#@%! and phone calls

The first phone call I received back in Egypt was from Farek, my taxi driver friend. I had called him at 6:30am when I touched down at Cairo International, knowing that he sometimes works all-day shifts at the airport. I had actually woken him up, apologized, and told him that we should catch up sometime when he was awake.

He called back a few hours later. With customary enthusiasm, he sang out:

"Halllllo Aleesa! How is everything? How is your treeeb?" at 300 decibels into my ear.

"My treeeb to Assubyia was gooot!" I sang back in Egyptian English...yes, my trip to Ethiopia was good! 

"Aleesa, I have a question for you. My wife wants to know a word in English."

Now, Farek and his wife both come from pretty conservative, lower class backgrounds. His wife is a sweet, veiled woman--but has a bit of checkered background, in that she once worked at Hard Rock cafe, den of vice and alcohol that it is. 

The point, though, is that she has incredible and idiomatic English. I met her just once, at their wedding, where she served us endless places of spicy meat kofta, threw both Nod and I into a dance circle in the street, and let me put henna on the palms of my hands.

I hear a bit of shuffling in the background, and Heba comes onto the line. I was a little nervous that she would reprimand me for calling her husband at 6:30 in the morning--after all, I'm not quite sure what cultural protocol is in this kind of situation.

"Hello!" Rang out a cheerful, bright voice on the other line.

"Um, Hi, Heba! How are you?

"Great! I have a question--it's about a word I saw on the internet." 

I gulped. Deep breath. 

"Um, sure, what word is that?"

"What does 'Fricking' mean?"

Great. Here's a pious, veiled woman, asking me what "Fricking" means after I've been in the country for a whole 2 hours.

"Um..." I faltered. "Well, it's kind of like a swear word." I wasn't even sure if she knew what "swear word" meant.

"Oh, is it like *@!$# ?" she asked innocently.

"Actually, yes! It's exactly like that."

"I saw the sentence 'You have no fricking idea.' So is that like saying 'You have no *@!$-ing idea'?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Thank you!" 

I hung up the phone, a bit baffled. Welcome to Egypt! Land of constant surprises and paradoxes...