Cairo is the city of a thousand tales, and no foreigner sets foot here without falling in love with it. As a foreigner to Egypt, the past 5 years have been a rollercoaster of a cultural experience. My Egyptian dialect improved drastically, and Egyptian humour suddenly makes sense to me. There are a few things that seem normal to every Egyptian, but super confusing to everyone who isn’t. 

1- “Masr Um El-Donya” 

Not to discredit Egypt’s heritage or the history of its civilization, but why is Egypt the mother of the world? Where did that even come from? How? I mean, before coming to Egypt, no country ever thought the mother of the world is a country in North Africa.

2- “A7san Nas”

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But then again, Egyptians are some of the kindest people I’ve met. No matter where you say you’re from, the automatic response you’d get is, “a7san nas wallahi!” At first, you’re gonna think they love whichever country you’re from, until you realize that it’s as automatic as the “hey, how are you?” small talk.

3- “Kalimeeni”

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Instead of call me, Egyptians say “talk to me” and sometimes it gets very confusing because most of the time you’re already talking to the person.

4- “Yalla nenzil” 

cartoon6753Go down? Where? It started making sense much later on that most residential areas are apartments and to go out, you have to go downstairs, but for the longest time, I never understood why I’d have to go down to go out.

5- “Fash5” 

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I heard this a lot and had no idea what it meant, because just like the F word, it can be used in so many different contexts. “Itfasha5t”, “fashee5a”, “fash5”, “fasha5atni” etc… but now that I get it, I can’t think of a single word that’s more expressive.

6- “Eshta” 

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Creamy goodness or a regular “okay”? Who knows? Learning a new dialectic is hard enough without the slang words.

7- Car Horns! 

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When I first started driving in Egypt, all I could hear in the car were the crazy amounts of car horns. I didn’t understand why cars and motorcycles would beep their horns for no reason, unless I realized it’s actually the people’s favourite musical instrument.

8- Random French Words

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Chalumeau apparently means straw. Although the majority of the country doesn’t speak French, random words and phrases are used in everyday language. Chalumeau doesn’t even mean a straw; it’s a woodwind instrument that looks like a straw, but no one uses any other word for a straw than that.

9- “3ayza a3mel pepe”  

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We all have to go number 1 sometimes, but we don’t “make” the urine, and “a3mel pepe” sounds like something a 5 year old would say. Apparently, though, it’s completely normal for grown ups to use the phrase here and it never fails to make me laugh.

With every new culture, there’s bound to be a few things that both confuse and amuse you, and in Egypt, you never run out. I’ve had a wonderful 5 years in the country, and every day, I learn something new.