Melissochka

كاين زوين 

I want this tattoo, but I don't know where yet.  It's an inside joke from Morocco.  It is pronounced 'kayn zween' and means 'there is beauty,' but there are not always words in the Moroccan Arabic dialect for everything, so often one must figure out how to properly translate certain words and phrases. One time, long ago in Sidi Ifni, Carlos and Thomas and I were pondering the best way to translate the Beatles song, 'Let it Be' and it seemed that when we would ask our tutor/native speakers how to say various words/phrases that were positive, the word 'zween' would be used.  Zween can mean so many things!  Therefore, kayn zween is probably the best translation of 'Let it Be.'  Not really, but it was funny at the time, and it actually became a rather prominent phrase throughout my time in Morocco.  People adopted it that we knew, and Carter mentioned a few times that he even got some of his friends down in Agdz saying it.  

I got pretty into making this saying happen in Morocco.  I even argued some of my language tutors into admitting that it actually could be used correctly, not as 'let it be' though, but that it could be correct to say 'there is beauty.'  I also successfully convinced my Berber language group to sing a version of 'Let it Be' translated into Tashlheet which is called 'Agit a tg' which is more a translation of kayn zween than the actual 'Let it Be.'  Does this all not make much sense?  I didn't think so.  I'm bad at storytelling, I know, and my stories aren't really stories at all, I think.  I just got excited when I found out that my blogging platform could write out kayn zween in script for me without copy and paste.

It's funny that I've noticed myself talking and writing about Morocco more now that I've been gone for some time.  I hardly mentioned it at all while living there.  It's all finally digesting, I suppose.