Married to a Bedouin Quotes

“My coup came years later in the narrow Italian Hospital street in Amman, where the balconies are so crowded with second-hand clothes that they seem to touch. I was back in western clothes, once again a foreigner. A young trader with a barrowful of socks was calling out, ‘Joozeen jerabat ib dinar.’ When he saw me glance at the barrow, he called out in English, doubling the price, ‘Two pairs of socks; two dinars.’ This attracted more attention so there was quite an audience as I replied, not missing a beat, ‘Ya’ani, itha bishtiree bil arabi ahsen li.’ (So if I buy them in Arabic I’m better off). Even the barrow boy laughed and I felt quite at home.   Opposite”
― Marguerite Van Geldermalsen, Married To A Bedouin

“I still only knew a few words of Arabic. I couldn’t really imagine learning the language. Spoken, it sounded just like the written script appeared - musical and flowing but totally incomprehensible, and so I surprised myself when I correctly recognised sounds that bubbled up. Mabsoot (happy) was one of my very earliest words because everyone always asked me if I was. I had a bigger problem with the words for brother-in-law and donkey. They sounded the same: hamar, I wrote in my memory for both of them. I tried to hear the difference, and I tried again when I learned there were three different ‘h’ sounds. I talked about my brothers-in-law as ‘Mohammad’s brothers’ or as Salem or Ibraheem, and I tried not to use the word for donkey in case I called it a brother-in-law. This was a real problem later when we had our own donkey and we let it off to graze and I had to walk the hills looking for it, asking if anyone had seen it. It was years before I found out that the difference was nothing to do with the ‘h’ at all, but in the roll of the final ‘r’, and brother-in-law didn’t have one. He was a hamaa.   Every”
― Marguerite Van Geldermalsen, Married To A Bedouin