In Arabic We Call It MACARONI
In Arabic We Call It MACARONI
Author Country :Sudan
Genre Type :True Story
Location :Juba, Sudan
Year of Publication :0/
Publication :
Sub Theme :Education, Humor, Languages/
Author Name :Marj Humphrey, MMAF/
Author City :Juba
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When I was working in camps for displaced people near Juba in southern Sudan, we
hired a young woman named Lily to help cook at the mission. Since all cooking
is done from scratch over an open fire, dinner preparations often take several
hours. However, I have always enjoyed cooking, and I looked forward to helping
Lily once I returned home in the evening. I was struggling to learn the local
Arabic and Lily wanted to learn English so while we cooked we traded vocabulary
words. One day I opened a package of spaghetti I had bought on my last trip to
the city. "What do you call this in English?" Lily asked. "Pasta," I said.
"What?" she asked perplexed. So I bent down and spelled it out in the dirt.
"Ah," she said, bending and doing the same, "in Arabic we call it
M-A-C-A-R-O-N-I.