Yip, I must get these letters into my head.
Before Abdul arrives I sit outside chanting aalif, baa, taa, thaa…
‘Eish, it’s difficult; you think you can manage?” Molly asks me, shaking her head as she opens the window and listens to me chanting. My daughter wags a playful finger at me and says, “You must learn it all today. Remember when I was learning Zulu and you told me the alphabet was easily manageable in a day, hey, hey?” She laughs and I try not to glance at the page to verify whether the letter in my mind is qaaf ق or kaaf ك . The difference is so subtle to me as to be indeterminate, but to Abdul and millions of Arabic speakers it is no doubt very different – much like the soft ‘c’ and the subtly more explosive ‘k’ in English.
We’re a house of students at the moment. Chris, Matt and Nic are studying for their final exams at university – psychology, linguistics, business, industrial design, actuarial science, economics… the subjects blur. Cait has only written her Computer Technology Practical exam and studies at the library for her next matric exam. Mark is lecturing on valuations. Ali sweeps the driveway and looks up every now and then puffs on a cigarette, wondering if I’m up to the task of mastering a language that rolls off his tongue like summer rain from the gutters.
When Abdul arrives I explain my objectives for wanting to learn Arabic – I tell him that I want to be able to read and write it. We agree to proceed at a slower pace, mastering one section of the book per week. We agree that he will teach me from Monday to Friday. “Does Madam Isabella go to church on Sundays?” He asks in the third-person with a smile, I shake my head. “Saturdays?” He asks, the smile fading. “No I don’t go to church at all,” I say. The smile is replaced by a frown and he sighs and opens the textbook, and I wonder what he thinks about Madam Isabella who does not have a day put aside to worship. For a moment I wonder about it too.
As we work through the alphabet, me writing the letters and pronouncing them, I recall teaching Grade 1s when I was a student teacher. The excruciating slow pace at which the gap-toothed gradies progressed, stretched my patience to the limit, and yet here I am, aeons older than those littlies and working at the same deliberate rate.
After managing to recite the alphabet and write it from start to finish without a pause, Abdul smiles and says that next time he will point out the letters and I must identify them; he’s cottoned on to my tactic – learning parrot fashion. “And,” he says, turning the book over, “you must practice writing from right to left.” He might have listened to my terms at the beginning of the lesson, but by the end of it he has resumed his status: he’s the teacher; I’m the student.
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