Speak the Speech...

POST-POSTED for 20 JULY 2007

trippingly on the tongue; and what a long, strange trip it's been, especially for my tongue!

of all places in the world to employ my spanish, downtown baghdad was easily the least expected. arriving in the black hours of the night with no idea as to where i was headed, i set out on the streets of the iz in my body armour, toting a seabag and weapon, and looking for directions. depending upon the civilian i had in tow--who had supposedly worked personnel support detachment for the ambassador before, and therefore hypothetically ought to have known where he was going--wasn't working, so i approached some of the contracted guard force at one of the checkpoints we were failing to pass through. i wasn't expecting to hear spanish, so it didn't register at all. at all. three fellows later i caught a lo siento, or something, at which point my elated habla usted espanol? provoked an understanding; i'm sure my broken formal spanish fell jarringly upon their peruvian ears, but at least we had a small common vocabulary through which to treat.

it turned out that i was fine. i could pass any checkpoint and enter the embassy without issue; my civilian companion, however, could not. ah. bugger.

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i've also learned a small number of macedonian words from some of our subcontractors on phoenix camp, but the real experience has been acquiring iraqi arabic. stated flatly, arabic is hard. damn hard. there are all manner of sounds that we as westerners have no idea how to imitate, but for some reason my iraqi comrades think rather highly of my pronunciation... i can only guess that i have mark f. and doc t., and years of singing for them in every language other than english, to thank, not to mention one semester stumbling upon the peculiarities of normalized west saxon old english. þæt wæs god leornung!

passing through a checkpoint on the iraqi side, my bostonian YN1 desertmate attempted marhaba, which is "welcome," or "hello," in his northeast accent. imagine jimmy fallon saying "more harbor" to as much comedic effect as possible. the guard smiled indulgently, and was about to wave us through, when i followed it with masa' al hayr; the guard completely lost it, and paused for a moment to chat with us.

it's surprising how much favor one garners by simply making an effort, culturally. i am now known as "brother" to one of our local nationals, and the guard force is far more genial toward me than most other americans. pulling into our control point at the academy one evening, i spoke to the fellows on duty, and one actually said to me, "when you speak, i think you are arabic." i thanked him, shukran, to which he replied, "pretty soon we will be able to take you to downtown baghdad, because no one will know you are not!"

um. yeah.

shlon agul "rain check" in arabi?