Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Quasi English

After youth group this week (a lot of my life revolves around youth group, so chances are you will be hearing about it a lot) we were taking a taxi home. We found one for a reasonable price and got in. For all my Yemeni readers, we had one of those drivers that have had lessons in english, and for my non Yemeni readers, this involves bouncing back and forth in the two languages randomly. At any rate, we got about half way home before we stopped at this traffic light, and this big lalualui (land cruiser) pulls out from the right, drives around in a circle in the intersection, and then promptly stopped, hood to hood, with our taxi. I started to laugh, it was such a Yemeni move. At any rate, our taxi driver decides its time to show off his linguistic skill, raises his hands in a gesture of incomprehension, and says "What the fxxxing you?" I thought, yeah, I'm about as confused, but I didn't say it, I just laughed harder as the lalualui backed up, dodged two motorbikes in the middle of the intersection, and tore off back in the direction he had come from. I got a kick out of it. Its these little things that I live for.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You still haven't beaten Luke's taxi-with-no-floor story, but I can just picture your situation there. I even have a specific intersection in mind. How is youth group at the Lichtenthaelers anyways? You play a lot of ping pong, perhaps? Tell muh!

Jasmine said...

that's awesome, man. i've got a story, but it'sthat's like the other day, i got in a taxi, and as i closed the door, this girl walked into it, and banged her hip pretty hard. well, since i haven't learned the Chinese word for sorry yet, and i'd gotten tired of getting blank looks, i didn't say anything, and then she turns around, looks me in the eye, and in perfect English, "You could at least say Sorry!" I was in shock and the taxi was pulling away, so i just busted out laughing eventually. It was great.

Graham said...

guess not. Taxis with no floors are rare, even in Yemen. Ping pong. Not to boast, I beat David. (he also beat me, but that is beside the point.)

Great about the english! I can just see that happening. Murphy's law comming into play really strong there.