Taxi chats

I spend a lot of time in taxis these days. Thanks to Cairo's infamous traffic, I have been getting a lot of impromptu Arabic lessons from cab drivers. Boshoy (my driver today) have been going back and forth for the past hour and a half. Mainly traffic related vocab, it sounds something like this:

'Ey da bil ingleezy?' (What is that in English?)

'Pothole'

'Bothul?'

'Pot... Hole'

'Balt..hull?

'Pot hole'

'Bothole'

The next five minutes are quiet while Boshoy whispers 'bothole' to himself over and over.

His English approximations are much better than my weak attempts at Arabic. We both laugh at each others inability to pronounce certain letters.  He shows me his "I heart you Jesus" bracelet after asking about the ashes on my forehead. I tell him about Ash Wednesday (which I loosely explain as 'the start of Catholic Ramadan'). He shows me his Coptic tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. I listen to his taraneem (Coptic music), I show him some jay z but we can't figure out how to transfer files between our phones.

We pull up to the apartment. I ask for change, he smiles and corrects my pronunciation. "I glad to meet you" he says haltingly as I leave. I tap on the glass add he begins to pull out and say "Ana mabsood... shan... shufta".