Aruba.

Throughout my time in Arabic I have consistently encountered this word:
الأوروبا

Pronounce it: al-'au-ru-ba.
Just how it sounds.
Straightforward, right?

But today, in a moment of sudden clarity, I realized that الأوروبا means "Europe"
...and not "Aruba."

THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH.

For a year and a half I have wondered why we kept reading about the Arubans and their contributions to history. It always kind of threw me off, because I never remembered learning much about Aruba outside of Arabic class. I just chalked it up to "political stuff I don't know," because there's a lot of that in Arabic classes when you aren't a Middle Eastern Studies major.

original

Aruba is an island in the lesser Antilles that is actually part of the Netherlands. Its citizens hold Dutch passports and its climate is desert-ish (they even have cacti).