Baba wa Bebe

In my learning of dari I have taken to saying specific sentences about certain people.  When I learned the word baba, which means old man or grandfather, I said Rob baba ast (Rob is an old man), about my Canadian cohort.  My sentences have started to stick, and soon the students were referring to Rob as baba or baba Rob. 

My other sentences which I repeat often are Fawad bisar tefel calon ast (Fawad is a very big baby) this is because he is the youngest in the class.  Nesar bisar mar calon khatarnak ast (Nesar is a very big dangerous snake) this because it is funny. Shikeab buinak ast (Shikeab is smelly) this because it is also funny.  Eshan muschkil sauce chucha ast (Eshan is a little trouble maker) he is a little person and he is always finding things wrong on peoples maps!  Needless to say we laugh alot at my limited vocabulary and the few sentences I can actually make. 

While I am learning Dari the students are learning English, my cohort Dave teaches them English for atleast an hour a day so it is fun to go back and forth with words, for instance the other day I thought I overheard one call me honey, and I then had to explain what honey was and how it was used as a term of enderament.  It now gets used as a name around the room.

This morning Fawad comes in and we are talking and as usually I call him a tefel, and he responds with Sarah bebe ast, I thought he said baby and said no, you are the baby.  He said no, do you know what bebe means, and he wrote BB on the board, I said no why don't you tell me.  He said it means grandmother, now we have Baba Rob and Bebe Sarah...I think it is rather ironic that I became a grandmother before I even had children, but what the heck, why not?