Childhood Memories

My Hello Kitty Obsession

Posted on February 17, 2009 by 7aki Fadi

Since I was a kid I LOVED hello kitty and still do!

I was in Toronto in Mid January and found a beautiful hello kitty necklace. Little 7aki saw it and said”Wow this is pretty is it for me?” I was like “Nooooooooooooooooooo. This is Mommy’s, but you can borrow it .” Heheheh.

I wish I could take a picture and show you but me no have the camera. The camera is in Dubai. but it looks something like this but more blingy:

Another thing I am addicted to, kinder surprise, she is not allowed to play with my collection, YES I have a collection and it a big collection and she’s not allowed to touch it. I tell her ” Get your own” HAHAHAHAHHAAHA.

Sigh. Will I ever grow up?

Filed under: 7aki revealed, Addiction, Childhood Memories, chocolate, comercial, dysfunction, Food, Little 7aki, ramble, random, Shallow | 10 Comments »

Uncle Scrooge and the chewing gum

Posted on April 5, 2008 by 7aki Fadi

A guest post by 7aki’s sister

When I was about 8 or 9, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents, specially in the summer, I guess mama was trying to get rid of me or something :,-(

Whenever Grandpa left to work, Uncle scrooge (العم دهب) used to send me and my other uncle to go get gum and candy with our allowance, saying that he had the best idea for us to become very very rich.. so like the stupid little kids we were, we went to the store very happily and bought all the candy we could. Then he would wait till Grandma was busy with house work and made us sit on the sidewalk close to the house and SELL the stuff. This went on for about a week.. when we asked him for the money he said that he was saving it for us.. the Idiots we were!

So one Day my grandfather came back early from work and he saw me and my younger uncle selling gum and candy on the street and he went ballistic and started screaming at us “Don’t I give you enough money? Why are you doing this? Do you want us to look like beggars? Why do you want people to think that we are poor?…. etc.” at that point we were terrified and did not realize that what we were doing was wrong.. so we both started crying and told him that it was scrooge’s idea. Hearing this, Scrooge disappeared and was nowhere to be found for the whole day. By then Grandpa calmed down and only told him that it was wrong and he should never do it again.

Till this day, my mother has no idea that her own daughter sold gum and candy on the street.

Yeeeeee.. Fdee7a

Filed under: 7aki's sister, Childhood Memories, dysfunction, family, Funny, Hilarious, humor, life, sister, Stupid | 12 Comments »

When My Bro Was Hit By a Car

Posted on March 19, 2008 by 7aki Fadi

When we were kids my Mom used to let me and my brother who was only 3.5 at the time go outside and play on the street. I used to be maybe in 2nd grade so I guess that would make me 7 years old.

We lived in a Cull De Sac so there were no traffic flow by no means. It was a very safe area to play.

My brother who was always stubborn and would never listen to ANYONE was running around and playing, it was time to go home. I got a bit worried because there were some cars and I told him to hold my hand, he was refusing to do that, so I threatened him that if he does not hold my hand that I will never take him outside to play and it worked! He held my hand and I was walking triumphantly that he listened to me. Then like the sneaky little stubborn bugger he was he let go of my hand, dashes out on the street laughing and kaboom, he got struck by a car.

I WAS MORTIFIED.

The car screeched to a halt , there were 2 men in the car who left the car panicking like there was no tomorrow. They ran to my brother who was on the ground right by the car and they carried him and took him in the car and left.

I was stunned, first my brother gets hit by a car and then those 2 stranger men take him away, I was shouting at the men: “Where are you taking my brother, leave my brother alone” but no use, at that point all I could do is just watch the car leave terrified and bawling my eyes out.

I went running home. I was at that point incapable of saying anything and I was saying: “Brother, car , hit , men, gone, waaaaaaaaaaaaa3″

Like maybe 15 or 20 minutes later the 2 men brough my brother back, they apparently were soooo scared that they took him to the hospital to check and see that everything was alright.

ARE THESE MEN STUPID??? Like you took my brother away you bastards. At least take me too, or let me go get my mommy. BASTARDS.

But they are good people.

So the little stubborn bugger had not a scratch on him and he was perfect thank God.

I looked at my brother and he was chewing something, I was like:

Me: What’s that in your mouth?

Brother 7aki: 3am bakol 3ilkeh ( I am chewing gum)

Me: Where did you get that from? Is that the 3ilkeh (gum) I gave you like 3 hours ago?

Borhter 7aki: yeth (he used to lisp, LOL)

Me: and I am here bawling my eyes out and I thought you were dead and through all this commotion you are still chewing the gum you were chewing when you were hit by the car? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. You didn’t even swallow it out of terror when you were hit by the car?

Bother 7aki: La2, ma heih thakieh (zakieh ( no because it was tasty)

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh man, my brother was such a nahfeh

And the whole lisping thing, my brother used to say, 3athr 2rooth (3ahsr 2roosh, ten piasters) We used to make sooooooo much fun of him.

My mom spent years trying to get him to stop lisping but he wouldn’t stop, he actually liked it and liked the attention.

So it was time for him to go to school, his first day of school, so my brother was very excited:

Brohter 7aki: Mama, biddi mathroofy, 2a3teeny 3athr 2rooth (mama, biddi masroofy, a3teeny 3ashr 2roosh, I want my allowance, give me 10 piasters)

Mom: Walak it’s 3ashr 2roosh, ma biddak ti7keeha sa7? (Aren’t you gonna stop lisping?)

Brother 7aki: Thu? (Shu) , I thaid 3athr 2rooth. (what? I said it right)

Mom: sigh, I don’t know what to do with this kid.

So my brother comes home from school on his first day and he runs to Mom

Bother 7aki: Mama, mama, biddi maSSary

Mom: What did you say?

Brother 7aki: 2a3teeny maSSary, biddi 3aSHr 2rooSH.

Mom: Walak batalet to2rot? HAHAHAHAHA (you stopped lisping?????)

Brother 7aki: Mahoo the kids at school made fun of me.

Can you believe that? My brother is a nahfeh 3anjad.

I have sooooooooooooo many stories about my brother, some day I might share the story of my brother and the dufda3 (frog)

Filed under: Childhood Memories, drama, dysfunction, family, Hilarious, life | 11 Comments »

The day 7aki got slapped, AGAIN!

Posted on February 27, 2008 by 7aki Fadi

Remember that one time when I was slapped by a monkey? I think it was a sign of things to come.

See, my Mom is a very peaceful person, never in her life did she have to resort to using her loud voice or physical power to get her point across. All she had to do is use her stare, we called in “The death stare”, she will just keep staring at you until she breaks you, LOL. For real, she would just not let up and keep looking you straight in the eye until you didn’t know what to do and then you would surrender and do whatever she wanted you to do.

For example she would ask me: “Go do the dishes”. Like a smart ass I would say: “Ma biddi (NO)”, and my mom would unleash the death stare, at first I would defiantly look her in the eye, and then after 2 seconds flat I would start looking away, then in another 2 seconds flat I would start giggling nervously, and then I would get up and do the dishes (zay ilshatra), mind you , my Mom at this point had not even uttered one word.

So one time my mom woke up really early, 6 in the morning, on a weekend, I also woke up and went looking for Mom to find that she was in the bathroom, so I snuck really quietly and sat down next to the closed bathroom door and waited for her to come out.

My Mom opened the door so I stood up, screamed really loudly and grabbed her. She got sooooooo scared that she slapped me.

It was the most painful KA-TESH slap EVER (The monkey slap was less painful, LOL) .

I really wonder, why didn’t she find it as funny as I did? HAAHHAHAHA.

Moral of the story 1: Never sneak up on my Mom to scare her.

Moral of the story 2: I perfected the death stare and I scare little 7aki into doing whatever I want, hehehehe.

Filed under: biddi mama, Childhood Memories, dysfunction, family, Funny, Hilarious, me me me, Mothering | 16 Comments »

Cartoons and LSD

Posted on February 22, 2008 by 7aki Fadi

Little 7aki loves cartoons. I present you with a sampling of what she likes to watch and some questions that plague me every-time I sit there and watch.

1) Toopy and Binoo.

Little 7aki’s favorite, she is mesmerised every-time she watches it.

Where do I start on Toopy and Binoo, my goodness.

I can sum it up pretty easily; Toopy is a cross dressing mouse on LSD.

Look at this picture, that is a dress and an apron. Dude, what’s up with the dresses, this guy wears dresses every chance he gets, and makeup too! Every Halloween he dresses up as a tutu wearing ballerina or a princess. It’s been 3 years and every year I check he’s in a dress.

This mouse(or creature) is always hallucinating and dreaming up rainbows and weird things, like he once had a daydream that he was in a bowl of cheerios cereal and that the spoon was a big water dragon following him. Seriously, he is on LSD. (The Wiki page is facinating)

2) Little Bear.

This is little 7aki’s 2nd favorite show, she loves it. I like it too because it’s very soothing, they play classical music as background music and it’s all charming, I really don’t have any issues with little bear. But I do have one question.

Why is little bear naked while his mom and dad wear clothes? It’s a mystery to me.

3) Max and Ruby.

Oh I hate hate hate Max and Ruby. It’s the bossy little sister that is ALWAYS looking after her little brother.

WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS.

Look at these pictures, she sweeps AND changes her brothers clothes, I really need to know where the parents are at.

4) Barney.

We are a Barney free household, he is banned at our house, little 7aki is not, under any circumstances, allowed to watch it. I just wanted to share that piece of information . BANNED.

Here is what I like to see done to Barny

5) And since I am asking questions, I have another one. Why does Donald Duck always wear a top and no pants but when he comes out of the shower he puts a towel around his waist? Always puzzled me as a kid. Another unsolved mystery.

ps: Thanks to everybody who emailed me or showed concern over my absence (Tinker you are so sweet), I was away on a trip and then came back and was sicker than a dog but I am back on track now and will delight you with some more 7aki Fadi .

Filed under: Addiction, Check these out, Childhood Memories, fa3es, family, Mindless Crap, random | 17 Comments »

Run 7aki, Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun

Posted on January 22, 2008 by 7aki Fadi

I have a family that is crazy I tell ya!

But nothing prepared me for what was about to happen. Even the monkey slap was better.

Here’s how it happened:

Once upon a time 7aki aka me was little.

Mama 7aki left “little 7aki senior” at a park.

The end.

I will never forget that day.

My family and 10 other families were at a picnic in Debeen. I Was playing somewhere and I was pretty occupied with whatever a little person gets occupied with. But something felt funny. All of a sudden I didn’t see any faces I recognized. No Mom, no Grandma , no brother, no annoying Grandmas friends, nobody.

I turn to head for the bus we came in and all I saw was the bus driving away leaving a trail of dust behind.

So I started running after the bus. In full speed. RUNNING like my life depended on it.

My life flashed in front of my eyes.

And as I was running I was thinking, “What’s our home phone number again?” and “Where do we live exactly?” and “My family are MOFOS” (Well maybe not MOFOS, Most probably I said “you poopy heads”, I acquired MOFOS later in life but it is sooo fitting here)

But then apparently my mom was like:

“Hey, where’s my flesh and blood?”

No answer

Panic ensues.

Someone sees me running after the bus which was quite far now.

The bus finally stops.

I stop running relieved that someone finally acknowledged my existence.

How could this possibly get any worse?

The bus didn’t come back to get me. I had to run all the way to the bus to board it. Talk about rubbing salt on the wounds!

Why didn’t you come back and get me you MEAN bus driver???

I was scarred for life.

I think it was a sign of things to come

Moral of the story: Learn how to run fast from an early age, you never know when it comes in handy.

Filed under: Childhood Memories, dysfunction, family, inhumane, life, me me me, Mothering, non fiction | 27 Comments »

Why was Wasfi Tal Street called “Gardens Street”

Posted on December 2, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

OK, I am tired of reading the same question over and over to why the Gardens street was called that.

Myth: It was called gardens because of the greenery.

Fact: There was a place on the street that had a restaurant, a pool a movie dome and some amusement park kind of rides that was called “The gardens”.

The street almost had nothing on it back in the day and “The gardens” was the most prominent place on the street therefor, like many streets in Amman, it got called by its most prominent place.

Another fact: When we were kids the gardens park used to have a monkey in a cage and you were allowed to feed it, so I was so excited to give it some popcorn, every time I extended my hand to give the monkey the popcorn and it extended it’s arm to get it I would withdraw my hand cos I was scared (I think I was KG2 or Grade one at the time) , I did it for like four times, then , all of a sudden and out of the blue the monkey got so frustrated and it slapped me soooooooooo hard on my face, LOL. STUPID UGLY MONKEY, I still hate it still. It hurt like a bitch.

Yeah , so it existed and I was there to “experience” it.

My favorite thing to do there was to watch a movie at the big dome there, wow it was sooo cool, you sit on the floor and the whole dome had the movie playing on all sides and the ceiling, they used to have roller coaster movies and airplane movies, if you laid on your back and watched you would think you were really flying.

At the gardens my sister learned how to swim (or didn’t learn how to swim). Her first swimming lesson? the instructor threw her at the deep end and told my mom: “Relax, her instinct will kick in and she will try hard to swim and maybe she will do it.” HAHAHAHAH . Stupid swimming instructor, are you RETARDED. Well it didn’t work, like DUH. So he had to go in and get her.

This concludes a history lesson in “Why was the gardens street called ‘The gardens Street’ “

Filed under: Amman, Childhood Memories, jordan, Jordan. Yours to discover. | 33 Comments »

The Ten Piasters and The Swing

Posted on October 13, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

A typical day of Eid when we were kids was to wake up early, wear our new Eid clothes and then have breakfast which was AMAZING, it was always the same and was never changed and I had it until I was 25 whenI left to Canada that consisted of and only fried Chicken Liver drenched with lemon juice, yummy yummy.

Right after breakfast we got our Edieh from our parents that we did not spend until we got to taita and seedo’s house ( the grandparents).

Why wait you ask? Since we had this fancy big supermarket steps away from our house? With all the expensive chocolates and Kinder surprise and Notella and this and that?

Becuase ( write this down boys and girls) :

The secret to preserving your Edieh and getting more for less is ….. quantity and not quality…. yup , you ot it, the cheaper, the better. So right next to my grandparents house was this little store which was called baqalet Abu Ya32oub ( the father of Jacob) and he was the only shop open on the first day of eid because he was Christian.

I used to love Abu Ya32oub, he was always kind to us kids and always had those little guns that had those red rolls with dots of gunpowder where you click the trigger and it makes a popping noise, sometines we would bang the dots with a rock instead of buying the gun. We also bought 6o2e3(fireworks) and sa7bet balaleen (scratch and win and you get balloons).

He always gave us a good deal and never cheated us. God rest his soul and bless him, he was a source of happiness to us kids for years.

Around 1 o’clock we would go to taita and seedos house and have the eid feast and what a feast it was, a stuffed roast lamb cooked outside in my taitas backyard in this BIG oven, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one, it’s this huge metallic oven that looks like a wardrobe , taita would take the gas canister and hook it up outside to use it.

She did not and still does not have a fancy oven till this day and insists on using this thing. God love my taita she still likes things the old fashioned way.

We also had stuffed chickens and the most AMAZING Spinach fatayer that till this day I have not tasted better, oh how I miss them, I can’t wait to visit my taita and have her make me some, allah protect her ya rab .

After we eat quickly the uncles start giving us our Eideh. The best thing about going to the grandparents house when were were kids was the fact that grandpa was the oldest of his brothers, so all his brothers and their sons (Moms uncles and cousins) had to visit him first on the first day of Eid.

Now why would this matter to a kid? Well, more Eideh of course, the more people come the more our pockets got filled and jingled with Ten and five pisater coins. We would keep counting them all day and compare the loot with the cousins. The boys always got more money than the girls because they were boys.

It was sooo unfiar! it used to piss me of and I think that’s when the feminist me started emerging because after I started thinking “Why are htey getting more?” I started to , and whenever I visited taita. to always play with the boys and go up on the roof with my uncles to help them fix the antenna to spite taitas grumpy old lady friends who LOVED the phrase ya 3aib ilshoom (shame on you) and said it like a broken record when I did anything boy like.

Seriously , some of our traditions suck for little girls and they do more harm than good. I am glad my mom and dad were cool and open minded and never said that to me , I think I would have developed a complex or something of feeling inferior to boys.

But I digress..

Then without shame a bunch of like 5- 10 kids would go around to all the relatives houses that did not visit my grandparents where we would knock on their doors just to say HAPPY EID and wait with puppy eyes to get money …LOL, what a bunch of 7afartal we were ??? How shameless!

I can’t believe my mom let us do it …heheheh, but I guess it was the tradition in my grandparents old poor neighbourhood and it is the Arab/Muslim version of Halloween.

After collecting the loot the fun and games begin, we used to go to the dukaneh (Little shop) and buy as many sweets and candy and chips as we can, we ate till we exploded.

But I was always the smart one, I would buy just a little bit of candy and will insist that mom take me to the big fancy toy store ( was not big or fancy at all, it just had more toys and it was up on the mountain where my grandparents lived) so I could buy all these useless dollar store equivalent nick nacks.

Then we would go to the 7ara (the hood) to ride on the GIANT, quickly assembled in one day, all parts man made SWING that consisted of this HUGE wooden plank that I think sits, no no, not sits, stands 10 kids at a time because only the Sissy little babies and woosy girls sat down and I aint a woosy, lol, we would pay the guy 10 piasters to ride those swings

Now THAT was so much fun! I wish I can still do that, most probably the most unsafe swing since it was just made by whomever and just for the Eid. It is the 7afratal swing, lol, it was, but I loved it.

But seriously, mom needed to watch us more. Although I have to admit, back in the days all the kids got together, went outside in the morning and came back before sunset, everything was so much nicer and safer where everybody knew everybody.

After such a long day we would go home our new Eid clothes filthy, our hands sticky with sweets, exauseted and our Edieh spent.

I wish all of you a very happy Eid with all the people you love.

And since I am wishing here I also wish for peace so some of the kids of today maybe one day get to have what we had when we were kids.

Filed under: Childhood Memories | 14 Comments »

Darab ilmadfa3 willa lissa?

Posted on September 14, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

Ramadan … how fun it was when we were kids.

Our family tradition was for the whole family (meaning my family , my uncles wife and kids and my other 3 single uncles at the time ) to go to taita and seedos (grandparents) house for iftar on the first day of Ramadan.

I remember how much fun we had! All the kids would always wait anxiously outside on the veranda for an hour before the sun sets to wait for madfa3 Aliftar (they fire a cannon at sunset to announce breaking of the fast). As soon as it’s fired we would run inside and say, “darab ilmadfa3, darab ilmadfa3” so we can start eating and taita (Grandma) does her last minute things.

She would always make the following, wara2 dawali and koosa with rack of lamb (Ryash?) , shaikh ilmookhshy (koosa ma7shi bi laban ) hummus with meat and samneh … yuuummmmm and lentil soup that has kufta meatballs in it (yum yum that was my favourite , I would like gorge on that and ask taita to put extra kufta chunks for me , man I used to eat like a trucker , oh I guess I still do .. hehehehe) and for sweets she would make her famous 2atayef.

Right after we eat it was TV time to watch abu 3awwad. We LOVED it as kids and couldn’t wait for it to start. But I just wanna know one thing, how did we like it??? for real??? It was soooooooo lame but we loved it. Also we watched other Nabil Sawalha shows over the years. Then we would watch fawazeer Shirihan, 7awl al3alam yalla nteer 3alla tayert fawa fawazeer (or something like that) She was amazing!

Then after a while people chow down the dessert and drink their tea and start heading home to spend the whole night with the family.

I don’t know but when I was a kid I used to love Ramadan more, it was more special for me. When we grew older we hated going to taitas house because we thought it was lame so we would eat sooo fast so we can run home to go out with our friends.

When we were kids we were also more pure of thought, now we always have negative thoughts and gossip thoughts and angry thoughts, all we thought about when we were kids when we were fasting was how amazing we were and how much God loved us because we were fasting and about that Lentil soup ( I guess I still have thoughts about that lentil soup still hehehehe, I think I am going to make it on Sunday).

By the way, is there still a Madfa3? Did they start doing it again because I remember it stopping for years and it wasn’t there when I left Jordan.

If it did stop you guys living in Jordan should start a petition to reinstate it, It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cool.

Filed under: Childhood Memories, ramadan | 14 Comments »

Grandfather 7aki

Posted on August 14, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

My Grandfather , God rest his soul, was an amazing man, born 1924 – 1994 .

He used to always sit me down on his lap and tell me how special I was, that I will grow up and become a beautiful woman, an actress a singer a superstar (Well I have a desk job .. lol.. but thanks Granddad for believing in me ), always looks into my eyes and tells me “nobody knows how special you are but I know”, until this day his words stay with me and I think about how his words changed me without me knowing, how they made me feel special and loved.

My mom told me how her family wanted to arrange for her to marry her cousin, so when she was about to finish school she stood up to the whole family and she told them “ I am not going to marry him, he is like a brother to me”, her aunt wouldn’t talk to her, her uncle, even my grandmother wouldn’t talk to her and the whole family was upset, except for granddad, he would tell my mom “ Nobody in this world will force you to marry someone you don’t want to marry, I am here for you so don’t worry” and he stood to his older brother and the whole family.

I remember when he used to come and visit, he would tell my mom “Can you make me some steak and pasta? I am tired of tabeekh (My Grandmothers usual classic dishes), I need something different”, then he would eat the food with a knife and fork dressed up in his suit, he always wore a suit, he never went out of the house without wearing his suit.

He would come visit always bearing gifts, the cheapest chocolates on the planet that we used to love, do you remember this chocolate bar that had a silver and blue wrapper? When you rub the rapper with your hands the silver comes off on the palm of your hands and your hands glitter? Did anybody do that too? (Just the thought of this wrapper gives my nightmares, how unhealthy is that?) A box of marbles or just simply some terrible tasting candy most probably really old .

He used to wear woollen knitted ties, I have never seen a man in my life except Granddad wear a knitted tie, lol, oh I miss him so much.

He was a funny man too, my grandma has a short temper so he used to rile her up, she would start yelling at him and as soon as she turns her back to him to leave the room he would start laughing silently and give the grandkids a laugh. He pushed her buttons just to have some fun … lol.

He bought a lottery ticket every week of his life in the hope of winning and buying his four sons and his only daughter a house.

He was quirky, one time he was in the middle of prayer , my moms cousin entered the house , he had done something inappropriate the day before and my grandfather kicked him out of the house and told him not to come to the house again, so enters moms cousin and all of a sudden my grandpa interrupted his prayer, piked up a “shibshib” (slipper) and he flung it at Moms cousin and told him to ” get out” then as if nothing happened he continued to pray, ta7sheesh my Grandpa.

He was adamant that smoking does now ruin fasting so during Ramadan he smoked a pack a day and did not eat or drink anything … I have no clue who he sited as his source that smoking is OK while fasting.

He was bald and until the day he died he kept trying all those remedies to grow his hair back … his head was sooooo smooth there was not even a hair follicle that was capable of producing hair but he still put that cream on his head twice a day everyday.

I admire my grandfather’s hope, he always had hope and he always believed and he never stopped dreaming. He even used to go treasure hunting with his friends, he never found a treasure but never stopped.

One day he woke up from a nap and he told my mom that some people visited him, a group of people all dressed in white, they told him to come with them. That night he passed away peacefully in his sleep.

If I can bring a person back it would be my grandfather, when he passed away I had just finished tawjeehy and I wanted to talk to him, to ask for advice, to ask him so many questions and I wanted him to tell me so many stories.

I wanted to hear more stories of how it was like to be a general in the Palestinian Army.

I wanted to ask him more about how Haifa was.

I wanted to ask him about how was it to be a fida2y and how he fought against the Israeli army.

I want to ask him about how it was like to be exiled because of his political activities. Was it hard to be away from family? How did he feel when he was pardoned and came back?

I wanted him to tell me the story about how he used to be so jealous of other men looking at my grandma because she was so beautiful.

I want more.

I miss him dearly.

Filed under: Childhood Memories, family | 17 Comments »

فرح عيديد

Posted on May 14, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

كان اخوي دايمان يجيب بسس على البيت فمرة جاب وحده هيك يا حرام نحيفة و اظن و اشك انها كانت جربة لول هادي الكلمة بتضحكني جربة لول

كانت البسه سمره ونحيفة كتير كائنو كانت بمجاعة فرحنا سميناها فرح عيديد الي كان رئيس الصومال وئتها

بدي افهم كيف انو واحنا عمرنا 7 و 10 سنين حافظين هدي المعلومة؟
لائنو دايمان كان في اخبار على شاشة التلفزيون بالبيت
!الله لا يوطرز للاهل كبرنا بدل ما نحضر كرتون كنا نحضر فرح عيديد و ما بعرف شو
didn’t make it بس يا حرام فرح
و بس

اتعبت من الكتابه

bina2an 3ala talab aljamaheer (well JK) I decided to translate this post.

When we were kids my Brother was obsessed with brining cats home, so this one time he brought this tiny black kitten who was sooo thin and we think it was Jarbah (lol..I don’t think I can translate this but it means it is diseased and dirty) It was so thin as if it came out of a famine so we called him Farah Aydeed , the Somali president at the time.

I want to understand one thing; how would a 7 and a 10 year old come up with this name? instead of fluffy or what ever???

Well it’s because my family was obsessed with watching the news 24/7 so instead of watching cartoons we grew up watching Farah Aydeed and w ma ba3ref shu!!!!!

w bas.

it3ebet min iltarjameh..

Filed under: Childhood Memories | 12 Comments »

My uncle and the money tree

Posted on May 10, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

It was a beautiful sunny day at the Grandparents house, it was Eid and our pockets were full of sweets and what else? Money, lots and lots of money, shlooneh and barayez ( 5 and 10 piaster coins).

We go outside and were very excited, what do we do with the money, should we go to those big swings that only come out during 3ied? You pay 5 piasters and you swing for a good 5 minutes. No no. Should we go to Abu ya32oubs shop and gorge on more sweets? No no. Should we buy sa7beh and make some profit? No no.

Instead we, my older sister, my young uncle and myself, were convinced by my older uncle that if we plant our 5 or 10 piasters in the soil we will get a 5 or a 10 piaster money tree in 3 days.

So we planted them, waited 3 days, went back and there was no tree and no 5 piasters apparently we didn’t water them enough and the money was eaten by earthworms.

This works way better than a pyramid scheme I tell ya!

Filed under: Childhood Memories | 16 Comments »

القطار و الشلن

Posted on May 6, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

A picture I took of a Jordanian Railways train passing in front of my Grandparents house

(click to enlarge)

The first time I have seen a train was me standing on my Grandparents porch in Eastern Amman.

You would know there was a train coming not by the rail crossing sign (yah right) or by those levers that would stop the traffic and go ding ding ding (ha?) or by the flashing red signals, no; you would know a train is coming by it going TOOT TOOT TOOT.

As soon as the train approaches the traffic stops by a miracle , the kids playing on the tracks would get off the tracks and move out of the way and the women collecting khobezeh would move away from the track because God knows why the khobezeh grows there, the cars would stop maybe not even 1 foot away from the train and honk in a celebratory tune, then all the kids would run after it screaming “قطار….. قطار” because the word train is not even in their vocabulary.

I am amazed that there are not a lot of injures/accidents from the train.

But , as I always have , there is a story my Mom told me about my uncles experience with the train:

All the boys in the neighborhood would wait for sooo long for the train to pass since it only passes maybe once or twice a month so all the little boys would bring metallic objects to experiment by putting them on the train track “سكة” and wait till the train passes and see how it flattens the object.

My Uncle ,I think was 6 or something at the time , most probably younger, had brought 5 piasters” شلن ” and placed it on the train track to flatten. As the train approached apparently my uncle ,who kinda loves money, was regretting his decision because as you know 5 piasters back then would get you lots of stuff and when he ran to get his ” شلن ” back the train hit him on the head.

All the kids came running to my Grandmas house screaming that it had hit my uncle so my Mom ,who was standing on the porch, looked over to see her brother laying on the ground with his head covered with blood. She ran over to check him and freaked out to see that my uncle had lost his consciousness because of the impact to his head.

After a couple of minutes my uncle started waking up. My Mom was mortified and was asking him if he was OK.

And what was the first thing that came out of his mouth?

He said : Where is my ” شلن ” ?

Filed under: Childhood Memories, Funny | 25 Comments »

My dysfunctional family (Dare I say part 1 ?)

Posted on April 16, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

Due to circumstances I am not going to delve in (because I don’t want to get depressed or angry) my mom had to support us by herself. So while she was busy running a business to put food on the table (from 8 am to 8pm with a 2 hour siesta) my siblings and I were left to use the “survival of the fittest” or “The jungle law” at home when dealing with each other.

Here is one of examples of how dysfunctional we were.

My brother and I had a hobby of raiding my sisters closet; I for the clothes, the cool posters or tapes or her favourite books and stickers (can you believe it??? STICKERS) and my brother for numerous other objects from my sisters diary (he he he that was fun) to God knows what. Till this day I do not know what would interest a 7-year-old boy in his 14-year-old sisters closet?

Because of that and 100000000 other things, we were calling my mom upwards of at least 20 times a day saying “look what he did” and “look what she did”

To prevent anybody from borrowing anything form anyone (and to save herself the headache) and instead of my Mom sitting us and talking about it (yah who wants to talk) she bought 3 industrial chains and 3 industrial locks to use and lock our closets.

So what did my Bro and I do? We loosened one of my sisters chain links, enough for it not to be noticeable and enough to wiggle the other links out, to get into her closet. I still remember how she went crazy looking for things SHE SOWRE she put back in her closet secure behind chain and lock.

So SIS, if you are reading this, now you know you were not crazy.
muaaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaahhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa.

Now what’s really knida funny but kinda makes me feel sad at the same time is my Mom got my Bro a chain so he doesn’t feel left out. So he took his stuff that he loved a lot and stuck them in the closet and put the chain up although nobody in a million years would think of taking his marbles, or his favourite stuffed toy or those special cards we got on a trip or that little box he saved some seashells / stones in.

Brother Sister and Mom I love you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much and I would not trade you for anything in the world.

KISSES KISSES and I miss you.

Filed under: Childhood Memories, dysfunction, family | 24 Comments »

e6la3 min bain el khobbezeh!

Posted on April 10, 2007 by 7aki Fadi

Remember that game?

I wonder how it all started?

Filed under: Childhood Memories | 2 Comments »

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