Will you save Saddam?.... ehm.

Please don't take this question seriously. Even though I'm against death penalty, I won't give any personal point of view about this complicated topic, merely because I have no point of view about it. However, I still think we can make fun with anything so here is a little game. Enjoy!

Subsequently to what happened, maybe it's better to delete the game... and to change the topic :) Better listen to my weekly playlist ;)

Christmas memories...

There are some countries, maybe most of the countries in the world, where children's eyes will be illuminated in front of big displays of Santa Claus made of chocolate. But in Saudi Arabia, this does not exist... I mean, it could have existed but it didn't. This story happened in the supermarket (Hypermarket) Carrefour of the region. The department-Head for Food supplies decided to make a huge display only with Chocolate Santa-Claus, Kinder products like on this picture. The display was nice, prices were attractive and many people were filling their trolleyswith those red & white chocolates. But the issue was that some guys, wearing white and red suits but WHO WERE NOT Santa-Claus (look at the next image) but actually people called "Muttawa" came to the supermarket and asked to talk immediately to the General Manager. They gave him "fifteen minutes" to empty the display completely, otherwise they (the Muttawas) would call their colleagues and do it themselves. Of course, such a threat is not something to joke with... Why??

Because the Muttawas represent the religious authority here in Saudi Arabia. (5th of January : I have found the name of the Commission that hires the Muttawas : the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice ... I will make no comment about this.) They have as much power as the police, maybe even more according to some sayings. Some years ago, the community of Muttawas pressured the royal family to get more power on people and companies, and they obtained satisfaction to their request. For example, in Saudi Arabia all the shops and companies stop their activities during prayer times, and the Muttawahs are in charge of "checking" that this rule is well observed. Subsequently, at prayer times, you will always find those guys with policemen, walking around and looking into the shops if anyone is working. And if they catch someone "red-handed", and if - this detail makes the consequences even more serious - the guy is Muslim... He could be beaten. Or his ass could be kicked until he reaches the gate of the Mosque. So... better not mess up with those guys. Also, if they see a woman who doesn't hide her hair, they absolutely have the right to make a remark to her. This is all about Muttawahs!

About my Christmas eve, it was how to say, less boring than a 14th of July :p No.. Honestly, those two days were interesting, I have no reason to complain. I received many phonecalls from relatives, friends, and was busy quite all the time. I celebrated the Eve in a nice bar-Club of Bahrain with Jais, it was the occasion to meet with some British and Irish people. They are incredible... So drunk that they could say "hello, where are you from?" 3 times to the same person in the same night. But very sociable and funny, when it comes to drinking. For one night I thought I was in the Rasmus Rask Bar, in DK. So... the atmosphere was good.

Today I went back to my office to correct the papers of my students... It took one hour all in all, which is not that much actually. My expectations as far as those exams were concerned were actually much lower than the results. I was well surprized by my students' papers, even though some of them are a bit weak at some points, they all made some efforts to pass it. I have no failing student this session. For level 1, particularly, students shew interest and motivation for language, even though they all have different aims. I have a 11-year-old boy, a British manager, and the 12 other students are Saudi doctors or engineers who will complete a postdoctoral program in France.

For the next days, I will try to enjoy some rest, but will go on working for private courses with a student who will attend a french school in Tours from next February and during 8 months. Then, he will be attending a speciality program in medicine at Hopital Cochin, Paris. On the 10th of January, 3 days before the beginning of a new session, I will invite my students from all the levels, here at the Institute. It would be an opportunity for them to meet with more experimented students, and also some managers from FR companies settled here. They are all complaining that there are too few occasions to implement their knowledge, to speak french in the region and that's true... So, let's try, we'll see the results.. Now I feel a bit hungry, i'll go and have dinner...

Seeya..

This blog is not dead

No it's not! Just that for some time, you know, I wanted to leave some things away, stop analysing all the time everything that was happening to me and live it 100%. I have to admit as well that the level of laziness was quite... how to say.. HIGH. But let's say that I managed to put up with this, and that i'll try to write here more regularly.

My last message was posted some 4 months ago, in the middle of August. At that time, I was just considering starting to write “seriously” my internship report which was to be handed one month later, when I would go for some vacations. Today, my need for some vacations is comparable to that former period, all the more since everyone around me (not geographically speaking, I’m talking about my relatives) is preparing Christmas. I don’t mean to complain at all about my situation here, since I will spend this period in Middle East – hoping that some 2 weeks will be given to me after the January-February Session – but it feels very weird to know that it’s Christmas period when absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g in your immediate environment reminds you of the events. No need to mention that in the Muslim context, 24th and 25th of December are not more significant than a 12th of April, unless one of those three days might match with an Islamic celebration. Even at my workplace, the students didn’t seem to understand clearly why I took the Christmas days “off”. “ But it’s going to be a hole in the session, isn’t it ?”,one said....
Yes, so what? Isn’t it me, the boss, after all? :)
It is in Bahrain that we find some elements, decorations that remind one about Christmas. Some big trees are decorated (Christmas palm trees are a bit... exotic but still, a tree is a tree even though it requires big balls.. ehm). However I still haven’t found the sandman with a carrot as a nose.
This “opening” to Christian culture in Bahrain is mainly due to the important community of filipino people. Some of them chose Islam, but they are not that many. I had long been wondering what was the connection between Filipinos and Christianism (Roman Catholicism). It’s thanks to – or because of, choose your point of view :P – the Spanish. Them Spaniards, again! They brought Catholicism there, and also had an influence in the forming of one of the main Filipino dialects called “Tagalog”. When you hear Filipinos speaking this language, despite their pronounciation which is typical from this Asian-Indonesian part of the world, it’s possible to recognize some spanish words such as numbers, for example...
So Bahrain is more tainted with this Christian tradition but we shan’t exaggerate : it’s still a Muslim kingdom and even though Christian churches are tolerated – contrary to Saudi Arabia that admit nothing but mosques – you will obviously find more mosques than any other religious temple. Another difference, as far as religion is concerned between Bahrain and S.A. is the belonging to a specific dissidence. In Islam, we mainly find two dissidences, the first one which is “Sunnite” and the latter that is “Chi’ite”. The Chi’ite Muslims have different mosques, their convictions are based upon the great tragedy of Islamic people in the History of religion. In Bahrain, the religious color is Chi’ite contrary to Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born. I’m not sure that the open-mindedness of Bahrainis is due to this religious specificity.. I’ll try to find some documents for next post about this and explain it better.
Today I found again my little book entitled “learning Arabic without pain”. So far, I’ve ignored the therapeutical virtues of learning this language. When you look more thoroughly into it, you realize that the title is a big joke, since its content seems to be very hard to digest. Still... This is a language I want to know more about. Now that I can read numbers (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) and most of the arabic alphabet, it would be quite useful to grasp their meaning. To me, learning a language which looks like no one else has always looked exciting. I experienced that through my “very light” learning of Ancient Greek 4 years ago and I liked it very much. At that time, it was the changing of alphabet that gave a special difficulty and interest to the language. Now, the difficulty has reached another level above, since not only is the alphabet different, but the direction of reading is different. Another interesting thing is that letters, in Arabic, are not written in the same way depending on their position in the word : there are 29 letters in the alphabet, and each of them has 3 graphic variations : one variation if the letter is at the beginning of the word, another one when the word is in the middle of the word and a “final” version, when the letter is at the very end.
Let’s forget about linguistic stuff for a while... Some more news will be coming soon. For now, I will just go to bed, keeping some things to say – I mean, to write – in a little corner of my mind. I hope my “frequent readers” who were disappointed with this huuuuge break will excuse me.
See you..

In peace we trust?

Hey Hey... It seems that those iron birds became silent again... Let's hope that what we call "peace" will last for a long time. Those operations were a real disaster for Lebanon, with no more bridges, no more roads, no more facilities to get drinkable water. The Arabian community in the Gulf, everywhere, displays this Lebanese Flag in order to ask for some help to people who lost everything, and those who are in great difficulty. Here, in Saudi, there are many poor people... And particularly in the district where I live, which is far from being the safest and the richest one, Charity starts to show its real shape. Even people who have a very few things show solidarity and give a hand. Shoes, rice, tissues, towels, shampoo, toothpaste, water, cloth, people give anything they think it could be useful. And that is great... In the last decades, I think, Charity has become a kind of fancy thing : those big directors of companies have been showing off on TV, with enoooormous cheques, hundreds of thousands dollars... "Look at me, people !!! I am rich but not selfish !!" Fair enough. At least, it's a clever way to help people but maybe Charity should remain something one should not show off with. To be helpful is not something one should be proud of. Those Saudis, Banglas, Pakistanis, Indians, Jordanians, Bahreinis, Qataris have never asked to be on TV... However they do something, and ask for nothing material in return. Consequently, I'm starting to think that the world is divided between people who have moral values, and people who try to show that there is a moral in this "nothing-but-money" world. Even though I admit to be obsessed by money sometimes, or maybe always... I cannot have an objective point of view about myself, actually. In French, we have such a saying : "it's like that, but you know, I try to cure myself".

Let's now change the topic.. I'm still leading this quiet and busy life in Saudi, everything is going well for the moment. I've been here for almost 10 weeks now, even though I have the impression that it's been more than 3 months. The end of September, which corresponds to my vacation period, is coming quite rapidly I would say. On weekends, I go to Bahrain to have a little drive around. The local French school proposed me to have an accomodation there, sometimes when I want to spend the whole weekend. Bahrain has a bad reputation among Saudis : maybe that's why there are soooooooooo many cars from Saudi at the border line on Thursdays :P :PI could visit some interesting things there... The architecture is very interesting, next time i'll take some pictures if I manage to cross the border even earlier in the day... without spending those 30 minutes at the immigration office, as I do everytime. My embassy did not register my residence permit in the computer, so it gets harder when it comes to leave and get inside the country. From tomorrow I'll see that. I did a very interesting visit, even though I'm not that much interested in sportscar, I went - by curiosity - to this new Formula One Circuit, that was built 3 years ago. It's giant. They say that it took 16 months to make it up, people worked 7.7 and 24.24 on this project. One of the "crazy" ideas of the Bahreini king, who somehow had one of his dreams come true. If you want to take a glance at the pictures, you can find them on this webpage : http://cfsd.ifrance.com/wab/bhr . Now, as I lack some time at the moment to do whatever I want, I'll get prepared to go outside, I have a private course to give. And then, my internship report, "AUN" (Academic Useless Necessity) to write...
Wish you a good day!

Once again... the Cedar is falling.

Middle east is burning... I'm not talking about the temperature outside, that daily reaches 45°C and more. Just about sad events that give us all the creeps. The Gulf is shaking... It seems that a civil war in Irak, failures to make the non-proliferation law (about Uranium modification) survive in Iran and the neverending Gaza conflict were not sufficient elements to provoke a slight reaction in the International Community. Yes... We hear that "This country and that one merely condemned the events and asked for their immediate interruption"... And then??! This speech is tasteless now, and has no more effect... We wouldn't even swallow those false condemnations as "placebo medicine", just to have the illusion that everything is going well. No one can believe this now, any more. Middle east has become like a sad widow... Desperately looking for a partner, a neighbour with whom she would get along well, and maybe expect some bright days. Sometimes she hears some voices... "Heeey, look at me... I want to help you!" But when this partner comes and tries to know her better, he rapidly realizes that her body is covered with scarves, among which some are still not sown. Then, Miss Middle-east has no other choice but to accept to be left alone again, against her destiny. And lacking any wilful surgeon, her pains gets worse and her wounds, infected. On the 14th of July, a tree fell on the ground. It was a Cedar... A big green tree that needs many many...many years to grow and which had already fallen before. Who wanted to put it down? Just some falcons flying around. This kind of devil bird which wings are made of steel, and that could kill any child within a distance of 40km. Those birds are blue and covered with stars... They were bred in the nearby country, a country where they teach you how to forget mercy... For the reason that in the past, people had no mercy towards them.

Filled with the desire of eradicating terrorism - which is a necessary quest, Israëli govt eradicates civilians. Israëli govt bombs the airport. Israëli govt destroys bridges, Israëli govt destroys roads, Israëli govt destroys factories that clean water, and no wonder if Israëli govt soon destroys some powerplants. Because Israëli govt is on the side of war against terrorism..... is it? YES IT IS !! and don't ever say the contrary, if you don't want to be labelled as anti-semitic. Do you know what a syllogism is? Let's consider the famous syllogism of Socrates. "The human is mortal. Besides, Socrates is human. Then, Socrates is mortal." Now let's implement this syllogism to Middle East : Hezbollah is a terrorist group. Besides, Hezbollah's location is in Lebanon. Then, Lebanon is a terrorist country. You got it ? Don't try to find any complexity in Israel's foreign policy : it's very simple!! The best way to eradicate a terrorist group is to bomb the whole country : then you can be sure that you'll have reached your target! One thing that is left to be understood by Israël, I think... It's that terrorism is not a correct reply to terrorism. It seems that they still have this grudge against History and Humanity. Maybe one day we will realize that people who have undoubtedly suffered along History (facts and statistics are not to be questioned at all) can certainly be victims, that's right... But let's not have any bad conscience in thinking that they can also behave bloodily. That's exactly what's happening. What I'm dealing with is not politics, but just some mere questions. I don't give a damn about religion in this case, it's meaningless. I'm just worried about the fact that the situation is already excessively unfair, but there is still not any strong action against a government that considers itself as almighty in its legitimate quest against terrorism.... Please answer me : between a terrorist and a terrorist? which one do you choose? Easy, uhhh....

Now, I'd just like to show some sympathy, without any self-interest, to people who were forced to leave their school, their job, their house behind them.... at least, what is left of these buildings. There is a justice for everything, in the History Lebanon managed to stand up again after many hardships, I wish this could happen again.

With all my heart and respect.

untitled.doc

Hi… Many of my « regular readers » asked me why I haven’t updated the blog since the 20th of June. I don’t have the answer myself. It’s not that I’m not interested anymore in writing on this website, it’s just that I can’t find much time for myself. There are moments when I’m at work, at the office, preparing some courses, at some other moments i’m teaching, and once I completed those 2 things, I try to rest a little... which means that I merely want to do nothing special. My “biological rythm” is being changed, I didn’t feel it much at the beginning of my staying here, but it’s true that when the sun rises at 4.30AM in the morning and sets at 6.30PM, your behaviour is a little bit modified. I don’t have enough distance to know “how” this behaviour changes, as far as I’m concerned, but it influences much the way i’m scheduling each day.

First, I have to say that my attitude about the country is changing, as well. First, I had the impression to be in the middle of nowhere. Amelie Nothomb – who is not my favourite writer, but still, I remembered how she called China in “Biographie de la Faim” – called those strange places “nowhere” and “never”. A strange calling that simultaneously involves the idea of space, and the one of time. About space, and particularly because of the climate, I was wondering what I was doing there. The temperature outside, that reaches an average of 45 – 47 °C in the afternoon, is quite difficult to stand. However, I will not complain : at the office we have a very efficient air cooling system, the “A.C.”. So, inside, it’s constantly 22°C. Mild, isn’t it? And for those who will tell me that my skin is still very clear, I just remind them that I haven’t come there to sell donuts on the beach! :D
As far as the topic of Time is concerned, let’s say that I have the impression to find objects as they were in France 6 or 7 years ago. About “junk food”, for example : I remember when SEVEN UP had still a “not too much acid” taste, it was some years ago in France, before they change the recipe... that I’ve liked much less since then. Here, I find again this sweet taste of sevenup. There are such examples with many other products, it wouldn’t be interesting to list them individually. It’s not a bad critique, to say that I’m feeling as if it was 6 years before. In reality, according to “Egire” calendar, the current century is the 15th. This explains that.

Let’s talk about the job itself, now... It’s getting very interesting now, because my group of beginners become more and more able to produce a “correct” french. By evaluating them, I actually evaluate myself. Many of them come to see me after class, to ask me some more vocabulary about very common things, “everyday expressions” for which they’d like to know the translation.

It was days ago that I realized how much English is useful in teaching. Knowing very few things about Arabic (definitely not enough to use this language in a teaching context). It gives a very special dimension to the language you teach. Not only do you analyse your mother language by teaching (and by answering the students’ questions) but you also examine the language that serves you for the teaching, which is not the “target” language but the “instrument” language. It requires – and provokes, in the same time – a double metalinguistical analysis, and I think this is an aspect that I wouldn’t have discovered if I had remained in France for my internship, in a company or association. Here, I am certainly the teacher, but first and foremost a learner because the person who faces a situation of immersion in a “foreign context” is not any of my student but myself. Peculiar situation, to be both a teacher and a foreigner. I know the topic that I have to teach, to transmit, but it’s connected to a knowledge that is geographically speaking far from there. And that’s the difficult point : to make that knowledge closer, as much as possible. Before leaving – and wholly speaking “in my curriculum of a language learner” – I realized very rapidly that the one who teaches learns a lot, and the one who learns indirectly teaches, through his positive and negative reactions during the process of receiving Linguistical data and general knowledge.

Last day, I helped one of my students, Hamed (36 y.o, surgeon) in enriching his application for Schengen VISA, as he considers going to France from the 31st of July. At the Embassy of S.A. in Paris, they advised him to attend a FR school in Toulouse, as he will be studying surgery (for specialization) in Paris. I advised him to get closer to Paris, and finally they found a school for him in Tours. He will spend 3 years there, for his specialization. I’m very glad that he is going to fulfill one of his dreams, which is to get an higher education in medical sciences, in France.

Now, it’s the weekend, I’ll try to rest a little bit. My next projects are to get my Iqama (residence permit), my Passport (with the Multi-entry mention) and my Saudi driver licence, which was just converted at the Embassy. With those documents, I’ll be able to purchase a car... and travel around when I got spare time. Raed was very nice to drive me back home everyday after work, now it’s time to get some more independence and show some gratefulness.
And some other project.. to decide about my holidays of September which include some days in Orleans, some other days at home and, I hope so, a week with Aurelija in Vilnius. Days are passing quite fastly here, I hope it will be the same for the whole summer... and rapidly we should reach September. Until this date, I will have to write my 25-paged report for University, and another one for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I’ll try to give some news quite soon! See you, take care.