...speak in Arabic!

It’s been hard to get another entry up here because I have so much class during the days I am in school at Sidi Bou Said. I have decided to take both the beginning standard Arabic class (beginning Fuus’ha) as well as sit in on as much of the colloquial Tunisian Arabic (called Derja, not to be confused with the island of Djerba). That means that on Mondays I have upwards of our hours of Arabic straight, another four on Wednesday, and six hours on Thursday. I guess we’ll see how long I can possibly keep this up. I simply can’t choose because it is so important that I improve my Derja so I can communicate more than “how are you,” “this is delicious,” and “I am going to school” to my family here. On the other hand though, it is equally important that I start Fuus’ha because I really would like to continue Arabic when I return to the United States; it would be a shame to have to leave everything I learn here and hope to meet Tunisians back home to talk with. I couldn’t talk to Algerians, Egyptians, or Moroccans (definitely not!) with Tunisian Arabic. Oh course the two, colloquial and standard, share much in common but pronunciations, common usages, and idioms are sometimes quite different. Not to mention very place and age-specific slang! You can get pretty far here with a few basic terms. After almost two weeks, I think I am qualified to teach just a few of the basics you hear everywhere. It’s always exciting to start hearing the words you are learning as soon as you walk out of the classroom and onto the street or the crowded bus.

The first words — Asalama (pronounced a salema) and Bisalama (pronounced bi salema)
Meaning hello and good bye, these two are used for all ages and most times of day although a dozen variations of good morning are common place and one for good night.

The next most important — Shwaya-shway(a) (pronounced as written)
This word is incredibly flexible and can be used in practically all situations. It can mean everything from slower, slowly, and slow down to small, a little bit, and little by little. The word gets thrown around a lot in my house, typically in reference to my little six-yea-old nefew, Skander, for whom shway or shwaya-shwaya means “chill out!” Today on this bus the man on the bus who stamps tickets urges us to move towards the front “swaya shwaya!” It’s perfect for explaining that I am learning Arabic little-by-little or that I only know a bit so far.

Shwaya-shwaya fits nicely in a language that seems replete with words that repeat.
Just a few I know so far:
mushmush — “apricot” (not to be confused with mush mushkla which means “no problem” and “your welcome”)
tool tool — “straight” as in “go straight ahead”
kif kif — “the same” or “either way”
There are a bunch more I’ve heard. I’ve been sort of collecting them.
Barsha, Barsha is good too, but we are getting there.

The next makes you sound cool no matter how little Arabic you know — mush normal (pronounced as written)
Mush normal is another wonderful all-purpose word that is just as flexible as shwaya-shwaya. It literally means “not normal” but takes on specific meaning through inflection, tone of voice, hand gestures, and facial expressions, which are extremely important in speaking Arabic in general. If you say your day was mush normal in an exasperated tone, you had a horrible day. If you say your day was mush normal in an upbeat voice, you had an extraordinarily wonderful day. A weird looking, person or fruit might be mush normal, strikingly gorgeous or rotting in the refrigerator. This word needs further exploration I think to see if I can exhaust the possibilities.

Another really important one is Barsha or Barsha Barsha.
Barsha simply means "a lot" but is used all the time in Tunisian dialect. No one uses Barsha besides the Tunisians so it's appreciated when Americans learn and use it. Most commonly I use it as an intenisfier for "benina" (delicious).

That was Tunisian Arabic 101 there. I will add more great words as they come.

My host mom has been really good so far at explaining things super slowly (shwaya-shwaya) for me and pointing at lots of things in the house and telling me their Arabic, and sometimes French, names.

This evening I helped her get started on some sort of fruit drink that we are bringing to Toney and Sarah’s house tomorrow night in celebration of the birth of Sarah’s new baby sister. She was born just three days ago! I am not sure I have ever seen a baby that young before! Sarah was so excite to hear that her mother was about to give birth just a week after she moved in; she is glad to have the baby around and absolutely loves little kids. Anyway, to make this fruit drink we cooked peaches (Khookh), strawberries (fraise), fresh and frozen lemon juice, and sugar in several pots on the stove. Everything came out of frozen bags from the ice chest upstairs. My mom was also heating fresh milk, not from the box, which I think we are adding tomorrow. I sometimes get a little worried about how food seems to sit around here, but I have yet to get sick so I guess all is well. My family keeps most things in Tupperware in the fridge for easy re-heating, but often things are left without lids like pieces of cooked chicken and sometimes salads. The students were originally told not to eat cheeses and fresh fruit but I’ve been eating both since the day we got here and have been fine. I have avoided things I can’t peel and fresh milk so far.

Some day soon my mom is going to teach me how to make Leblebi (another word on repeat) and harissa, which she is overjoyed that I love.