The State of Arabic

I walked into a little street I had never walked before and right away, treasures left and right

My daughter, like quite a few of her classmates, hardly ever speaks Arabic. The home environment is English, and outside with friends or family, it is either English, or French. TV and radio is in English, books, the Internet, sports activities and what else, all English here in our neighborhood, and very little Arabic is ever spoken around her. It just shows how cosmopolitan this town is. Or how pathetic the integration of my family is. 

Anyway, as a result, the classical Arabic taught at school, pretty much Chinese to even Arabic speaking students, has held little interest for my daughter. Combined with the fact that the program is not the most modern in the world, and parents (that be us)  that do not really emphasize or help out her with her studies, we now have a child that can read Arabic, but has no clue as to what she is reading. It is literally Chinese to her. 

Since this year is the official exam year for the Arabic Brevet, I have to move her officially out of the Arabic program and into the American program. Apparently it is something I was supposed to do when she entered school, but apparently I had not done this, according to her school.

I was pretty sure I HAD done this, but it turned out this was for my son. So I will have to do this again. 

Railroad tracks in the middle of town

In order to accomplish this, I have a number of papers that I need to submit to the Ministry of Education. Exactly what I need, is not quite clear, because the English button on the homepage of the ministry does not work.

This does not altogether surprise me, as I have quite a lot of experience with the workings of this particular ministry. 
I asked around, and a friend supplied me with another link of this ministry, which you cannot find on the home page itself. On this page is a link to ‘documents needed’, but when you click on it, you get this, so that speaks for itself.

Anyway, I asked around, and I thought I had pretty much everything I needed to make this a one-time trip in order to organize the paperwork.

So, this morning, all prepared and ready, I drove to the ministry of Higher Education.

And then they were closed. 

Arabic language lessons

It seems they do not work on Saturdays anymore. They work Mondays to Fridays,  8:30 to 3:30.  Which is when I am working too. 

The saga will have to be continued at a later date.