I’m up at my aunt’s place for a couple more days, then I’ll head back down to VA for the final flurry of seeing people before I leave. It’s going to be a little harried, but it’ll be good. I’m really enjoying my trip up here in Connecticut, I love visiting these guys. This will be the last time that I’ll be able to visit my aunt and cousin at the same time, Beth is getting married in July and will move out to the western part of New York. I saw some pictures of her in her wedding dress and almost shed a tear, she’s so lovely. I now have an idea of how fathers feel when their daughter gets married…
I haven’t done a damn bit of Arabic this entire trip. I knew that was going to happen, I briefly thought about not bringing my books this time, but I figured that carrying them around would be my penance for not using them. I think that I’ve made the mistake of equalling the language with the situation in Yemen. It’s just depressing over there. When I tried to get a list of acceptable songs together for my students, I listened to several Beatles songs. I distinctly remember thinking that one particular song had been recorded in 1967, think about how much the US, Europe, and our culture has changed in that time. Now think about what Yemen must have been like in 1967. There weren’t many places that had electricity, there weren’t any paved roads between cities, and they were essentially living like their ancestors lived 500 years ago. Many places in Yemen haven’t changed much since 1967, and it’s depressing. How can a place stand still (or go backwards) for so long? Sure, there are a lot of symptoms that we can point to, but the causes are buried and difficult to find. I have to find some way of divorcing those thoughts from the language itself, maybe then I will attack my studies like I used to…