¿Usted habla árabe

One of the most surprising things about Colombia has been eating the most delicious Arabic food outside of the Middle East and my own kitchen. Colombia has a large population of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian descendants. I have met many people with Arabic names, for example, Fatima, Shadia, and Khalaf to name a few.
I was very excited to meet people of Arabic descent here and the first thing I would do when someone confirmed they were Arab was to start speaking Arabic. I would inevitably be met with a puzzled expression and the statement, "No habla, árabe, solo español." (I don't speak Arabic, only Spanish) I couldn't believe it. This is the first time in my life I am around Arabs who don't speak the language.
I did meet one person who spoke to me in my native tongue, an elderly gentlemen who was visiting his daughter. He immigrated to Colombia in the sixties and has been here for over 45 years. His daughter didn't speak Arabic, but can cook some of the best Lebanese food this side of the Sinai. It was funny, he spoke primarily Arabic with some Spanish thrown in. Sparabic, if you will.
Having grown up in the northeast of the U.S. during the seventies and eighties, every single person I knew who came from the Middle East spoke Arabic. Even if we didn't know how to read and write the language, our parents only spoke in Arabic to us at home. I realized that here the Arabs are similar to the Italians I grew up with, they may not have spoken Italian, but they still cooked phenomenal food and felt close to their heritage.
There are Arab restaurants in Cartagena the same way there are pizzerias all over New York City. I have also seen many people with tattoos of their names or phrases in Arabic, on their wrists or arms. At first, I was sure those who tattooed the language on their bodies surely spoke said language, but I was wrong. I finally don't ask people anymore if they speak Arabic. I now let people know that I speak Arabic and I figure the person who knows how to communicate that way will talk first.