Flower Boy

by Noha El Maraghi 

I love the Lebanese accent. It has more of a melody than other accents in Arabic. The last vowel is always prolonged and it sounds more like music. As an Arabic speaker I was looking forward to hearing the accent because I think it’s very pretty and some of the words are different. Egyptian Arabic is not the standard by any means, but almost all people in the Arab world understand it due to its popularity through the Egyptian movie and music industry. So everyone understands me perfectly and vice versa although some words are different. I've really enjoyed translating for the group, especially when it comes to Katie reading menus in the beginning. The Lebanese accent is especially pretty when coming from this little boy called Faris who I was originally going to do my story on. He's about 6 or 7 years old with the cutest face and smile. His hair is jet -black and geled back with a comb. His small stature is almost as tall as the white bucket of red roses he carries around to sell to people. What is peculiar about him is unlike other kids on the street he still seems to have innocence. He walks around Hamra district in the wee hours of the night looking freshly groomed and as he goes from restaurants to bars the girls flock to him and buy his flowers and hug him and pinch his cheeks. While guys idle by waiting for the hogger of attention to leave. We always wonder why this poor kid is not tucked into bed at 8 pm as we see a bucket of flowers float through a sea of giants compared to him. His courage as a child when he holds his ground about the price of a rose is astounding. But no one would dare to bother him because he is close buddies with the business owners who are always keeping an eye out for him. Also we’ve seen an older child around 10 years old sometime waiting for him outside restaurants and escorting him. Every time we see Faris we yell Hi Faris! He stops and talks to me in his cute accent saying confidently hi, how are you, are feeling well? With innocence and perfect composition from this child I’m overwhelmed by his cuteness and sad that he has to do this job.