to get some quiet, however, and I think everyone learned something, or at least had a good refresher.

We went out to lunch and our instructor plied Katherine with lots of sweets. This was a recurring theme--everyone there wanted to give Katherine candy. The girls were reasonably well-behaved during the afternoon session, especially considering that Katherine didn't get a nap and was running on limited sleep--also a recurring theme for the trip--and was basically not eating or drinking much of anything but snack food and juice (not her usual fare), with an additional influx of sugar. I was more distracted than everyone else, what with caring for two small children while still trying to listen & learn, but I still managed to learn some stuff, so that was cool. Afterward, I had a very encouraging discussion with our instructor about why we were covering our heads, and she expressed gratitude, telling me how much everyone appreciated the respect we were showing to their culture, and what a great face this put on Americans. Hijabs, FTW!

The next day, we went to the very large tourist market there, which is always an experience. Katherine was tired & clingy, as was Jillian, but we made it out alive. We stopped at a restaurant there and had the best. chicken. ever. We did, however, have a tussle with a couple of really courageous cats to ensure we got to eat it unmolested. Our friend Tim had made the fateful decision to give up meat for Lent, so he went with the felafel, which included lettuce. Bad move. Actually, though, when he was predictably laid out the next day, God really spoke to him the whole day, so it was good in the midst of pain. As He does.

My favorite story from that day was David's experience. I had told everyone that we had really good luck fending off agressive vendors last time by speaking in a language other than English. We had a hotel employee accost us on the street, and our friend, Eric, responded in Italian. The dude actually threw his hands up and stepped aside to let us pass. It was fantastic. Apparently, the dudes in the market are a lot more savvy. David was being rather forcefully pitched by some guy selling...I don't know, scarves or something. He decided to respond in Japanese, in which he is fluent. The guy immediately starts talking back in Japanese. FAIL. Turns out, a lot of these guys speak several languages. David subsequently observed them watching who was coming down the corridor and calling out to them in various languages, including English, Mandarin, Japanese, and perhaps a few others. Crazy. Good for them, though, I guess. I'm sure they have families to feed, and the more tools they have in their toolbox, the more effectively they can sell trinkets to tourists, right? We got to start practicing a little Arabic this day, too. My new favorite phrase was, "Shukran, enna mish machtag da," which basically means, "Thank you, I don't need it."