Volleyball and Love in Hebrew in Arabic
Today Yamini and I hiked to the little mountain and I took pictures then we went back to campus for a volleyball game with the ninth graders. When the idea was suggested I at first instinctively planned to decline. First, Yamini was teaching orchestra during that time so I could use her computer to write and study my Hindi course (weird how excited I get about that, Lekin Hindi bahut accha hei aur mujhe Hindi pad rahi hun pasand hei (but Hindi is very good and I like studying it ) –clearly my sentences are still elementary, but I’m getting better, and it makes good conversations). One of my favorite boys, whom we’ve nicknamed Cool Khan, saw me studying the other day and said “teachuh, you know Indian language?” this was in the same activity that we wrote Love in as many languages as possible and the students ran around on a scavenger hunt looking for each of us. Since I am the famous Jew or “Yu”, as Juan from Peru calls me, I represented Hebrew, but since I didn’t know the word we had to have a late-night internet session to find out. Juan helped me and through a few sites, and some pronounciation help from Ellyn, we found out the AHAVA means love, and comes from two words combined – that for giving and that for love, because love is supposed to be generous. Anyway, I sat in the shade with my poster, complete with the Israeli flag (well a Star of David made from medical tape on a blue background) and my Hebrew letters. The kids were surprised that Hebrew is read from right to left.
(So, since this entry is one big tangent, I’ll discuss being the YU of the group). It’s funny and slightly disconcerting all the stereotypes that are coming out, not necessarily held by members of the group, but more likely by their countrymen. For example, one student from Brazil said “wow, you’re Jewish” and then later started talking about the money-lender from the Merchant of Venice, his greed etc. She seemed genuinely interested to know that Jews went into banking when excluded from other industries, but I’m not sure if she really things we’re all as Shakespeare portrayed. The mere fact that people were so surprised that I’m Jewish is slightly ofputting, for example, one student from Singapore said “I didn’t know you were Jewish” There are two Chinese Muslims in ou group, and I suppose people had the same reaction to them, but I don’t think either is that exciting,
Anyway, it’s interesting to be representative of a religion/culture that I don’t identify with that strongly in some respects. Lest I give the wrong impression, the people here are some of the most open and accepting, but many of them come from countries with highly segregated, stratified and closed societies (there I go classifying, some of them would agree, others wouldn’t), so hopefully I can give them a good impression of Jus, even though I don’t speak Ju talk (“it’s Hebrew Juan, no not Ebrew” but okay). When we were searching for the word Love, Juan turned his computer into Hebrew characters and helped me identify the correct letters.
Okay, eventually I’ll get back to the volleyball story, but first, as long as I’m still discussing languages, somehow Nik from China got me to find out how to say and write “love” in Arabic for his project. The problem, is that there are apparently thousands of ways to say “I love you” in Arabic, and anyway, we didn’t want a romantic “love” (the difference between Prema and Pyar. Pyar = Bollywood). Anyway, finally we settled on Hub, which one friend, who’d had an Egyptian boyfriend confirmed probably is not really platonic, but it would have to do.
Okay back to the volley ball story. So, at first I didn’t want to play, but then realized I’m not here to learn Hindi and, even though I’m terrible at volleyball (the other reason I didn’t want to play) it might be fun and a good chance to meet the kids on a different level. So I played. And I sucked, and I hated it – okay I wasn’t terrible, I maybe hit one over the net in my 4 tries, but it felt so oppressive – everyone watching. I was just tense and despite telling myself that it was a super low-key game in I didn’t have to be good, I knew I couldn’t really relax. All sorts of highschool sports drama came back. So I left and joined two boys playing Horse, well not really but close. Then we played 2 on 2 basketball, then it moved to 5s. I HAD SO MUCH FUN! Besides walking about 6 kms/day and a few hikes I haven’t really gotten any excercize in a month, but if felt great. I took a lot of shots, missed a lot, but made a lot too. The interesting thing, after the entry I wrote about girls not playing soccer, was that no one seemed to care if i was a guy or notl. Once this really big boy whom we’ve nickname Gulabi (he often wears a pink shirt, and in Hindi Gulabi means pink, but Gulab Jamun is a round sweet, so it’s got some double meaning) bumbed into me and apologized profusely, but after that we all played on an equal ground. This game differed from all others I’ve played because no one ever called for the ball – they would get open, sure, and maybe wave, but the only call I heard consistently was “Shoot, shoot shoot.” When I made a shot they would AHH (Thai is very tonal, so it’s hard to describe, but basically a sort of niiicccccccccce sound) but, unlike boys in the US it wasn’t a “wowww, the a girl scored on you, aren’t you embarrassed?” Granted, they didn’t play any sort of man to man defense, so it was all lose and fun. Anyway, I hope to play more, but we often have lectures in the afternoons.
(After playing with them a bit more and re-reading this entry i have to modify it a bit — they’re still boys. Another institute student who had never played much b-ball joined a game and they would pass it to her on purpose to watch her uncoordinated attempts to shoot, then howl in thai. Still, she had fun and seemed oblivious to their jokes, and they joked with each other too, but i was embarrassed for her).
Tags: Thailand, Travel
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