Along with the women in our reading and writing class, I've been learning to read and write Dari. Four days a week we meet and spend an hour with little blackboards on our laps, pouring over our primer, playing Memory-like games for the first time in our collective lives. Children and neighbors pop in and out.
There's a lady who can already read the Koran (in the Arabic of 1,400 years ago, of course), so she's the best of all. The lady who went up to third grade, she's next best. And then there are three more of us. I'm a painfully slow reader. It's not painful for me, it's painful for my classmates and instructor who rarely let me sound out an entire sentence by myself.
Well, it's a little painful for me since there are a number letters that look the same except for one, two, or three dots above or below which indicate if it's an n, t, b, p, or one of the four s's. But I'm a good speller and have been using my fine motor writing skills for 22 years. The other two ladies, on the other hand, can read proficiently (knowing the language helps) but have the dickens of a time sounding things out and writing them down.
In Dari there is a set of opposites: smart and lazy. Either you are a smart student or you are a lazy student. I don't know where that leaves being stupid or industrious. I don't know where that leaves me.
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4 comments:
God's will at the Tower of Babel certainly has given us some interesting means of communication! (Your comments bring back fond memories of my host mother "trying" to teach me Hirigana.) I have every confidence in you that you will get it!
Keep at it, Sweetie! You have to have the worst of it behind you! Plus we are praying....
Love,
Mother
I have students at school who are BOTH smart AND lazy. Where does that leave them as balanced opposites? Tower of Babel is balanced by Day of Pentecost--language given in judgement, language given in blessing. You are filled with the gift of the Day of Pentecost, his presence. And I'm sure you are a blessing and a gift to you classmates, just as we've been asking all along.
I must agree with Steven, as most of my freshmen were typically smart and lazy. I remember the HNNH of old being a rather bright and industrious student, so I'm sure you're still that!
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