I thought I'd write the latest update to the blog by giving you some local color. These are a few favorite sayings of Nadia, our very well-loved housekeeper, whom we are incredibly lucky speaks English as well as she does, which is an asset we will never take for granted, and in no particular order, here they are:
- ‘There are too many many dustings!” --regarding relative dirtiness of something
- ‘You know me?’ --i.e. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ this phrase was a little off-putting when she used it the first couple of times I met her--my innate response was ‘not yet, lady’—until I figured what she meant
- ‘Miss Katie, I need you talk with me think’ translation: it is necessary that I ask you a question, the answer to which might require some mental effort on your part
- The substitution of the verb ‘sit down’ for ‘stay somewhere,’ e.g. in the sentence, ‘Jane’s family is going to go sit down in London/Sharm el Sheikh/ Mt. Everest/etc. for 5 days.’ In the Egyptian dialect, the same word is used for both meanings, so you can’t really blame her on that one
- ‘My father with me,’ my kitchen with me,’ ‘my clothes with me’…I’m not sure what is happening grammatically here, since she actually gets the English right but then adds something redundant on the end. Similarly, it’s not the way you make something possessive in Arabic, so…
- ‘That family has too many children’ or even ‘Mister Connor has too many holidays.’ Sounds like quite a strong opinion, but actually ‘too many’ and the morally neutral term ‘a lot’ are the same in her native tongue
- ‘People in Egypt crazy, baby.’ In response to any logistical snag
- ‘Sakkara, are you gonna work a poopoo [emphasis on the second poo], sweetie?’translation: the cat is about to take a dump.
