Cribbage on the Nile
We’ve taken to playing cribbage at a sidewalk cafe in Zamalek along the Nile. Sitting in the red cushioned wicker chairs under the tall, ornately flowered wrought iron columns and green awning, we conjure up imagines of former days of wealthy men of leisure whiling away hours playing games and gossiping.
The staff at the cafe are friendly and smile easily at our poor attempts to order juice and shisha in Arabic. A few pedestrians walk past the cafe, on their way to the Starbucks-inspired, Egyptian-chain coffee shop to the right next door, or the California-chain coffee shop which opened last month on the corner to the left.
When we were there a few weeks ago, a persistent, uninhibited, five-year-old boy was working this stretch of road selling tissues for 1 pound, or however much of a donation you wish to make. He found us in the rear of our sidewalk cafe playing cribbage in our halted Arabic. After a few rounds of Arabic cribbage, we have become fairly quick with numbers one through thirty-one.
The boy sidled up to our friend and held out his tissues, looking at us to recognize him.
“‘la, shokran,” our friend said to him as he stuck the tissues under her nose. He moved onto me.
“‘la, shokran,” I said. He moved on to D.
“‘la, shokran,” he said. No’s all around, but there weren’t a lot of people walking around that night and the boy didn’t leave. He looked at us and began to talk quickly in Arabic. Leaning on D’s arm, he told us his name and age, his eyes following D’s back and forth to his cards.
He told us more, but we haven’t learned many more scenarios in our Arabic classes. Of course, if he had been listing types of fruits or vegetables, or types of buildings, or had been giving us directions to the Maadi Grand Mall, I’m sure we would have understood that.
He stopped for a moment, looked down at D’s hand, and began talking again.
“‘arbaa, sitta, ‘ashra, khamsa,” he said, looking at us, slightly proud.
A and I looked up from our hand of cards and began laughing. The boy had demonstrated his ability to read Western numerals (sometimes referred to as Arabic numerals, because they were introduced to the West through the Middle East, according to Wikipedia, but second in usage here to the real Arabic numerals) and had happened upon our little pocket of Arabic expertise: the numbers one through ten.
“D, you wouldn’t happen to have a four, six, ten, and a five in your hand, would you?” I said between snorts of laughter. D looked down at the boy and turned his cards down, trying to frown at the boy as he laughed.
The boy realized he had gotten a very positive reaction from us. He leaned over to my hand and started,
“sitta, …”
Tags: Egypt, Tag Index
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October 15th, 2006 at 3:34 am
It was funny. How old was the boy?
October 15th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
He told us, in Arabic, that he was five years old. He then asked me how old I was, but I didn’t know how to say my age at that time, so I had to show him by counting on my fingers!