Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Our First Language Teacher

Peter and his wife Michelle set us up with a beautiful new apartment, but it needed a little cleaning. We hired a local woman to help clean and her 6 year old daughter joined us. As Paul and I scrubbed the kitchen, while the little girl watched. After observing for awhile she began to help, or decided that we needed help. As we began to clean together, she started teaching us some basic Arabic words, like how to count from 1-10. It was really helpful! We were listening and repeating, and we kept finding dirty things and saying “yucky”. This was apparently a fun, new English word for her and she picked up on it quickly, even making a song... “yucky, yucky, yucky-yuck”. After a long time, I completed a small part of the kitchen and stood up and cheered. She pointed and said “Not yucky!” We were all happy.

Then she pointed all over the rest of the kitchen and said “Yucky. Yucky. Yucky. Yucky...”

2 comments:

  1. Not yucky anymore! I'm so glad you two are here and that we get to spend this year together. Welcome to Egypt from ALL of the Johnsons.

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