I now have 5 Arabic tutors/conversation partners - one from Aleppo, Syria
who is a refugee in Armenia; one from a village near Aleppo who is a refugee in
Istanbul; one from Damascus who lives in Dubai; a Palestinian who lives in
Finland and an Egyptian in Egypt. Why in the world would I need so many tutors,
you ask? Well I think it helps a lot to
hear all the different ways of speaking and accents. They each help me with
different aspects of Arabic. I really love it. In fact, the most recent one I got from Egypt is tutoring me on reading the Quran. I absolutely love it. I think it helps a lot with my pronunciation of words. Reading the Quran is very different from reading other Arabic because it is written in a very old, traditional way so even classical or formal Arabic which is used on television news for instance, is very different. I could practice Arabic all day. When I am studying for two hours during Sadie's nap, I often get so involved in it that I forget completely what is going on in my life. For instance, last week, I finished my Quranic Arabic session and then woke Sadie and rushed off to school pickup (like I often do), I went in to pick up Alex and realized that she had ballet that day and I had arranged for someone else to pick her up but my brain was so far away doing Quranic Arabic that I forgot and confused the woman picking Alex up along with Alex herself!
I went to a photography exhibit the other day in a nearby city, where refugees had done a photography course and put together an exhibit of photographs as visuals of what they thought of their new home. It was very interesting and the photos were quite lovely. I met some of the photographers as well. I made some new contacts and re-established some old ones. Through an old contact, I found out about a program here in the UK that helps settle refugees in our council (county). They said there were opportunities to meet Syrian families who had been cleared for asylum in the UK at the airport and mentor or support them in setting up their lives here for up to a year. The families were assigned different mentors to help with everyday life like getting children into school and setting up a bank account to other things like learning English. Having an Arabic background would be very helpful especially learning English because many of them come off the aeroplane not knowing a word of English. I am hoping this might be where I could be of service. It sounds like a great opportunity. For now, I will keep on study with all my tutors and conversation partners. Having five does get complicated at times but it keeps me constantly motivated and engaged in learning. I just have to keep straight what homework is for which tutor. But I feel like I am making more progress than I have in the past.
