July 20: Shlunak, Shlu-not

My first attempt at using the Arabic language was a bit of a failure. Indrani and I went to meet a recently returned exchange program alumnus. Although we had a translator, I decided to spread the wings of my 7-word vocabulary and give him a traditional Iraqi greeting. Here's a brief synopsis of our conversation:

Praya:  Shlunak! (literally translates to “How is your color?” but it means “How are you?”)

Confused Iraqi: Uhhh, excuse?

Praya: (a little less confidently) Shlunak?

Confused Iraqi: Uhhh, so sorry. No speak the language.

Hmmm… Perhaps he’s from the Kurdish area and doesn’t speak Arabic, I thought... But when our translator came over and began a rapid-fire conversation in Arabic with my no-longer-confused Iraqi friend, I realized that the problem wasn't with him, it was with me!

I mispronounced the greeting so badly that he didn't even recognize it as Arabic. Talk about a confidence buster. It made me think back to the day when Aaron came home from Arabic class, frustrated because he had just described my occupation as a Program Pickle for the Peace Corps (the words for "pickle" and "analyst" sound nearly identical to the unaccustomed ear). I can definitely relate.

For the record, this is the second time this has happened to me while learning a language. My first month as a Peace Corps volunteer, I tried REALLY hard to master the traditional response to “How are you?”.  I had little kids repeat it over and over so I could get my tongue around the unfamiliar intonations.

Where's Waldo?

I remember vividly the afternoon I decided my language was ready for a test drive. With a dose of confidence, I walked to the market to buy a pack of Omo (the psychedelic blue laundry powder ubiquitous across West Africa). My market friend smiled wide when he saw me coming, and our conversation went something like this:

Market friend: Obruni! Woho tesen? (Lady from over the horizon! How are you?)

Praya: Nyame adon, eye! (By God’s grace, OK!)

Market friend: (looking at me inquisitively) Ahhh, that is very nice, Obruni!

Praya: (beaming with self-pride) Thank you!

Market friend: But tell me, what language are you speaking?

Praya: Say what?

I finally learned to speak Twi somewhat respectably, but Arabic is on another level. For every way to express something in English, there are ten ways in Arabic. But the positive side of my complete failure of a first attempt to speak Arabic is that it got a lot of laughs. Aaron used my story to break the ice with a new journalist contact, and I used it to help my colleague, Rusha (whose is self conscious about her English), understand that there's always someone with a smaller sail.

Later that night, we met up with our Jordanian friend, Emad, and I recounted my tale of Arabic failure. After laughing for a bit too long, he explained very seriously that intonations were very important in Arabic, and that one small change could completely throw off the meaning of a word, and land you in one pickle of a situation, so to speak... After my lecture, he presented us with a small gift from his recent trip to Amman:

"Aaron and Praya" is spelled out in Arabic in the sand

It was an unexpectedly sweet gesture, and the perfect pick-me-up after a challenging day, especially when I saw what was written on the reverse side... A great reminder that as we stumble along the path of learning a new language, we must not forget to stop and laugh at the occasional pickle.

This Braya chic better watch out. There's only one pickle for Aaron.