these are the people in my neighbourhood…

Yesterday I wrapped up my second term of teaching ESL here in the desert. A week of holidays, and then one term to go before I head home. Bittersweet, I suppose.

I’ve really enjoyed my classes here. Even though, I confess, ESL isn’t exactly my passion, it can be pretty fun to teach English to a bunch of Arabic speakers! Like, sometimes I make a joke that I think is HILARIOUS, but absolutely no one else gets it! So I just stand up there and LAUGH and slap my knee…and I know my students are thinking their teacher is just a crazy foreigner. And I love it.

Teaching in here is not without its challenges, though. In one of my first term classes I had five or six girls all wearing black baltos and lithmas, and the only distinguishing features were their eyes and hands. So for about three weeks I couldn’t tell who was who! Usually I’d just say a name and look in their general direction until one of them replied, and then I’d pretend like I knew it was her all along. There was also a lot of “Good job….you! YOU are awesome! ohhh…you.”

On the flip side, teaching here, you’re guaranteed to get at least two Mohammads  per class. I had three in one class! So it was great! If I blanked out on a name when I wanted someone to answer a question, there was always the fallback of, “Uhhh…Mohammad?” And I’d just let them work out which one was going to speak. In that same class I had a guy named Osamah, and on my most recent class roster, every day I see the name Saddam. Alas, he never did make it to class.

It’s sad that in other countries, as a result of all the bad press on the Middle East, these names…these Arabic faces, are evocative of terrorism or turmoil. It’s sad because the more I get to know my students, the more I’m starting to understand that we are all cut from the same cloth.

P.S. Ten points if you picked up on the Sesame Street reference in the title.