the opposite of even?

With as many as twelve thousand workers on-site, the Sidra Medical Research Center is a multicultural stew. English is the official language of the jobsite but for roughly 90% of the workforce their English language skills would not qualify as a second language.

We all know effective communication is essential to the success of any project. So one of the really fun but challenging aspects of working in Doha is understanding the English spoken with the many different accents.  Arabic, Farsi, Hindi plus two other Indian dialects, two Pakistani dialects, Nepalese, Tagalong, Indonesian, Italian, French, German, Irish, Canadian, Brits, Australian and the Scotch is a good start to the list.

We work directly with a delightful group of youngsters in their late twenties to early thirties.  They are three Lebanese, two Egyptians plus an Indian and a Philipino. And what we have found is that all these young folks have the basic, “see Dick and Jane play” language skills but it's the nuances, the double meanings of some words that leave them mystified.

Anyway during one of our seemingly endless meetings a really strange bit of conflicting information was noted by my co-worker, Leah Bauer who said, “oh, that’s odd”. As I looked around the table all I saw was blank, confused faces. Finally Ibrahim said, “what you mean odd?” You mean opposite of even?

Dusty