In the fourth excerpt, Hajja Medina takes a minibus to Faisal district of Cairo, home to a substantial Sudanese community and the many Sudanese shops where Hajja Medina trades her goods.
In the first scene, Hajja Medina negotiates the fare to Faisal with the Egyptian minibus driver, and gives us a good example of Egyptian negotiating etiquette. The text is straightforward linguistically but cultural difference may make some of the expressions unexpected. Almost immediately, Hajja Medina shifts seamlessly into Egyptian dialect. Can you identify some of the changes she makes to her pronunciation as she chats with the driver? She is concerned about her luggage. Can you predict what she might say to the driver and his assistant?
On the way, she muses on how all the traveling she does has shaped her life and in the tender interaction with the Sudanese family and friends who host her stay, we learn how she feels about the Sudanese community there. She also mentions some traditional Sudanese dishes, such as kisrah, pictured below, still being cooked among the community there.
Can you guess what expression she uses for someone who kicks up a fuss? And the verb form connected with the noun, ‘ushrah, friendship, that we saw in the first excerpt?
Screenshots from this excerpt from the Aljazeera documentary Coming and Going
You can view the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYUe6VC28Go&feature=share
See previous episodes in Hajja Medina’s Story – Coming and Going (1), Hajja Madina 2 The Shrine at Hamed Al-Nil and Sudanese Coffee Rituals, Hajja Medina Travels to Aswan: Coming and Going (3)
From Sudanese Kitchen blog – http://www.sudanesekitchen.com
Transcript and Notes from minute 25.30 – 35.00
All transcripts in this blog are copyright Muna Zaki and I am indebted to her for her work.
- 1 at your service, literally “order/ command me”, from amara, to order
- 2 the formulaic response to this; only God has the authority to give orders
- 3 another formulaic response
- 4 as in 2
- 5 you tell me what’s good for you (re-price) so we don’t have a difference of opinion along the way. Note Egyptian “ish” negative suffix.
- 6 literally; at your orders
- 7 God willing, I won’t leave you short – to reassure driver. Expression used to emphasis that someone has done everything they can for someone.
- 8 really expensive (note Egyptian pronunciation and use of ‘awli.
- 9 don’t tie it lightly
- 10 literally; so that the wind doesn’t take them
- 11 I became addicted to travel (see next line for addict, mudminah)
- 12 a pleasure / enjoyable.
- 13 you meet them and become friends as if you had known them for ages. (remember ‘ushrah, friendship, from episode 1)
- 14 you chat together and tell stories
- 15 I’ve kept you waiting (literally; arrived late)
- 16 we’ve been waiting for you
- 17 say hello to your (maternal) aunt
- 18 he made a right fuss (jowTAh – hubbub, fuss)
- 19 kicked up a fuss
- 20 (same root as above) a troublemaker
- 21 Grandma, you have made us go hungry
- 22 from the root jaw` – hunger
- 23 atmosphere
- 24 al-kisrah -Sudanese dish, see above.
- 25 al-‘asiidah – Sudanese dish made of a porridge of sorghum or millet flour, sough dough and water
- 26 al-khuDrah al-mafruukah – a green leaf stew
- 27 al-baamiah al-mafruukah (okra stew)
- 28 mulaaH al-lubaa – black-eyed bean stew
See a mufraakah, other cooking utensils and the remarkable photography of Frédérique Cifuentes in https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/womensliteracysudan.blog/8959
The photos above are copyright Frédérique Cifuentes
Sudanese Arabic Documentary Transcripts with English Notes 