When I was in Lebanon few years ago. I was sitting at my uncle’s house when a neighbour(an elderly lady) dropped by for a finjan ahwi(a cup of coffee)
Neighbour: men ween into ya 7abibti, sme3et inik jai min Canada.(I heard you came from Canada)
Me: aa (aha)
Neighbour: bte3rafi flan ibn flan? Kan jarna, wisa 3ayesh becanada(do you know so and so, the son of so and so? He lives in Canada)
Me: la wala ya khalto ma ba3rafo, ween 3ayesh becanada?(no I do not know him, which part of Canada does he live in?)
Neighbour: ma ba3raf ween, bas ya3ni saken nawa7eekom.(I do not know, but he lives there)
Me: Canada kteer kberi ya khalto, wfeeha 3arab kteer, ma ba3rafhom kolhom. (Canada is a very big country, and there are lots of Arabs, I do not know them all)
Neighbour: Gareeb (strange)
She finished her coffee and left thinking sho had, ma3'ool ma bti3rafo?.
It is so funny how she expected me to know someone just because he lives in Canada. Really she lives in a camp the size of my apartment complex. Does she know every single person there?? Some times people surprise you with their questions and comments.
She probably just came by to ask me this question :o) old people are so cute sometimes:)
8 comments:
maskeeneh this old lady, she has no idea how big Canada is...and even if you tried to tell her she would not comprehend it!!
Maybe you should do one of those ads "I AM CANADIAN" , to here next time
Is the North of Canada is called Irbid as well? Or there is no North in Canada?
One thing that works well for me, is translating distance with travel time. Something like...
Someone lives 2 hours driving
Or someone lives 7 hours by plane..= very far
You can try that :)
7aram il2ar2oosheh, but it's funny.
she is so cute and kind...and it seems she is sociable o ma3sharaniyeh, it's the same if you studied in X university and how it comes if you don't know Y & X ..even if there are 10.000 students there :) cool.
once our neibghours in Jordan sent a bag to their relatives in the states. they only lived an hour away driving. once I got there, and they opened the bag, I almost fell to the floor. it had hair dye, coffee, and Banadol. (the equivalent of Advil). my point is some people back home think the U.S. or Canada, are just as big as Lebanon or Jordan but without the goods of Dikkanit 7anna (el sakran)
tayeb ya khalto ele sa7beh safarat mn kam saneh 3ala Canada i bardi sakneh nawa7eekom bte3rafeeha :d LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL .. that was so cute
summer yeh she would not have understood..i wish i had an atlas with me..:)
firas...the north pole is in northern canada...brrrr ...bas i think you are right, they do call it irbid in arabic:)
qwaider, whenever i talk to someone from the mideast they tell me o this place is far , it is a 1hr drive...yeh to us a 1hr drive is nothing...i used to drive 2hrs to get to my work every single morning and evening..
7aki ela2ar2ooshi?? that is a new one.:o)
red rose..yeh she was cute afterwards..in an annoying way:)
globalaroma...that is funny..hair dye? one time friends sent 7 killo of coffee with my husband...his whole clothes smelled like coffee...and this is someone who lived in toronto with access to 1000 arabic stores to buy coffee from..
maisoush...o yeh i probably know who, canada is not that big..she is probably on few thousand miles away:)
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