For all their meanness to him at times and the embarrassments they caused him…

فرغم رذالتهم عليه أحيانًا وما يسبِّبُونه له من إحراجات مع المعلم حبشي، فإنهم يملأون حياته، ويشغلونه عن السَّرَحان في الدنيا القديمة التي عاشها قبل أن يجيء إلينا.

For all their meanness to him at times and the embarrassments they caused him with Master Habashi, they filled his life and kept him from drifting back into the old world he had lived in before he came to us.

From the novel Habashi’s Café · Chapter 11

Words of a narrator or a character belong to the novel's world, not to the author's personal views.

Habashi’s Café

- لا شويَّة ولا كتير أنا راضي، بس إلَّا الغلط في الأم والأب وآديكم شاهدين.
Little or much, I'm content; but not insulting my mother and father, and you are my witnesses.

Habashi’s Café

مكث بجوار أبيه الميت حتى رجعت أمه، ومن يومها دارت بينهما الحرب، حرب بلا صياح ولا أسلحة، بالأعين والنظرات فقط.
He stayed beside his dead father until his mother came back, and from that day war broke out between them, a war without shouting or weapons, fought with eyes and looks alone.

Habashi’s Café

ونحن في الأسفل نتابعه برهبة، كُنَّا مبهورين بهذا الأداء، بدا لنا كما لو أنه بهلوان مِمَّن كُنَّا نراهم في الموالد الكبيرة، وليس الغلبان ضاحي الذي كان يجري معنا قبل قليل.
Down below we watched him in awe, dazzled by the performance; he seemed to us one of the acrobats we saw at the big saints' fairs, not poor Dahi who had been running with us a moment before.

Habashi’s Café