Abu Nateem

I go walking around haritna, our quarter of the neighborhood, with my Arabic mom and sisters. It's very refreshing. We always talk about the neighbors, and the weather, and say hello to the people we pass.

The other night, we went to Abu Nateem's store. Okay, so you can have some idea what harti is like...there are old apartment buidings, new apartment buildings, small stores called dukan, plural dakakeen, scattered randomly, some blocks with nothing but grass, and some blocks with "farms" growing. Hommous, etc.

Abu Nateem has a farm somewhere in the Irbid area, but he brings his stuff to this run down shack at one of the blocks with nothing but grass and hommous growing around it. I'm pretty sure the land around the shack is not his only "farm", but then again...you never know. The shack consists of random pieces of metal, rugs, and plywood tacked together to make a building.

"Does he LIVE there?" I asked my arabic mom, upon seeing it for the first time.
"No no no! Of course not, that's just his store."

There are people who live in tents by the side of the road here. There are people who don't even have houses. If was a real possibility that it could have been his house.

There are people in the States who live in very poor conditions, too. The difference is that I've never really been exposed to them back home.

Abu Nateem is about a thousand years old. He's a tiny man with a wrinkled, tan face and white hair. He wears the traditional Islamic dress-type thing, and a black and white hutta. He's amazing.

Fi a'anduk bazalla?
Eih?
FI...A'ANDUK...BAZALLA?
Na'am, na'am, fi a'andi batalla. Kam kilo biddik?
A'ashara, lo sama7t.
A'atara? Kam ita'a? Bateeblak bookra batalla kman!

Do you have any beans?
Wha??
DO YOU HAVE ANY BEANS?
Yeth, yeth, we have beanth. How many kiloth do you want?
Ten, please.
Ten? What time ith it? Tomorrow, I can get you thome more.

He's become a regular joke in our house, one of my dearest memories of Irbid. (His real name is Abu Naseem).

PS
Arabic may be hard, but I can succeed.