Excuse me, I forgot about everything.

NSIT KULCHI SEMEHLI: Darija phrase meaning “Excuse me, I forgot about everything.”

While perusing the internet for some clever Darija word I might use to bring this here blog back to life, I came across this phrase. It was listed among other “Useful Phrases in Moroccan Arabic,” and it made me chuckle. While I’ve had the occasion to tell folks that I’ve forgotten something – birthdays, names, faces, some lost memory from childhood – I can’t recall one instance where knowing how to say “excuse me, I forgot about everything” might come in handy. While I’m not in any linguistic shape to confirm the veracity of the words above, let alone their etymology, I am ready to start writing to you again.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m moving to El Jadida, a seaside town just south of Casablanca, where I’ll be a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant for the next 10 months. And so I’m changing the rules of this blog ever-so-slightly: I’ll still be learning lots of new words in English, of course, but also in French and Darija (Moroccan Arabic). And I intend to write about my travels and my experience with language right here.

Curious about where I’m going? Here’s a great little video I found about El Jadida. Watch out for the castle jumping — it boggled my mind.