Monday, November 17, 2014

Sometimes it's the Small Things




One of the first things you realize when writing Arabic is that, mirroring English, it moves from right to left on the page. This can be a little disorienting at first. For a while it seems like perennial opposite day. Twenty-three-year-old habits can't be tossed out the window. But if you're left-handed, like me, there's an odd comfort in this newness. No longer will you smudge letters; you finally mesh seamlessly with something in this right-hand-dominated world.

This first month in Jordan had a lot of these oddity-turned-comfort moments. A few: drinking so much sugared tea your teeth hurt, swearing it off, then craving a sugar-fix twenty minutes later; greeting a mosque's call to prayer at 4:30 AM every single morning, then, staring at the darkness, realizing the hard-to-place beauty in the rhythms and tones; after arriving, being reduced to a baby with advanced motor skills and no language--conversing requires complex body movements, exaggerated facial expressions, and a whole lot of time. But then you learn the word for bathroom, water, please. A new world starts to unravel from your tongue. Routines get established; social boundaries defined; your host family opens up. And before you know it, a month's passed.

All the mental energy and space used for week-one limitations has been freed for newer challenges. Your host mother, after preparing a SERIOUS dinner, in Arabic that you can by some small miracle understand, lets you know that she, it turns out, is your new mother, her sons your brothers, her family yours. And you smile pretty darn wide, because in that moment you get a glimpse at how far you've come.

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