Thursday, March 12, 2009

i hate talking to Libya via phone, i get all flustered and i have no idea what to say to people after sallam and how are you and besides there is only so many times that a person can say 'how are you' by the 10th time you just want to scream.


i guess not living in Libya makes it hard to find a subject to talk to people about, people who you haven't spent 24 hours with never mind a life time, what on earth can one say?


so I've never really loved the prospect of having to call on Eid, bereavements, any occasions where it meant calling family back home because i guess the sheer embarrassment kills me.


plus why is it that us Libyan and Arabs per say exaggerate every things to the max...for some one like myself who has lived all her life in the UK and who can speak 2 languages, and i can safely say that my Arabic is not bad hamdullilah i felt that i was relatively confident to begin with until a few years down the line when Aunt came to visit, she informed me that another Aunt of mine has been saying that my Arabic accent was very cute!

cute! how so i asked

to which she responds that apparently according to her whenever i speak to her on the phone i speak baby Arabic!!!!!

what??????????????

basically like this: Ass alamu allykum, kef il hal, kef hal ik ya khwalah??

extreme exaggeration.

lets just say that did nothing for my confidence.

now I'm petrified of speaking to anyone back 'home', i have images of them rolling around laughing at me when i speak to them.

it doesn't help being married either as i now have to speak to in laws, my god!!!

its actually really funny to watch, i pace around the room similar to a man waiting for his first child to be born, i find myself walking through out the flat, sitting a few seconds here and there and i can only breath properly after i hand the phone back to my husband.

the latest incident was when we called to say congratulations to his brother for the birth of his new baby daughter.

my husband was speaking to his brother then all of a sudden i found the phone attached to my ear, my heart was racing like a horse in a race.

the conversation went something like this:

me: sallamu allikum

brother in law: wallaykum sallam

me: i generally asked about his wife's health and his and the usual stuff you say..

he replied the usual answers.

me: inshallah itrabah fee izik

he thanked me and said inshallah the same for me soon.

then i did the mistake of continuing the conversation instead of ending it

me: shin samitooha? (what did you name her)

him: Aseel

me: mashallah, isim ijanin (beautiful name)

him: you think so?

me: (cant believe I'm having a conversation) yes of course, its a change to the usual names that every Libyan seems to choose

him: like what?

me: oh you know, Aisha, khadijah (Libyans tend to pronounce these beautiful names as 3esha, khdijah missing parts of the 7uruf- letters).

silence and then laughter.

my husband was looking at me with a smirk on his face, then whispers to me 'sondes have you forgotten, my mums name is Aisha and my sisters name is khadijah'.

oh the shock and horror..

then i started digging a hole for myself by saying to my brother in law that the old names are always the best balhh blahh, he was still laughing.

i gave the phone back to my hubby and buried myself in humiliation.

i hate phoning Libya...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL OMGGG i can soo relate 110% to what your saying I HATEE calling libya there is absolutely nothing for me to say after hello how are you hows the rest of the family thats it!!! And my arabic is far from perfect so knowing my family in libya (from past experience when i went on holiday)they probably have a little laugh at how i pronounced certain words and stuff after hehehe :)

Anonymous said...

hahahahahahahaaaaaaa
i do feel your feeling,but believe me i am sure that your arabic isn`t as perfect as your english..that is why the libyans can pick up who speak arabic with english accent..but don`t wory at least u speak 2 languages.
god bless u sister.

PH said...

Overlooking your outburst at the beginning of the post; you really can't blame them for laughing at you ? you are a tempting easy tease :P.

salaam

lostkitty said...

lol typical :-)

Anonymous said...

Cof here!

Nice one WAF, Shukran

( how can I send you an important private message? )
let me know on my page plz!

Anonymous said...

LMAO. . But yeh I know exactly how you feel when you have to call back home. . I don't like talking either cos you run out of things to say apart from asking how are you ten million times and then at the end sayin you should come visit soon or whatever. .

white african said...

anon, from my own experinces my family have more than little laughs at my expense lol.

libyan woman :0) although my arabic is not as perfect as those who have lived in libya all their life, i think i still speak reasonably well, and i actually dont speak arabic with an english accent (though sometimes i would like to as they expect it)far from it, they laugh at me because i have picked up so many different arabic accents 'mixing syrian, with iraqi with a hint of egyptian (due to mixing with other arabs) then adding a dose of the origional libyan :)(i guess it is funny, but libyans do exagerate alot)

ph lol, i guess your right :)

tahnia frog

cof, no problemo

red trials and tribulations eh?

Anonymous said...

I detest libya, the people, the culture, the climate, EVERYTHING. It has been the worst experience of my life.

Shatwan said...

haha i know what you mean,
i get exactly the same feeling taking to my dad :S