Language please

I sometimes tend to lose my cool when after repeating the same thing over and over, the person on the other end says, "Say again please."

I mean come on. English is a universal language. Everyone should know it, no? At least that's what I think.

And when I bang the phone down, I feel guilty. "Poor guy. What's his fault if he doesn't know English? Aww."

Then I call back, and talk ever so slowly, hoping they might understand this time and either tell me the information I'm trying to get, or connect me to the right person. They too, then talk slowly, hoping they might tell me whatever of my question they did or did not understand. But they talking as slow as possible in Arabic(!!) doesn't really help now does it.

But sure, the thought counts.

Language is quite a barrier here. It leaves everything that could possibly come to you, away from you.

It's no wonder that the Arabic newspapers here do a whole lot better jobs that the two English papers that are published out of Qatar.

Not that I can read them, but the design, the pics, the length, and a few people translating the stories in brief out to me hint clearly towards the (undeniable) fact. They get a lot more than us.

Lets see, if I know Arabic, I could interact with a lot more people in Qatar, people who have been here a long while, people who know about this place. In a regular conversation, there are so many chances of stories popping out.

I could easily break the ice with officials, also, understand exactly what they're saying. No matter what anyone says, when a person is talking in a language he doesn't know really well, he surely cannot tell you what exactly he wants to say and more importantly you can't get to know how he feels.

People here feel in Arabic, think in Arabic, at least those that matter... they can explain best in when they're talking their language. Sure some of them know a little bit of English. But only enough to tell you that you're taking the wrong way to City Centre Mall and instead of left, you must take a right.

They can't answer serious questions thrown at them. They will, because they have to. But I can bet my ass on it... that what they say is not how they really feel, and we, English journos in Qatar, can almost never get the real story. The story is true, but not really real. There's a lot more to it than what we eventually publish.

It's really not their fault. For all they care, the Arabic newspapers, which are curculated a lot more than the English ones (obviously) do a damn neat job around here. If we don't understand Arabic, it really doesn't bother them much.

But yeah, I lose my cool sometimes. English is a must whether or not Arabic is.

Qatar too understands that. Any country trying to develop at such lightning speed needs to. There are huge advertisements, huge campaigns, several language schools requesting people to learn English.

Probably the next two or three generations of Qatar, would speak the language fluently.

But quite honestly, I really can't wait around to get my stories out from those next two-three generations. I don't intend growing old in Qatar.

It is a two-way effort, on a more serious note. If you're living in a country and you don't learn it's language, you really haven't learnt anything no matter how many years you might have spent there.

No harm learning Arabic while you're inside here. It's only another language you would know.

But time...

It's weird actually. I've been thinking about it. There's so much time around here for people to do so much. Yet, I somehow never find any. A day begins, and I look outside... I see the sun quietly turning orange, and sinking.

Time just flies.

It's not an excuse.

I have never ever EVER witnessed time fly by so fast. It does... just does in Qatar.

Don't ever ask me why. I'm still trying to figure that out.