Why did I start studying Arabic?
First of all, why not? I mean, Arabic is one of the 10 most spoken languages: around 250 million people in the world speak it. In 1974 it was declared as the sixth official language of the ONU and it has a lot of similar words and sounds with my native tongue. For example, kamis and camisa, bantalon and pantalones, sookar and azúcar, moseka and música.
Also, this language is spoken in 22 countries: Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar, Chad, Comorian, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen, and Djibouti. Besides, it’s the language of the Quran, so it’s also present in countries of Islamic majority. That’s why studying Arabic is useful if you want to visit some of these places and be able to communicate with local people, especially when there are no English speakers around.
These are really good reasons to learn a new language, however, the main one for me was because I made an Egyptian friend, Salma. I met her in Bucharest, Romania. We were teachers there and she taught Chinese and I Spanish. We lived together at a university residence in the Tineretului neighborhood.
First, I shared the bedroom with a Turkish and a Romanian girl. Things weren’t ok between the Turkish and me. Am I so annoying? Probably. The fact was she broke a stick that I used for boiling water for mate and she didn’t say sorry for it. Without it, I was unable to boil the fucking water. Do you know how important is the mate for an Argentinean? Very. Especially if you are in another continent, 12.217 km far away from your family, home and traditions.
The war started.
I tried to be intelligent just at least once in my life so I decided to change the bedroom and avoid passive violence. Salma invited me to hers because she was alone there. Ok. No fridge anymore, but I was in peace and with my friend.
We became very closed and we started to share our traditions. I gave her dulce de leche and mate and she made me an Egyptian meal (I can’t remember the name now and I’m too lazy to google it). I taught her how to insult in Spanish and she taught me the Arabic alphabet and some basic words. It was a very interesting cultural exchange.
We had a similar kind of humor and after all, we found that we weren’t so different. I know what you are probably thinking: a Muslim Egyptian can’t be so similar as an atheist Latin American. Surprisingly we were.
I was very curious about Islam. The majority of Argentinean society is catholic, so I was not familiar with Muslim people. Even though I don’t believe in any kind of god, I went to a mosque with her. It was my first time inside one. She taught me how to pray and I found it so different from my culture. This was not like the media’s speech about Islam.
The weeks kept going on fastly and we finally had to say goodbye. I promised her that I’ll go to Cairo as soon as possible. The challenge? Save at least $2000, a bit complicated while you are living in Argentina’s economy.
After the employment contract in Bucharest ended, I continued traveling: I went to Sofía, Istanbul, Skopje, Prizren, Sarajevo, Marrakech. Feature in common: mosques. The most exciting was how different they were from the churches I was used to.
The money was over, so I returned to Buenos Aires in February. As 2019 was just beginning, I set some goals for it and one of them was to study a new language. I didn’t have to think too much: Arabic.
Five months later I can say “what the fuck did I do?”. Learning Arabic is so difficult. But I promised Salma I’ll visit her someday and I need to speak Arabic to haggle the prices there.
By now, I just know how to introduce myself, write, insult and ask how are you. It’s something, right?
وداعا (goodbye or chau).
