Two stray cats are copulating on the sidewalk of Rue de la Liberte, I laughed out of embarrassment and they both looked at me for a minute then kept at it. No one watched them or tried to move them, only moved around them.
The death of the discman has brought me to a strange place, post IPOD death and IPOD II disappearance, this most recent blow has relegated me to punishment of silence, and the discovery that I understand 70% of conversations going on around me. Luckily,
the best way to learn Arabic is to listen to old people. Half the conversation is comprised of noises and they often repeat themselves, or repeat what the other person said, to confirm they heard right.
Eating a cold pancake out of a plastic bag, watching the fountain and the gardener of the traffic circle: the old man to my left is desperately trying to suck something out of his teeth, or maybe that is how he tastes food. The blind man arrives a few minutes later with someone resembling him, maybe only because they both have white hair. They cozy up between a man sleeping peacefully in his booth, and a heartwarmingly plump Spanish woman with a coffee and a cigarette and her head resting on the hand with the cigarette, like she is sitting at her kitchen table waiting for the mail.
I’m back to my daily routine now that my days are officially numbered, cakes for breakfast, H&M&M&M for lunch (even though Mohamed keeps telling me I got fat and inflating his cheeks to demonstrate), and the continued mission to try every fish in the market. Except the ones that are sold only half-dead, squirming around in the bag as you carry them home to their impending fate / doom, then erode their spirits into the walls of the qasbah.
The death of the discman has brought me to a strange place, post IPOD death and IPOD II disappearance, this most recent blow has relegated me to punishment of silence, and the discovery that I understand 70% of conversations going on around me. Luckily,
the best way to learn Arabic is to listen to old people. Half the conversation is comprised of noises and they often repeat themselves, or repeat what the other person said, to confirm they heard right.
Eating a cold pancake out of a plastic bag, watching the fountain and the gardener of the traffic circle: the old man to my left is desperately trying to suck something out of his teeth, or maybe that is how he tastes food. The blind man arrives a few minutes later with someone resembling him, maybe only because they both have white hair. They cozy up between a man sleeping peacefully in his booth, and a heartwarmingly plump Spanish woman with a coffee and a cigarette and her head resting on the hand with the cigarette, like she is sitting at her kitchen table waiting for the mail.
I’m back to my daily routine now that my days are officially numbered, cakes for breakfast, H&M&M&M for lunch (even though Mohamed keeps telling me I got fat and inflating his cheeks to demonstrate), and the continued mission to try every fish in the market. Except the ones that are sold only half-dead, squirming around in the bag as you carry them home to their impending fate / doom, then erode their spirits into the walls of the qasbah.
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