I had my first day of Arabic classes today. Wow. It is very difficult. Just making the letters is hard, let alone remembering what they mean. There's also a system for the vowel sounds that makes it tough, plus you have to know how to connect the letters (Arabic is only written in cursive). I am certainly not expecting to learn fluent Arabic in a week, but it would be nice to at least be able to recognize letters! I'm also hoping to pick up some useful phrases to use on the kids next year.
Lunch was good though. It was all Lebanese food, and there was lots of it! I stuffed myself on lamb kabob in a sauce with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Also kibbeh -- meat and spices wrapped in falafel and deep-fried. I also had raw kibbeh, which is just the meat. It did not taste at all like raw meat, which surprised me. I've eaten raw beef before (carpaccio) and I definitely knew it was raw. I was somewhat irritated with some of the other teachers' attitudes towards the food. We had been told that we would not be allowed to leave for lunch last week. This was for two reasons:
1. Some people last year could not handle returning from lunch on time
2. It's a good way to get a feel for the different cultures
The people who were complaining the most were the people who apparently can't read their email and also, not surprisingly, the ones who can't tell time. One woman was complaining that there was no fatoush (salad). That's all she eats when we have Arabic food, apparently. She didn't seem to be able to fathom the concept that different cultures have different food. And there wasn't any hummus--great uproar! Get over yourselves, I wanted to say. You're getting free lunch all week and the opportunity to try new things. Live a little. So I made a point of talking up the raw meat just to irritate the lame-asses. Ha!
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