“How Not to Practice Your Language Skills in Arabia”

Rhemagood

Of all the Muslim countries in the Middle East, Paul was living in the one that supposedly had the most extensive secret police force. At least, that’s what his Lebanese Christian friend told him. Being an Arab insider he should know, but that wasn’t too encouraging for Paul who was an “undercover missionary” attending a language school there. With evangelism of Muslims being a punishable crime, it would be easy to become paranoid. Resident Christians had provided guidelines about how to “be careful” in regards to mail, phone conversations, burning sensitive materials, and avoiding entrapment by secret police posing as seekers who ask for Bibles. One day, Paul was walking home and practicing his Arabic using flashcards. He found the exercise helped him concentrate as he read and repeated the Arabic sentences on the cards. He stopped before a low wall and, resting his elbows on the top of it, reviewed a few more sentences. Out of nowhere three men approached him and, with limited English, communicated that they wanted to know what he was doing. Paul tried to explain that he was just studying and practicing some Arabic, but he didn’t have enough of the language to make himself clear. His English was not understood any better. For lack of what else to say or do, he decided to just show them and read the first card out loud. “Where is the bag?” Paul read in his best Arabic. The three men started looking around with puzzled expressions, apparently looking for the bag. Trying to clarify his demonstration, he read the second card, “Is the bag here?” The men started talking to each other, perplexed. Resting his elbows on the wall, he read the third card, “The bag is there.” All three men came and leaned over the wall, looking for the bag! Finally, a radio walkie-talkie started up. One of the men pulled it from where it had been concealed and had a hurried conversation. Then with a disdainful look at Paul and some hand gestures, the men ran off. Somehow Paul was actually encouraged by his incident with the police—at least they had understood his Arabic! -by Rhema Good, revised 9/15/05 This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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