Welcome to my blog about life as an expat with travel and crafts! These past three weeks time management had become a bit more of a challenge when I started to take Arabic lessons for beginners at the Eton institute in Abu Dhabi. It is an intense three-week long course with 2 hours of classroom lessons five days a week from Sunday to Thursday. It had been one of my plans or dreams to learn the local language or at least standard Arabic once we made the decision to move here. The first year passed way faster than anticipated and in between exploring our new country of residence, travelling and hosting visitors I wasn’t able to commit to the hours to study a new language. But this month during Ramadan all fell into place: no travel plans until after June 22nd and lessons in the afternoon  were a great match for my schedule. The challenge lies with studying in between lessons – there are only so many hours in one day and not all can be dedicated to Arabic – and driving our car to each lesson. The latter is not an issue for most people I know as they like sitting behind the wheel, but it is a drag for me. I much rather would take public transit to be able to relax, read, study or knit, but with the bus taking the long way to the institute and 90 minutes each way, the 15-minute car ride is the better choice.

I am surprised to find that I enjoy learning the Arabic alphabet and its various additions to create the sounds and words. The setting in a small class with no more than 18 adult students is a great size and our teacher is fantastic! She is fun, knowledgeable and open to many questions and discussions around the language and how to read and write it. Trying to write the correct letter during dictation is my biggest challenge at the moment as there are a few throaty letters that sound very similar to my ear, but are very distinct to an Arab speaker. I hope in time I will see improvements in that area, the same as I find it easier to read and remember the letters by the day. It is a great thrill to being able to start deciphering the Arabic writing on the bilingual traffic signs. I mostly try when waiting at a red light as it still takes some time and I don’t want to keep my focus away from the surrounding traffic while the car is moving.

Tomorrow will be our final test to determine if we learned enough to move on to the next level. I enjoyed this learning experience so much that I will sign up for the next class starting in two weeks. For today it is good bye or “Ma: as-salaama” (which means ‘peace be with you’).

Maike