” Why attempt to fight crime , if you cant read danger and know its location” by my friend Jassim.Illiteracy is pain when it comes to actual work….
I was just on my way home from a friends house in jabriya. When i came across Home Security bus. It was the won with heavily armed security guards. When i say heavily in kuwait it just means a flashlight probably. They waved for me to stop by them. I signaled put the hazard lights on and parked on the side of that bridge that links surra to jabriya. I got out and was confused at first i thought they needed some help cause they were all yelling at eachother . one thing was going through my head “some thing had happened to a security van which means bad news.” So the indian and the persian men in security suits hurtled to me and the persian dude which i think was the driver pulled up this A4 sized paper and asking very quickly to read it. I asked why “laish tabeeni agraa 9a7ee” “shfeek” . Thats when the guy said theres a house thayve been sent to look acheck on cause the alarm went off and there the night shift so they had to be there pronto . So i asked him why does he want me to read it he just kept asking me to read it. Now i could have just read it easily but given the fact im in kuwait and its 5am theres nothing to do. I started messing with him. I told him i wasnt gonna read it unless he told my why. “mara& agolik ilaa lam itgoleely laish tabeeni agraalik il war8a intaa igraa, ana 3abalee 9ayra salfa shfeek ” Thats when he told me that they both cant read arabic and they need to get to the house or they will loose there jobs. So i read it . All i saw was big fat smile acompannied by an adrenaline rush that made them both run to there silver van with orange lights looking back at me with relaxed smirks and quick thumbs up as they were driving away.
Illiteracy =Ignorance. I think since these immigrants of all ethnicites that cant read arabic should enter ASl (arabic second language). More importantly the security companies especially the well respected ones that have been known for there safty should pay better attention to their emoployees and there needs . This can happen to any type of business in Kuwait .
Personally think that these immigrants in there country the effect of illitreacy would be gentics. Siblings of illiterate people are more likely to be illiterate than those people who are not.We must encourage our immigrants to complete their education here because you are never to old to learn somthing new, because thus you will never know what great things happen from small self improving acts.
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Thankyou,
yes jassim , you couldent have said it better . Straight to the point. Love the Boldness.
Cheers,
Bader
Hello people
, i like your post Bader because this proves two things
#1 you guys are wrong
#2 the Security company are after the money rather than safety
the company itself is bad because they should provide instructions in English based on the workers since there immigrants and all.
to all of those people who do not understand Arabic, its okay English is an international language, its not a mandatory for a job in Kuwait to learn Arabic but it is important that you can read and speak English.
thank you everyone for ur comments. i am glad you guys found it to be entertaining and funny ;p
cheers.
Different people have different skills, as some of the Asian stays for three month and could speak Arabic, such as our drivers
.
But each company have to provide training as we arabic is our first language.
Thank you for your comment
Greetings, Your post is an interesting vignette in a multi-cultural world and it is rather funny. I agree with you that learning the language of the place where you are working is important; however, as someone who spent 6 months learning Arabic (Modern Standard) before I came to Kuwait who is married someone who speaks Arabic fluently– In fact he was consistently told by Kuwaitis that he spoke Arabic better than they did, I found it hard to speak Arabic in Kuwait. In part because of the amount of English spoken and in part because what I learned and what my husband learned and what my kids learned in school is Modern Standard Arabic. Even Kuwaitis spoke English or a form of English with each other. You are absolutely right that security company should have had a requirement that their workers at least be able to read Arabic instructions. But your story is a truly funny story in a cross cultural world.
You are so true, unfortunately, expats are coming to Kuwait and working in Kuwait without learning any arabic, and arabic expats when goes to non-arabic country they learn their language because they don’t speak english. This is not right, who ever goes anywhere should learn the language if they are expats, we are not suppose to communicate with them in english, they should learn arabic because they are living and working in an arabic country.