The surprise lion birthday cake my housemate Bilal gave me on the day in question
I had a birthday - I'd like to thank all those who sent their loving (or not - Jonny Allsopp) greetings from the UK. It was Sunday night rather than Monday that was designated for the great day of celebration since it also coincided with Islamic New Year (and another holiday, who says we have a hard time?!). Perhaps the night is best expressed by one remark made about last night's shenanigans (more on this later): "oh that place looks so nice, we could have another romantic girls night out like we did for Matt's birthday" - or words to that effect. I was accompanied on Sunday night by my "sparklers" - self-defined I assure you - Clara, Lydia and Claire. The girls were incredibly disappointed when, having requested "the birthday song" from the resident DJ, we were treated to a different version of the sometimes up to 3 minute classic we have become accustomed to in cafés. All lights were turned out and we were handed 3 lit sparklers to a souped up dub-remix of happy birthday over the speakers. I was just thankful that it wasn't this. I must admit that previous allusions to the somewhat skewed nature of the gender balance in my friendship group (previously stated as 1:5:0:0:0) remain to be the case and thus I find myself occasionally exposed to remarks like "Matt, for the 20 seconds when you went into that shop we got hit on three times by creepy Arab men!". I can't thank the girls enough for making the celebrations around my birthday such an enjoyable experience and I couldn't have wished for a better group of friends to have around over these few months - thanks for the Jordanian monopoly too, I'm sure it's going make the evenings fly by - I wonder if the banker is allowed to refuse to give change for any denomination above a 5...(if I haven't already written about this it's definitely on the list).
Fingers crossed.
Turning to linguistic matters, for such is our calling out here in the cradle of civilisation, the arabic language is full of what can best be described as "call and response" expressions. These can occur at such junctures as - general greetings (of course), upon stepping out of the shower, having had a haircut, giving someone a cup of tea, giving someone some food, wishing someone a happy birthday (which is why I this topic particularly appealed this week), the Arabic equivalent of bless you/hope you're OK post personal health microcrisis, stopping a taxi/bus/moving vehicle over which you have no control and sometimes getting as general as in the context of someone about to or currently engaged in doing something related to work or a type of service/study. I'm sorry, but you don't get much more general than that...
Rest assured that I don't intend to do anything so mundane as to list these various expressions - if you want to know them there are various websites/people who can tell you all about them and otherwise I can't imagine anyone being interested in the specific wording. One of our teachers now begins every lesson with a short chant exchange with the class which has become progressively less and less enthusiastic as time has gone by. However, these expressions are important to the fabric of Arabic conversation, like little linguistic lamps around which congregate the moths of directionless conversation (I thought of lighthouses and ships but decided that it hardly fit the desired scale of the metaphor). The great/terrible moment comes when a suitably garbled and mostly unrecognisable phrase trips off the tongue of the nearest native speaker and you suddenly realise that you don't know all the expressions after all. S**t. What do you say? There's clearly a response enshrined in colloquial lore that is the one and only acceptable answer. You could guess? The fact that the majority of the expressions actually have nothing to do with their literal meaning is but a minor crease in the otherwise pristine shirt of linguistic propriety (don't really know why tonight is a metaphor night - but hey). So you eventually come out with a rather timid "...sshhukran?" (thank you). Whenever our media teacher encounters this she immediately responds with a(n increasingly familiar) discourse about how if you're from Britain then of course you're too interested in your own culture to care about the proper responses in Arabic. Although it is clearly meant as a joke, the simple fact is - if you haven't been taught it before or haven't had reason to encounter it, then I'm afraid that you're [insert culturally appropriate expletive here].
naim-aaaahh
Yesterday evening, 5 of us went to see the British offering to the European Film Festival. I assure you, you are as surprised as we were to find that the European (if you still know what that adjective means and can still see after the red mist that has just flashed before your eyes) event was being hosted in one of the principal capital cities of the Middle East. Amidst mutterings - scrap that - typically British rather loud thoughts of irony as an important British cultural representative introduced the film and expounded upon the amazing experience that working with this European festival was and "how much they were looking forward to next year". Not a titter. I wonder how awkward the next two festivals will be as the reality of brexit begins to set in even more. We also found a lovely bar (below) to do a final bit of birthday celebrating before the weekend got started.
Tonight we are going to see North Korea play in the Under-17 Women's FIFA World Cup. Despite sounding like the opening line to rather an elaborate joke, it is actually true. I'll try and get one of the others to write something about it so you don't have to read any more of my blathering. Thanks again for all the birthday wishes, can't wait to see all of you once we get home at Christmas.
!الله يعتيك العافية
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