And here i am supposed to go through a new journey from Baghdad back to Sulaimaniya. The beginning went well, until i arrived at the Terminal, when they said (not through loudspeakers, of course) that the Iraqi Airways flight to Sulaimaniya will be delayed till 15:30 instead of its original 11:30 time. There was a TV reporter and his cameraman and they were also planning to travel to Sulaimaniya, and they decided to make a report about the case, and i left their vicinity while they were still at the research phase, and when one of the Airport officials was explaining to them that this was because of the lack of airplanes to cover the flights, so the same airplane that was about to take us to Sulaimaniya had to go to Damascus, then back from Damascus, and the probably to and back from another place before taking us to Sulaimaniya; which is totally crazy!
If that wasn't crazy enough, i ran into 3 people that know me, in about 15 minutes time. The last of them, and he was the only one who noticed that i was there, came and spoke to me (in Arabic):
- "Excuse me, aren't you .....?!"
I had to use a trick to get rid of him. This guy was like one year with me in elementary school and probably wanted tons of catching up while i was already on the edge of my patience because of this crazy flight delay.
- "I don't speak Arabic. I'm sorry..."
I said in the most perfect English i could pull together for the unexpected occasion. Thank God that it was more than enough to send him on his way.
Now, speaking of the accent, there were two things i witnessed this morning; the first was a young lady with a reddish-mahogany colored passport in her hard which i couldn't distinguish the writings on its cover, but i think it was British, and he accent make me think so too. Anyway, she was accompanied by an older Iraqi man, who was in his late thirties. Anyway, i was standing there waiting for the baggage check procedures to end, while they were talking. The guy was telling her stories about Baghdad in the past, and despite the jolly good British "waaaaaaaaads" (=words) that he was munching in his mouth like a Macintosh candy, but the story he told really sucked to the extent that i decided to delete it from my memory at once. Now, my understanding, and i may well be wrong in this, but i do hope that i am right, that you need to represent the best that is in your country, religion and culture while talking to, or dealing with foreigners. By doing that, you could be an ambassador for your country, religion, and culture. The young lady could -unfortunately- believe what that man said, which could actually be a little disaster in itself!
Despite the fact that the guy didn't speak with an accent, but he was definitely thinking with one!
Back to the Airport, and the original craziness of the day. The Airport announcer did not only have the worse English accent possible (she actually says "this Airbort is not smoking" meaning that smoking is not allowed anywhere at the Airport!!); but her Arabic is also horrible! I, and every Arab or Arabic speaker knows for sure that the Syrian capital Damascus is pronounced "Dimashq" in Arabic. She kept saying Dimishq, which doesn't really make any sense in Arabic.
Also, she was really, really bugging in her way of saying "This is the final call for the Iraqi Airways flight to Damascus". She could've almost said, "I really mean it. If you don't believe me then blame no one but yourselves!"
And to finish this episode, the way Jon Stewart ends his Daily Show with the Moment of Zen, here is how she announced the departure of the Flying Carpet Airlines to Beirut:
"Baghdad Interrnationall Airrporrt announce the debarture of Flying Carbit to Beirut. All bassenger arrre kindly requestedd to go to gate forty-fife. Thang you!"
That's our Moment of Zen for today! Thank you very much everybody!!
No comments:
Post a Comment