Score One For Me!

When I came back from Tunisia, gleefully sharing with friends how I had been mistaken for Lebanese, and believed when described as Shami, most responded with Bravo! and "See, your Arabic has gotten better." These congratulations were tempered with letting me know that this could never happen in Syria. This I understand - it's like how I keep meeting Indians and one Omani and thinking they're British because of the accent, but a British person would probably recognize the subtle differences (or perhaps not so subtle to them) between a person taught British-accented English and the real thing.

But yesterday, at an electronics store, a young boy and his father were hanging out while I asked the clerk for something. The father asked his son if he thought the foreigner's Arabic was good, and the kid stared at me, wide-eyed, saying, "You're not Arab?"

Alright, so the kid may be not yet versed in the ways of the world, and his father might have immediately identified my foreigness, but I'm still chalking it to my side. The count, if you're wondering, is 12 me - 2,456 Arabic. I'm closing the gap.