More Arabian tales

My first post on this blog was about my experiences with my Saudi Arabian students. I had a lot more to say on the matter, but I was reluctant to let the post grow too long. So here is the second instalment: a collection of anecdotes from the classroom.

THE INDIGNANT GENTLEMAN

I asked the students what differences had particularly struck them between their countries and the UK. Apart from the usual food and weather gripes, there was one very interesting one from a young Saudi man.

“In my country,” he said, “you have to respect women. But here, I was on a bus the other day, and a pregnant woman got on, and nobody let her sit down.”

The British gentleman, it seems, has been relegated to legend. 

THE ADORING SON

We did an exercise (I was going to say a game, but I would never permit something so frivolous in a serious learning environment) in which students had to think of “things which…” [use electricity, are bigger than you, are black and white, etc.]. One of the items was “things which make a noise”, and one guy wrinkled his forehead, put his hands to his ears, and declared, “Children! They make a lot of noise!” He had an 18-month-old daughter and another child on its way, and arrived looking bleary-eyed and vacant most mornings.

As the class finished and everyone was leaving, he informed me, “I have eight brothers and sisters. And my mother is always tired! In the morning, she has to get my little brother ready for school – is he dressed, does he have his bag…? Then my sisters come round with their children, and my mother has to cook for everyone and run around. She is always tired!” 

THE OVERENTHUSIASTIC ITALIAN

As everyone was starting to leave at the end of the class, I heard a commotion and looked up.  The Saudi men were laughing and shouting and wagging their fingers at a 20-year-old Italian boy, who was waving a pack of condoms around.

“You never know with the life!” he was insisting. “You must to be preparred!”

He was the last to leave, and when everyone else had gone, I said to him, “You should be careful what you wave around. These men are very religious.”

“Oh!” he said. “They don’t…?”

“Only if they’re married,” I said.

“You know,” he mused, “once I was in a class with an Egyptian girl, and I do this action to her.” (He mimed hugging someone.) “And she run in bathroom and she cry for half hour! Then my friend say to me, you must not touch the Arabic girls! But I not know!”

THE FATHER WITH THE CREDIT CARD

The first Saudi students I ever had were two young brothers.

“Is there anything I need to know?” I asked the teacher I was inheriting them from. “Anything cultural?”

“Nah,” he said, waving a hand. “They’re just kids.”

And they really were. They could have been two little boys from anywhere in the world.

Apparently, a few days earlier, their father had come to pay the fees. He strode in, with an authoritative air, and handed over a glinting credit card.

“Put it all on this,” he instructed. “It has a £10,000 credit limit.”

Hmm. Maybe not from anywhere in the world, on reflection.

In the first lesson with the two boys, we did “family” vocabulary, and I got them to make a string of paper people to represent their family.

“So how many people do we need?” I asked, wanting to know how many times we needed to fold the paper.

They paused and started counting on their fingers.

“Nineteen,” they answered.

“Nineteen???” I repeated. “How many brothers do you have?”

“Eight,” they replied.

“And sisters?”

“Six.”

I wondered briefly if perhaps they had not quite got a handle on English numbers yet. Just as I was about to sidetrack into an incidental counting lesson, they explained,  “Our father has two wives”.

JACK SPARROW

I was under the impression that films are not in wide circulation in Saudi Arabia. Certainly, there are no cinemas there, and there are many Saudis who don’t watch films on principle. So imagine my surprise when, under this impression, I was showing flashcards of people to the class, and as I raised a picture of Johnny Depp, one Saudi guy immediately exclaimed, “Oh! Jack Sparrow!” (Jack Sparrow was the character Johnny Depp played in Pirates of the Caribbean.)

DRIVING

This story comes from a colleague who had a Saudi man and a Spanish girl in his class. A fairly heated debate erupted, with the girl decrying ,in a colourful, Latinate sort of way, the injustice of the ban on women’s driving in Saudi Arabia. The man cowered in a slightly terrified fashion behind the desk until the onslaught abated enough for him to plead, “I can explain! I can explain! Please let me explain!”

“Go!” the girl spat. “Explain!”

“We’re not sexist,” the man insisted. “It’s just… It’s just… We can’t let our women drive. It’s not safe.”

“Why not?“ the Spanish girl screeched. “Why is it ‘not safe’?”

“Because,” he explained hesitatingly, “because they can’t see properly. Their vision is restricted by their burqas.”

PARACETEMOL VS. ANTIBIOTICS

We were discussing parts of the body and the various problems that can develop with them, and the word Paracetemol came up.

“When I take my children to the doctor here,” said one man, “he always prescribes Paracetemol. When I take them to the doctor in Saudi Arabia, he prescribes antibiotics.”

I am trying to think for which conditions painkillers and antibiotics might be considered equally valid treatments.

SO, WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT? 

1)      There is a fine line between learning and teaching, and sometimes it gets smudged into oblivion, leaving all parties concerned sitting open-mouthed.

2)      You would do well to give up your seat to a pregnant woman.

3)      Having nine children makes you tired.

4)      You never know with the life. You must to be preparred.

5)      If you have two wives and fourteen children, a £10 000 credit limit can come in handy.

6)      Johnny Depp gets everywhere.

7)      You can’t drive in a burqa.

8)      Paracetemol and antibiotics are interchangeable.