Why

Cal State San Bernardino, the school which is funding my trip to Jordan, asked the other students and I to write a brief page for their program's yearbook describing, among other things, why I had decided to study Arabic. The following is what I submitted to them:

"The decision to study Arabic was made haphazardly. When I enrolled in first semester Arabic two years ago I didn’t consider that I would be studying one of the most difficult languages for a native English speaker to learn, I didn’t consider the hours upon hours upon days upon weeks of constant study and memorization I would subject myself to, I didn’t consider that two years worth of study would be a drop in the bucket of language proficiency and that it would take perhaps decades before I could speak Arabic as well as English, if ever.

I had no knowledge of the depth of expression inherent in the vocabulary. I was ignorant of the unfathomable beauty and complexity of the verbal root system or the precision of the vowel case endings. I knew nothing about the ancient poetic tradition and the almost sacred reverence of the spoken and written word in the Arabic speaking world.

I knew nothing about the middle east, about Arabic, about people who spoke Arabic. When I made this decision, I was just a bewildered sophomore philosophy major with an open slot in his fall schedule. Arabic seemed as good a choice as any, and a good deal cooler than most. The box I checked next to “Arabic 101” didn’t warn me that I would begin the hardest task I had ever undertaken, or of the rewards that diligent study and perseverance would offer.

I was sitting against a sandstone cliff used as a makeshift wall and protection from the sun the morning prior to this writing, eating a breakfast of flatbread, hummus, date syrup and bitter yogurt when one of our Bedouin guides asked me, in heavy colloquial Arabic, this very question. Why did I study Arabic? A question I had been asked dozens of times before and never had a good answer for. Our camp was laid out before me around the dying embers of the morning fire, nestled in a fold of sandstone cliffs guarding us from the red sands of Wadi Rum. I sat cross legged on that carpet and chewed, looking up the expanse of wall and around the worn but happy faces and sore, burnt, sandy bodies of my friends and fellow students, and I still didn’t have an answer. As usual, I got caught up in the hundreds of seemingly meaningless or arbitrary or lucky choices and circumstances that had brought me under that tent into that conversation with that man.

I still don’t have a good answer. Or rather, I don’t have an answer in words beyond what could be said by that scene itself. Those Bedouin men, that moonlit desert, the Amman taxi drivers, the poorly translated English/Arabic advertisements that adorn the city, the kebab and falafel, the first meaningful Arabic conversation with a native Jordanian, the free and easy friendships, the call to prayer, the uninhibited hospitality of strangers. These things answer that question much better than I can. All I can say is that it is worth the work.

To those who would consider learning the language of Arabic and of coming to Jordan: consider these things. Consider the work and the cost. Examine your motives, your goals, your resources. The prize is great I assure you, but nothing good comes without cost. Surviving and thriving in Amman is easy if you have three things: flexibility, patience, and most importantly gratefulness. If you have these things, you can’t have a bad time in Jordan. Surviving the study of Arabic is harder. You have to be willing to bend your brain to work in a whole different way. The only advice I have is this: if you can fall in love with the language, it will be much easier. There are people who want to help you, who want you to learn Arabic. But if you don’t love it, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t fall in love with Arabic until I was weeks into the Jordan program and a few years into my general Arabic studies, perhaps this was impossible before coming here. But now that I have, everything is easier. Given the right circumstances, the small and subtle twists of fate that brought me here, you could be in my place, and you may be able to see and do these things few people in the world will ever have the blessing to enjoy. In Sha’ Allah."

There are many things that I've thought about and learned since I've been here, a lot of them Arabic. But perhaps the pervasive thought in my mind recently is about gratefulness. Some days it seems completely absurd that I should be here, or rather, that someone is paying me to be here. Everyday I think that most people will not get to experience the things I am experiencing here. And while I did work hard to get here, in many ways it's simply luck that brought me. I don't feel that I deserve to be here, and I feel that there are many more people who have probably worked harder than me and have received less. So rather, my question now becomes, Why out of all the people in the world, should I be so lucky as to be here and see these things? I don't know. But I am very happy here, and grateful to God, my family, and the rest who have sent me.