الحيوانات Animals

The day before I left, Uncle Jay gave me his one piece of advice; “Have fun, be safe, but don’t forget who you are and where you come from”. And today I believe I heeded his advice by demonstrating my farm – kid capabilities/knowledge. My class is all Americans mind you, but I was surprised at who was surprised to hear that my family does indeed have cows. And yes, we eat them. Obviously today’s discussion in colloquial was all about animals… (which really made me miss mine, by the way). We talked all about the animals we have at home, and what’s normal to have here and what isn’t. We were talking about different words for horses and Hala, our teacher, was trying to explain one word by saying it’s the “zowja (wife)”. So someone says “oh, it’s a girl horse”, to which I promptly turned around and said; “you guys, it’s a mare”, to which I got a lot of blank stares. I think I’ve now established myself here as the girl with animals.

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