firiij

Once upon a time in firiij far far away, a man walked out of his house and as he did, a piece of paper fell out of his pocket and blew in the wind into the garden of al-yaar.

al-yaar saw the paper and blew a fuse: "That guy doesn't care that he's making a mess of my garden, especially after I spent all morning mowing the lawn!" But instead of saying something, al-yaar plotted his revenge.
That night, he took his rubbish bin and dumped it outside the man's front door. The man saw from the window what was happening and couldn't believe his eyes.

That night he phoned a butchers and made an order for ten cows to be delivered to the house of his yaar.

Of course, the next day, al-yaar was having trouble getting rid of the animals and their smell. He knew that this had been a dirty trick pulled by the man, so once again he planned his revenge.

And so on it went.

kamilaw yi7awluun to get their own back on each other, and each time their acts of revenge got bigger and more ridiculous. The dropping of a single piece of paper led to a fake order for ten cows, the driving of a lorry into a fence and finally the dropping of a bomb which destroyed both men's houses.

The two of them ended up in hospital, and as chance would have it, they had to share a room. At first, rifa'9aw  to speak to each other. Then tinaajaraw. But through exchanging heated words, they came to realise that the piece of paper had been dropped bi l-ghala6 and that if they had simply spoken in the first place, then none of this would have happened.

So they worked together, to rebuild their houses.

Arabic	Pronounced?	English
كملوا يحولون	kamilaw yi7awluun	They continued trying
رفضوا	rifa’9aw	They refused
تناجروا	tinaajaraw	They argued
اليار	al-yaar	the neighbour (m)
اليارة	al-yaarah	the neighbour (f)
الييران	al-yiiraan	the neighbours (pl)
بالغلط	bi l-ghala6	by mistake