The old city

It is early in the morning on the 11th of January and I am sitting in my hotel room in Sanaa, Yemen desperately trying to connect to a very weak WIFI signal coming from the lobby of the grimy Yemenia Airways affiliated hotel where I am stranded. Yesterday I attended a teachers conference in Jeddah. I spent the day enjoying presentations by various ESL instructors from across the Kingdom. So "how did you end up in Sanaa?" you might ask. As per usual, I let my urge to travel get the best of me. My students finished writing their final exams a few days ago. It was a particularly challenging quarter. Not only did I have 30 extroverted and demanding Saudi students to teach, I also had to tend to my various other administrative duties as well as work on a course I am taking online with the University of San Francisco. The decision to travel is never regrettable for me. The excitement quickly overwhelms any doubt I may have had. I have been an expat for nearly nine years. This is the way of life for me. I enjoyed my time in Jeddah but I knew that once I arrived back in Al Ahsa, all of my friends and colleagues would be long gone. I had an opportunity to travel to a country that I had wanted to visit for a very long time; a tiny country only two hours away from Jeddah by plane, but a world away in terms of economic development; an old Italian colony called Eritrea. I called a close Eritrean friend back in Al Ahsa and he told me not to worry, "Eritrea have good internet" he said. I love my good friend Okbai but he has been known to embellish in the past. While at the airport back in Jeddah I downloaded and saved as many of the required readings for my course as I could before my departure to Sanaa as a precautionary measure. This is not my first trip to Africa. It doesn't matter if the internet is fast; I was in Ethiopia a couple of months ago and the internet was surprisingly speedy but the power went out every 15 minutes; the two cancelled each other out. "Why the constant urge to travel?" you might ask. To put it simply, I love every aspect of travelling, especially communicating with people. As an ESL instructor I find ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) fascinating. However, my curiosities surrounding language aren't limited to English. I remember travelling to India a few years ago with a very close friend from Spain who also happens to be a very gifted linguist fluent in nearly seven languages. After searching for hours around a small town in the former Portuguese colony of Goa we were able to find two elderly Indian men who still spoke fluent Portuguese. I was in awe as I watched my friend converse;  the smiles on their faces were priceless. While living in Saudi Arabia I have become even more fascinated with World Englishes. When I first started working in the Kingdom I would try to speak as much Arabic as possible, but I found that everywhere I went, people were speaking to me in English. In the morning I would wake up and go downstairs to read the Arab News (one of the Saudi English dailies). "Good morning sir, I hope you slept well" said Raj, the Indian from Mumbai who worked the front desk. I would saunter across the street to grab my morning coffee: "lau samat sadi....." I was always cut off; "one large cappuccino, right sir? No sugar?" said the Andrew, from the Philippines. This was repeated everywhere I went. My Sudanese Pharmacist loved to talk politics with me. My South African colleague was always up for a good culinary debate. I fell in love with their World Englishes and I couldn't wait to travel to their countries to interact with more people like them. Well, there's no use trying to sort out this internet connection tonight. My flight leaves for Eritrea at 6 in the morning. Perhaps I will try again there. I have a feeling that more old-fashioned hand written journal entries are in store.