June 22, 2009    Page 2

II have practiced it and practiced it. Last night, for instance, I spent an hour saying "Ba'GH'dad" with the textbook's DVD, to only end with a soar throat. Prof. Amer, though is very patient, and even enjoys the struggle. For instance, during one afternoon, I kept gargling the letter, until his eyes grew large. "Sami," he said, "don't say that. That's a curse word." Naturally, I am hesitant to practice where anyone can hear me.

The other day, as I was struggling with gh'ayn, he told me to drink ginger. In fact, he made a point to say, "Sami, I can tell, for sure, that you never, not a single day in your life, drank ginger. If you did, you would know how to pronounce 'GHGHGHGHGRRA,'" which he always emphatically says as if trying to scare away a lion. I'm still practicing...today, I think I have it. Unfortunately, my throat is still store.

Two weeks into class, we have now learned the entire alphabet, its morphology, and the sounds. Possessing the language of a foreign country, although still rudimentary, has changed the way I interact with people. Conversationally, I lack the vocabulary and the grammar to communicate with meaning, but the ability to read Arabic has begun to open this part of the world to me. For instance, once or twice a week, I usually get a sandwich at a place near the University. Whereas in the United States the famous street dish is hot dogs, here it is shwerma, the most delicious of cuisines. I am sure that if shwerma existed in Biblical times, instead of being called the land of milk and honey, this area would have been called the land shwerma.

(Not wanting to be carried away, but it is essentially a giant pillar of either spiced chicken or lamb meat stacked on top of one another with, capped with a layer of fat. It revolves around, and on one side of this column is a heat source that cooks the meat. Imagine: a pile of seasoned meat, slowly cooking, with some fat dripping down it. The cook slices a thin layer of meat from the column, which then falls into pita bread that he had rubbed on the drippings below the stack. With some toppings, he rolls the sandwich tight and then serves it. Delicious.)