Iraqi Trivia

About 5 yrs ago Cairo was ~20 million people. Since that time, the Iraq war & the "situation" in Darfur have ballooned the cities already crowded population to 25 million. To add to the refugees already crappy situation, the different dialects of Arabic constantly remind native Cairenes that someone isn't from around those parts. In volunteering to teach English (which turns out to be pretty terrifying when you realize you have no idea how to teach), I got to run into a few of these wandering Iraqi's.

The first Iraqi I met was sent to help us get out to the teaching site. When he first got to Cairo* he said he kept getting overcharged by people b/c his accent made Egyptians assume he was an oil-rich Gulf Arab, not a refugee w/ a lot of dead family. I'm pretty sure that's ironic. Or just crappy.

Anyway, so if you're not up to snuff on Iraqi history the Brits have been running around there for a while. As a result, Iraqi Arabic is actually full of random English words; stop sign, etc. The guy (Fadi) told us when the Americans showed up in the 2 Gulf Wars the Iraqi's were actually surprised to learn all these words they always thought were Arabic were actually English words. I had one Iraqi student later prove this point when I was trying to explain "counter" (what you order at, not adding). Apparently that word is totally foreign to Egyptians since it took a minute of explaining even from him.

Another piece of trivia- Iraqi Christians speak not only Iraqi Arabic, but also Assyrian. Cheer for secret, dead languages still in use!

Number three, a friend in the group had worked in Iraq for a year for some agriculture thing. Of course I asked to see her Iraqi stamp in the passport. I don't remember that one, what I do remember is her "Kurdish Republic of Iraq" (or whatever) stamp. A slightly controversial stamp at least.

*It seems it still may be going on since he told us what we should expect to pay for a cab, & later my students told us a cheaper price.