Signs in Egypt

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قسم شرطة اثار القاهرة

تبارك - لتأجير السيارات

معمل سقارة - لتشخيص أمراض الدواجن

موقف إنتظار خاص بسيارات الميكروباص

شركة ابو الهول للنشر

يورك شير لطيور وأسماك وحيوانات الزينة

المنتزة رويال بلازا

شركة الحلوانى
للإستثمار العقاري

ممر دجلة

نت أسرع من الصاروخ!

إنترنت كافية
شبكات - صيانة
تدريب - طباعة
إدارة / مهندس : وائل عباس

إنترنت كافية

وزارة الدولة للبحث العلمي
 المعهد القومي لعلوم البحار والمصايد
فرع البحر المتوسط - الإسكندرية

مياه

شرطة الآثار

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Arabic Labels, Ads, and Signs

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دجاج كنتاكي

اكياس للفرن

المعجون المنظف

حليب مجفف كامل الدسم

حليب مكثف محلى

كوكا كولا لايت

اكوافينا

ليبتون

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The Game is Simple...

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لعبة التقليد : سيرة ذاتية متشابكة وسط الحرب

All of the vocabulary and phrases below come from the article linked above.  
I'm still working on the best ways to translate a few of the phrases in this one.





اللعبة بسيطة - إن كل اوامر القصف والهجوم كانت تحوم في الهواء - وكل طائر يمر عبر المحيط تدخل بياناته في هذا الشيء

The game is simple
All of the bombing and attack orders 
were floating in the air 
and every pilot that flies across the ocean 
enters his (flight) data in this thing.



بهذه السطور تُختصر حقيقة حرب عاشت فصولها البشرية كما عاشتها أوروبا وبريطانيا في صراعها الدامي ضد النازية إبان الحرب العالمية الثانية



  With these lines
 the reality of the human chapters,
as they were being lived out in Europe and Britain
during their bloody battle against the Nazis in WWII
are summed up.



 لندن تجد نفسه أرضا وبشرا وسماءً تحت رحمة رسائل مُشفرّة تصدرها آلة الحرب النازية فتقصف ساعة تشاء وتهاجم ساعة تشاء وتخرب وتدمر وسط هلع القادة الإنجلي وسعيهم للحاق بهذا الغول الذي دمّر بلادهم



London found itself, 
its lands, its people, and its skies
 at the mercy of encrypted messages
which were sent out by the Nazi war machine,
as it was bombing, attacking
devastating and destroying at will,
In the midst of this chaos, 
was the English command's quest 
to deal with this ghoul 
that was destroying their country.




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The Trash Guy

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I saw an Arabic quote today, tweeted by @ksa_twitt_sa, that I had never seen before.
Perhaps it sounds better in Arabic than in English, but its point is good in both languages:

قال الولد لأبيه: صاحب القمامة عند الباب.
 فرد الأب: يا بني نحن أصحاب القمامة،
 وهو صاحب النظافة جاء ليساعدنا

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"The boy said to his father, 'the trash guy is here.' 
The father replied, 'son, we are the trash-guys; 
he is the sanitation guy, coming to help us out."

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صاحب القمامة / أصحاب القمامة 

garbage man / men

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صاحب النظافة / أصحاب النظافة  

sanitation man / men

(sanitation worker)

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In translating this, I was reminded of a couple of good stories involving garbage collectors in Cairo that I had either listened to or read over the last few years. The first is a story by Liane Hansen that was broadcast on NPR back in 2009, about the "zebaleen" in Cairo, and how they are able to collect and successfully recycle more trash on Cairo's narrow streets than foreign contractors."

Another memorable article I was reminded of was Tales of the Trash, By Peter Hessler, published in The New Yorker last year. Tales of the Trash focuses on one of the zebaleen in particular, (Sayyid Ahmed) and the observations he is able to make about individuals on his route, and the extrapolations he is able to make about Egyptian society as a whole, based on things discovered in the trash.

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Muhammad Ali Mosque - The Citadel - Cairo, Egypt

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The Muhammad Ali Mosque, (sometimes called the Alabaster Mosque) located in the Citadel in Cairo, is one of the city's most popular Cairo tourist destinations. 

A Greek architect,Yusuf Bushnaq, was hired by Muhammad Ali and was charged with designing a mosque which would resemble the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Construction on the Muhammad Ali Mosque started in 1824. The mosque was completed in 1848.

The iron clock tower on the western wall of the courtyard (presented to Muhammad Ali by King Louis Philippe of France) features a tea salon on the upper level. Despite the fact that the clock itself has never actually worked, somehow the neo-gothic and oriental "look" of the clock does.

There are two minbars in the mosque. The gilded wooden one, an original structure, is said to be the largest of its kind in Egypt.

May 12th 2007

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Moh'd Ali Part 1-محمد علي با
 Al Jazeera Documentary


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