Having completed his first semester of Arabic, Tim Hughes '19 indicated that he believes he has now acquired the necessary skills to join the Central Intelligence Agency. Emerging from his Arabic final exam yesterday, Hughes was seen repeatedly checking his texts, email, Facebook, and Tinder because, in his view, "you never know how or when they might contact you."

 

According to Hughes, Introductory Arabic has prepared him completely for life as an undercover CIA operative in the Middle East. "I've learned all the terrorist group names now. Apparently ISIS in Arabic is 'Daesh,' and al-Qaeda is actually pronounced 'AL-QAEDA,'" he told Satire V, saying "al-Qaeda" more loudly and slowly the second time to imply that he was pronouncing it more authentically.

 

"Also, did you know that Pakistan is actually pronounced 'Bakistan,' because they don't have the letter 'P' in Arabic?" he added, neglecting the fact that Arabic is not spoken in Pakistan. 

 

"I also know how to build the perfect cover," Hughes said, explaining that he had to describe his family in Arabic for his midterm assessment. "I said that I was from Wisconsin and had three sisters, but I lied! I'm actually from Michigan and have two sisters, and my professor had no idea." He added that his cover would be even stronger when "out in the field" in that he could not reveal his mission or divulge where he had come from, since he had not yet learned the past or future tenses.

 

When asked about whether his three months of introductory Arabic had given him any exposure to the region's culture, Hughes winked and replied, "Enough to fit in. Like, the professor mentioned that eating pork is forbidden in Islam, so I know that eating al-bacon, umm ... I mean laham al-khanzir, would totally blow my cover."

 

Hughes's Arabic professor expressed surprise at learning, during Hughes's oral exam on the subject of "summer plans," that he planned to spend next summer working undercover to investigate Iran's nuclear program, although she was unsure that his inadequate Arabic skills would be of much use in the Persian-speaking country. She described him as "that kid who wore a suit and dark glasses to every class, but still struggled to pronounce the 'qaaf' or 'ain' sounds and added 'al' to English words all the time."

 

She added, "I did get the sense that he might have been interested in security issues during the second week, when I asked people to name food they didn't like and he listed al-Shabaab and Vladimir Putin."

 

A spokesperson from the CIA denied having any intention of recruiting Hughes, but admits that the agency is looking to hire more Arabic speakers, as "Google Translate has recently been kind of glitchy."