It’s 7am, and the sun has just come up here in Damascus. I find that this is one of the most beautiful times of the day – there is a certain quality to the light that makes it obvious why filmmakers and photographers like to shoot outdoors at this time. However, as usual when I see this time of the morning, I haven’t slept. I’ve been up all night and I’ve just retired to bed, so I’ve already climbed down the ladder from the open-air terrace in my Damascene home and bid farewell to the newly-lit sky. Every so often I need to have a night like this one where I just indulge myself and stay up late – one of my favourite things to do is what is called سهر in the Arabic language: ‘sahara’ – a verb meaning to stay awake late at night. I love the night time. It seems to be at night that my brain is at its most active and productive. A good deal of my college work was done in the middle of the night, and the final chapter of my MA thesis was written over a marathon 33 hour session.
But tonight wasn’t a wild night. Yes, I was drinking some
araq, but only very late in the night as the café was closing. It was a pretty chilled out evening. There were only four customers apart from myself and my mate Tristan, so we had the run of the place. Tristan and I were sitting at the staff table chatting to the owner and his brother, and I had my computer hooked up to the sound system and was playing whatever the hell music I felt like. One of the customers came over and requested some reggae, and I was glad to oblige with some Culture and Horace Andy. His name was Heinrik from Denmark, and he was very unsuccessful at guessing where I was from. He started with Austria, and when I said it was west of there he said that I looked Portuguese, even though my accent didn’t fit. When I said it was well to the north of there he tried Scotland, and then suggested Northern Ireland. I told him that it was to the south of there, after which he suggested the Isle of Mann…
Araq
After a while, after the customers had gone home, I played a few games of chess with the owner while Tristan browsed about the financial crisis on the internet, and we talked rubbish about various stuff. Eventually we left the place at around 5am. I bought a couple of Mars bars and a glass bottle of mango juice, and then walked home, dropping and breaking the mango juice on the way. And now, here I am in my bed, about to retire after a little reading.
It may sound like the life of a waster but I’ve actually been pretty productive lately. I got out of bed at 9am (which means I’ve now been up for 22+ hours) and I’ve been doing a lot of work on my Arabic this week. I’ve been practising my speaking a lot too – a group of neighbours sit just across from our front door every night from around 10 at night until 2am, chatting and joking together. It’s not easy to walk past them without being press-ganged into sitting down for a glass of tea, and their English is pretty limited, so it’s a good opportunity to get your head into the Arabic. I’m in the habit now of joining them for an hour or two once or twice a week. It ain’t just book learning you know – my Arabic comes from the streets!!
I also learned a huge amount talking to estate agents while I was looking for my house. Talking to people really solidifies the vocabulary in your head and makes it stick; listening to them talk and figuring out what on earth they’re saying helps enormously with the pronunciation of the language and how to form sentences correctly, as well as with comprehension; and the whole thing just makes you feel more familiar and confident with the language. Sitting with grammar books and lists of vocabulary certainly has its place, but language is primarily about communication in the end. And communication in Arabic for me is still a serious struggle!!! But at least I’m still struggling… I’ll get there…
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