Last week in Arabic class, my teacher Mohammed Ali taught me an interesting new word. It was the one that was supposed to describe why Yousuf, our Arabic book’s protagonist, was going in and out of the bathroom holding his tummy.
“Diarrhea?” I volunteered.
He shook his head, frowning.
“Constipation?”
He nodded and smiled. This time, I frowned. Why in the world would Yousuf go in and out of the bathroom if he was constipated?
“Eshaal,” he pronounced.
I’m never going to remember that, I remember thinking. I didn’t need to remember how to stay “constipation” — I had the complete opposite: the runs. For the first time in my traveling life I got the diarrhea and I can’t, for the life of me, trace it back to anything. I’m always super careful, so I think it has to be at least partly due to my mental state and the anxiety Nasr City has driven me to with all the sexual harrassment I get by walking to school everyday. I had to slap around a 9 year-old boy and send him crying to his um the other day. But that’s another post.
“What’s the word for diarrhea?” I asked.
He didn’t reply. Just smiled.
On my break I went to the pharmacy next door and showed the young lady, in front of her mom and dad, that I had diarrhea and I needed help. Not that I’m embarassed or anything. PLEASE. It was hella fun acting it out for her — but definitely not as fun as that one time last January when I took Tamara to Rafah crossing with me and she unexpectedly started her period and was desperate for tampons but we found out that those are haraam in the Arab world just like in Latin America except that they don’t use the word “haraam” in Latin America.
So we tried to find a pharmacy in Al-Arish to find some maxi pads instead. I had taken one semester of Arabic and was still trying to pronounce my ‘ains and ‘ghains and I couldn’t think of the words to use. Our teacher Nasser certainly hadn’t taught us any of that yet. (Does it ever show up on Al-Kitaab, anyone know? It’s kinda important. We left off on chapter 13.) So basically, all I could do was point to my vagina and watch the girl’s eyes grow in equal parts horror, equal parts amazement. And then I saw a stack of diapers behind the counter and pointed to those, and then pointed to Tamara. Pointed to those, and then pointed to Tamara. (Tamara doesn’t ever read KABOBfest.)
“Ah!” she said. “Always!” she exclaimed while heading over to a hidden area of the pharmacy and grabbing a box of Always maxi pads. And that was that. In Arabic, the word for maxi pad is “always” just like in English the word for xerox copy is Xerox copy.
Back to my diarrhea.
The pharmacist gave me something called Intetrix. I took one and when I got home I googled it and found out that it is not only super effective, but also on the banned pharmaceuticals list in the U.S. Something about causing liver disease. Effing Ay.
So I stopped taking it, and decided to stick with the local hydrating powder Rehydran-N which is like the Gatorade powder you can put in your water to give you the electrolites, except Rehydran-N is a lot cheaper and less tasty.
A week later, I still had the runs, albeit my poop was getting firmer. Yesterday I found some Immodium my first friend in Nasr City left with me before she went back home to Italy. I took a little pill and I haven’t been able to poop for the past two days. That can’t be healthy.
At least now, I thought this afternoon, I’ll be able to remember that word for constipation.
“Eshaal!” I reported to my partner in the States via a text message. “I have it now. Immodium is powerful katheeran.”
So I get home and am about to write about how interesting it is that I learned how to say constipation and not a week later… wouldn’t you know. The power of suggestion is quite cool.
It turns out, however, that’s completely wrong. As initially suspected, eshaal is the word for diarrhea not constipation and yes, that’s exactly why Yousuf was going in and out of the bathroom holding his tummy.
Some online dictionary is trying to tell me that إمساك قبض المعدة is the vocab word for constipation. Unfortunately, the short vowels aren’t there so I don’t really know how to say it. I could ask somebody out there to teach me how to pronounce, but I don’t need to. I live around the block from a pharmacy and that word is super easy to act out.
Related posts:
- Lost in Translation
- And the dog leaves the room…
- Palestinian Cockroaches
- Palestine’s Lost Generations
- Disenfranchised and Lost
Diapers are also always called ‘pampers.’
Posted by khalil | June 15, 2008, 1:19 pmQuiqs,
I held out of engaging in this conversation with you as long as I could. However, you should go get your tuition back.
I guess Mohammed Ali does not know the correct english equivelant of said abdominal conditions.
Eshaal is Diarrhea, Emsaak is constipation. You may have tpo spell it out as Emsaak Qabd El me3da once in a while, but it is generally self discriptive, especially in context. Since the word can be used for “holding out” in some cases, as in the begining of fasting. Imsak 3an elta’aam.
In any case, I appreciate your restraint when saying effing ay instead of using an rated vocab.
Posted by Fayyad | June 15, 2008, 2:16 pmya Mohammed Ali needs to get you the doe back.
Posted by NarcelX | June 15, 2008, 4:05 pmimsaak qabD al-ma’ida
withholding constipation of the stomach
you have a 3 term iDaafa with a form 4 maSdar followed by a form 1 maSdar followed by the definite noun for stomach
you will not find anything about ‘always’ in al-kitaab, at least not in books 1-2 (and I doubt in 3) lol.
Posted by alfannaan | June 15, 2008, 11:35 pmThanks for all the wonderful feedback my habibs! Ha ha… yes. I think the problem is that Mhmd Ali doesn’t know the English very well.
I marched into class today and told him, “HEY! Eshaal is diarrhea. Emsaak is constipation!”
He looked at me and said, “Yes, I know.”
I decided not to argue with my Arabic teacher (you know how they can be…) and had him make it up to me by teaching me the word for poop. He said he didn’t really know what “poop” means. I opened up the school’s English-Arabic dictionary and found something under “feces”.
“How do you pronounce this word?” I asked.
He looked over. Beraaz he said, and almost fell over in his chair laughing.
I’m assuming I learned the right word?
Posted by QuiQui | June 16, 2008, 8:25 amyes biraaz from ba-ra-za (to come out, show, appear)
or kharaa’ from kha-ri-’a (to defecate) – this one is much more common, as far what I am used to hearing.
(note – my apostrophes here are hamzas and not ‘ayns)
there is so much that is never broached in arabic class, huh? so we do need to reply on other methods for the bits they leave out. but I mean things like ordering in a restaurant or other travel vocabulary, simple things that are taught in so many other languages in the first year, have never come up at all in books 1 and 2 of al-kitaab (I have never checked out book 3 – my teacher didn’t use it). a good teacher though will be willing to answer most anything – provided you are tactful and especially if you ask in good arabic!
Posted by alfannaan | June 19, 2008, 12:27 amno one says baraz for khara. Just use khara.
Posted by Renoona | June 21, 2008, 3:04 pm