Never to Full for Ful

Today my Arabic class took a trip to Cairo's beautiful Al-Azhar Park. This place is honestly incredible - it's the greenest spot in the city, and it sits high enough that you have a view of all of Islamic Cairo. Apparently the area used to be a complete dump (as in literally filled with trash), but it has been utterly transformed. The juxtaposition between the garden and the rest of the city is also interesting - from the lush and manicured lawns of Al-Azhar, you can see only dusty yellowish-tan into the distance. The area immediately around the park is a mix of crumbling apartment buildings and historic sites, with minarets popping up every so often. In the distance, you can make out the skyscrapers and hotels downtown through the pollution and dust. I realize that "dusty yellowish-tan" and "crumbling apartment buildings" don't seem all that pretty, but somehow the combination of these with the palm trees and the shine of the Nile at night and the 1920s style buildings create Cairo's appeal and charm. Our time at the park itself was fun, and we got to meet other American students at Arab Academy. Most were very friendly, but as they were from other ACC schools, they weren't necessarily thrilled to meet a group of Duke students... I guess sports rivalries extend across continents also. Our teachers had brought us ful and tamaya sandwiches, which they of course offered us nonstop for the entire morning (typical Egyptian hospitality - "I'm full" is not an acceptable answer).

Tonight in my English class, we had a speaker who taught about the UNHCR and refugee determination procedures. It was heart-wrenching to hear about some of the negative experiences my students had had in Cairo, and most of the time I felt almost like an intruder on their struggle. I won't get into too many details here, but I wrote another post on the main DukeEngage blog (link to the right) that talks more about my impressions.

Another completely unrelated thing: I was thinking today about Arabic slang, and I realized that they have an absurd number of idioms that involve types of fruit. (I swear this was kind of relevant... I taught the phrase "apple of my eye" to my English class, which started the thought process). For example, Egyptians refer to a pretty girl as a "mouza," meaning "banana." I can't really go anywhere with my group from Duke without hearing "mouzas mouzas" muttered at least once. They also use the phrase "fi mishmish," meaning "in the apricot," to say "in your dreams" ... I'm not really sure what that's about. I also remember learning from a former TA at Duke that in Syria they use the word for watermelon ("bawtikh") to mean "stuff" ... again, not sure why. As crazy as these sound, I know English has odd expressions, some of which I've tried to explain to my students to varying degrees of success.