I've just purchased a little sack of apricots from a man outside my building. He squats on the curb each day in sandals and a gallabiya and sells his fruits out of a woven cane basket, weighing it in a pair of rusty kilogram scales. Sometimes he has cantaloupes, which here have flesh of a light mint color instead of the orange we're used to; other days it's peaches. Today he was peddling apricots, their furry golden faces still smudged with pollen and earth.
Because apricots appear in the markets across Egypt for such a short time each year, Egyptians use the expression
with the apricots (fil mish mish) to mean that something will most likely never come to pass, roughly the same way that we might use the English saying
when pigs fly.
Today was living proof that even apricots in Egypt are not beyond the realm of possibility.
Because apricots appear in the markets across Egypt for such a short time each year, Egyptians use the expression with the apricots (fil mish mish) to mean that something will most likely never come to pass, roughly the same way that we might use the English saying when pigs fly.
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