Ajnabiyye!

I would like to think that today I discovered the Arab equivalent of "Moo Cow." 

For those of you who have not experienced Moo Cow, let me explain: I was introduced to Moo Cow on a college band tour. We were traveling through Kansas at the time and suddenly I started hearing people behind me on the bus shouting "I claim those cows!" or perhaps later "I drown your cows!" Essentially when the landscape doesn't change for hours (as is the case in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, etc.), you start hunting for something that isn't the same. In this case, cow herds. The first person who sees them, claims them for one point. By the same token, the same person who sees a body of water can then drown the others' cows by one point. 

Today as I was walking to my language lesson, I saw two boys on the other side of the street playing. As soon as they saw me one of them started shouting, "Ajnabiyye! Ajnabiyye!" ("Foreigner! Foreigner!"). Usually this is followed by the persistent, "Hello! Hello! How are you?" However, for some reason, he kept on repeating the "Ajnabiyye!" to his friend. I'd like to think that somehow by spotting me, I managed to give him a point in an Arabic version of Moo Cow or perhaps it should be called "Find the Foreigner". This is a much better thought than the metaphor of a bird giving a warning call when a stranger enters their territory.


However, I do hesitate to think of what the equivalent to "drowning cows" would be in this "Find the Foreigner" version of the game... maybe "I send your ajnabiyye away in a taxi"??