"You learn good."

30 August 2008
“You learn good.”
That construction noise outside my window must be from Spencer Hall…it’s always so hot in Courts. I open my eyes and stare at the billowing gold embroidered curtains and beyond them the mosque across the hill. I’m not in Sewanee. I’m in Jordan.
Aunt Muna walks in my bedroom while I’m engrossed in Bible study. I check my indignation, reminding myself that it’s not unusual for family members to do that here. She stares at the book and journal and my pen poised uncertainly above it. “What do you write?” I can hear the imam on the television in the living room preaching about Ramadan, what’s haram (forbidden) and what’s halal (permissible).
“Uh…notes….about…”
“About what…you do?”
“Shwee, shwee.”
Nothing like having an infidel in your house during the holiest month of the Muslim year. Muna returns to the living room, telling me to come eat.
There’s got to be some way I can show this family my willingness to learn and understand. Muna, Khatam, Mohammad and I sit awkwardly in the living room while the imam preaches; the volume is too loud. Khatm has several bowls on the table before her and begins rolling vine leaves with rice; I make my move. “Ana….(point to food, make a rolling motion with my hands)?” Khatm makes room for me on the couch and calls out for Muna to grab a plate for me while in the kitchen. She fills it with ingredients and shows me how to roll them. Muna tsks her tongue at me for my first attempt, a behemoth of waraq ‘aanab, saying “Kabhirr (too big)”. Before long, I’m a vine-leaf-rice assembly line, and Khatm laughs and pats me on the hand, saying “Oh, you learn good!” This isn’t so bad, despite the olive oil dripping all over my clothes. “You…do them.” Khatm returns to the kitchen. I must have made enough waraq ‘aanab for the Desert Army, but it was the breakthrough. Khatm called and told Dunia about it, returning periodically to inspect my progress and pat my hand. When Dunia’s family joined us for lunch, they all spoke approvingly of my work, soon devoured. So maybe not enough for the Desert Army, but enough to show them I want to learn and intend to contribute to the family. Mohammad began rifling through a drawer looking for scrap paper and a pen; turning toward me, he asked “Alpha-bet?”
“Na’am.” He sat next to me and began writing the letters, drilling me as we went. Since I’m self-taught from the typed Arabic in a textbook, my Arabic script looks like it came from a word-processor; I couldn’t read some of Mohammad’s messy letters. He then taught me two or three words for each letter, making me re-read them and interrupting at the slightest hesitation. He seemed a bit impatient with me for my inability to make the ‘ain (the I’m-about-to-vomit-gag sound) letter and the ‘ghain (something like the French ‘r’) letter; Dunia tells me he’s very anxious for me to learn Arabic. All the while three year old Yusuf was crawling over me and clipping clothes-pins in various places while Ismein, perched on a couch across the room, stared at me through binoculars. I definitely felt the “Other” in this situation. But I feel more like one of the family, especially since I’ve been granted access to the refrigerator.