a magic trick

Today, I made one of my eighth-grade boys cry.

He was listening to the radio in class. I asked him to turn it off several times but, I’d turn my back a moment and it’d be on again. Arabic pop music on a cell phone, with the boys of that table crowded around. When I saw that they had fewer than three lines of writing on each of their journal pages, I snapped. (They were supposed to have had a page done by then.)

“Please step outside, Abdelrahman.”

The straight- and brown-haired boy took a few steps towards the door, then stopped hesitantly and raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, “Do I have to? Like really really?”

Yes, really really, I thought. “Wait outside ’til I call you back. Two minutes.”

Class went on. We started a collective story-writing activity. The story we came up with was about a boy who ventures out into the forest with his friend Akram on a moonlit night, only to be transformed upon being bitten by a wolf into a wolf, bearing a silver pendant. The friend-turned-wolf defends Akram against the rest of the pack and is dangerously wounded. Akram then searches for the flower embossed on the silver pendant and uses it to nurse his friend to health (and, magically, to humanity).

As this whole midsummer night’s dream unfolded, Abdelrahman stood outside, like a model on a magazine cover, with legs loosely crossed, arms folded against his chest, leaning proudly and a little indignantly against the wall. That’s what I saw anyway when one of his friends reminded me of him. My two-minute sentence had turned into a fifteen-minute purgatory. I don’t know which hurt him more, the humiliation of being out there for so long or the sense of being utterly and inconsolably forgotten.

Not surprisingly, when I invited him back in, he shook his head ever so slightly and shrugged his eyebrows as if to say “there’s no use.” Although I knew that I owed him a few minutes of persuasion-time, so that he could come back to class with a few shards of dignity, I couldn’t leave the class to be with him, so I didn’t press him further.

One of the boys offered to cajole him but returned, to my distress, without Abdelrahman. Another boy said he’d give it a try. He was successful.

Moments later, there was a ruckus on that table again. The boys were crowded around Abdelrahman. This time, it wasn’t to listen to music, but to comfort him.

“Miss! Miss! He’s crying.”

But Miss! Miss! didn’t know what to do.

I grew up believing that there are two ways to reconcile yourself to a crying child. The first is called the Mama Method. This one involves physical, verbal and psychological expressions of compassion. The second is called the Baba Method. It’s a silent but powerful hug that magically makes you feel safe and right again.

I did neither. I stood anxiously by as his friends teased him, patted his back and squeezed their heads together as if in a huddle. One boy sarcastically quoted a famous Arabic poem of praise, “Rajulun warrijalu qaleelu. A man, and men are few.”

Although Abdulrahman’s head was buried in his arms, I could see that he was now laughing. I was relieved.

As he left for break, I waved him over, but he either didn’t see me or pretended not to. I think he expected me to chastise him further because, when I spoke to him at the start of class, he seemed startled that I apologized.

“Do you forgive me?”

His hand froze in the bag of potato chips. He smiled a toothy smile, looked bashfully down, nodded like a happy puppy and went on munching.

My professors at UJ often joke that their students are present in body but not in mind. Today, I became the teacher whose absentmindedness literally made her student disappear. Lucky for me, that magic trick was not irreversible.

kids ask the darndest questions

One of my shrewdest students Samah asked me why I translated their stories last year from Arabic to English but not the reverse.

“Well,” I confessed, “I didn’t have an Arabic keyboard and… I don’t know… I was lazy. There’s no excuse for it, really. I should have and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

But this eighth grader wasn’t going to take sorry for an answer. She looked at me under her thick round eyebrows. “And why are we learning English? Are they [our peers in the U.S.] learning Arabic?”

“Sure. Some of them might, in college.” Yeah. I can be so convincing.

“Look, there’s strength in knowing more, not less,” I told her, rallying myself. “For example, I’m learning Spanish. Does that make Spanish more important to me than English or Arabic? No. Do I like Spanish-speaking cultures more than my own? Not necessarily. But learning another people’s language is a way of connecting to them, of seeing the world from their eyes and showing them the world through yours.”

Plus, I thought to myself, when they refer to me as esa chica in the shoe aisle, only to discover that esa chica se habla espanol, I have the satisfaction of seeing them regretfully rerun the entire conversation in their heads. Those awkward moments make years of studious agony worthwhile.

a drive down awkward avenue

Yesterday morning, it was raining tigers and wolves, not cats and dogs.

But, where I stood, it was autumn, thanks to several layers, a wool abaya and a black umbrella.

As I boarded my off-to-school cab, I buckled up for a long ride. I could see that a serious zan’a (traffic congestion) awaited me on al-Madinah al-Munawwara Street. At least my cab driver’s an old man, I thought, and a quiet one.

But I spoke — or thought — too soon.

After giving him directions to the university, he remarked, “Lsanik ithgeel. Your tongue is heavy.” (Yet another body part that could use a workout.)

“Um hm.”

“You’re not from here, right?”

“Hu’ uh.”

“Where are you from?” I tell him.

“Your Arabic is good. Do you know i’rab?” Arabic grammar. “Muhammadun akhathal kurata. Muhammad took the ball. A’ribeeha. Explain the grammar of each word.”

I smile. I haven’t done i’rab since the 8th grade. He demonstrates, then gives me a second sentence to try.

“Ahmadun: Fa’il marfoo’ wa’alamatu raf’ihil damma. Akala: Fi’l madi mansoob wa’alamatu nasbihil fatha. Altuffahata: Maf’ool bihi mansoob wa ‘alamatu nasbihil fat-ha.” (I don’t know how to translate that and, even if I did, I think you’d find it a bore.)

I get it right, and I think to myself: man, Mama would be proud.

“Ahsanti. Good job. What class are you taking at UJ?” I tell him.

“What year are you?” I fumble, because there is no one-word answer. I’m indecisive, so he decides for me. “Your’re a sanfoora.” A term of endearment for college freshmen. (I’m pretty sure it’s also Arabic for female smurf.)

Then, I notice that there’s a big yellow bumble bee in the car trying to get out. (A clever bee.)

As I roll down one of the back windows, the driver says: “You must have brought it in, in your backpack,” and “It must have been attracted to your honey-colored eyes.” (I appreciate the pun, but not really. Also, I don’t have honey-colored eyes.)

His comments go unnoticed, the distressed bee is escorted out, the window is promptly shut against the rain, and I try to look cross.

Then he asks me if I pray, if I know the five pillars of Islam, the six pillars of iman (belief in Allah, His Angels, His books, His messengers, the Day of Judgment and destiny) and the definition of ihsan (to behave as if you see Allah, for even though you do not see Him, He sees you). If this were a quiz, I’d have passed it with flying colors. If I’d have known what was to come, however, I might have passed it in black-and-white.

Apparently, since I know the ABC’s of Islam, I look to him like good wife-material. He tells me about his son who moved to America to study and now has a green card.

“Sacramento. He married American. You think this okay?” He asks me in English. I want to say “Good for him,” but I cna tell that this dad would have preferred an Arab girl. I mumble some non-committal reply.

“If he knew you, he’d have married you. Would you marry him, my son?” Oh, why ever not! I’d love to marry your married son. Ah. I quickly try to muster up an appropriate answer to an inappropriate question and, finding none, resort to my right to remain silent.

After a pause, the driver continues.

“Guess what I do before I do this, before taxi?” Again, in English. I don’t know, I say. “Teacher.” And, as if to emphasize the point, he goes on teachering me, this time about boy-girl relations. He tells me about how someone who knows someone told him that a girl brought a “friend” home, presumably of the boy variety.

“This okay?” He checks the rear-view mirror for my answer. “No,” I say eventually.

(For your future reference, the interrogation cycle goes like this: He asks, I mumble something indefinite, he asks again, this time studying me in the mirror, I give him the answer he’s looking for, he moves on to the next question.)

He tells about how in America, many young women move out before they get married. (I had no idea.) Then, he asks this loaded rhetorical question: “Girls shouldn’t leave their families until they’re married, right?” He isn’t subtle and I’m not stupid, but he looks in the rear-view mirror to ascertain that the point hits home. Perhaps he expects me to blush or get confused or feel pangs of guilt, but I don’t. I feel hope and a little relief. The university is just up ahead.

“You have friends in America?”

“Um hm.” I’m fishing for a dinar in my wallet.

As I pay him, he gives me some parting advice: “Don’t befriend boys.” Then in English, “Girls yes. Boys no.” He looks in the rear-view mirror. “Okay? You’re good girl.”

“Um hm. Thanks.” I slam the door, glad to be back in the rain.

Moments later, as my sleeves become polka-dotted, I rummage for my umbrella. Then, it dawns on me: in my rush, I left that rare commodity on the backseat.

Now no one can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella. Not even me.

moors reign in spain again

For better or worse, a couple of my UJ professors have turned out to be what Baba calls as-hab nuktah (literally: friends of the joke).

—

It’s ten in the morning and my neck feels twisted out of place. (Thanks to some bedbugs, I’d slept on the couch.) I touch my head to my shoulder, hoping that it’ll crack or creak — anything. I’m in my Miracles of the Qur’an class and, since I’m not on the roll call and haven’t asked the professor permission to audit, I still look like a spy. I’m rigorously taking notes. I’m trying too hard to fit in and failing miserably at it. A spy.

The short and sturdy, black-haired, black-bearded professor is discussing canonical Qur’anic analyses. He mentions one by Sheikh al-Sha’rawi. “When you read this one,” he warns his Sharia majors, “you grow bored. He’s just so verbose. You read and read and read and buried in these heaps of words are a few pearls. I did a critical review of the work when I was earning my bachelor’s degree. It wore me out. If you notice I’m thin, it’s because of this book.” He’s not especially thin, of course.

Minutes later, the professor is reviewing the content of an upcoming exam. All the students — and their pens — perk up. Except me and mine; we take a sabbatical.

Amid the exam-centric discussion, a student suggests that one of the texts is especially inaccessible. “It’s hard to understand,” she complains. She’s indirectly asking to have it jettisoned. The professor, who’s already dispensed royal pardons on several other texts, retorts, “It should be comprehensible. Either you have a problem or the book has a problem. I mean, we’re sure you have a problem, and the book might.” I’m a little awed at his bluntness. Isn’t she offended? Nop3, she’s smiling as if he’d thrown daisies at her. Or as if he’d eliminated a detested text from a forthcoming exam. Oh, wait. That’s just what he did.

—

For the first time, I get to my next class without having to ask directions of strangers. I peer inside at the greasy whitewashed room. Sure enough, there are students seated. Only they’re not my classmates. My classmates line the corridor outside, and murmurs circulate among us that the Spanish class has invaded our turf. The professor had warned us of this. He had given us strict orders to repel them, to fight to the death, to protect what is ours. We had failed him.

When he finally arrives — a tall man who walks as if he couldn’t bend his joints; so stiffly, in fact, that it seems as if he has yet to be thawed — the ocean of students parts to make way. The two or three young men expected to mount a defense against the Spaniards — these he regards with undisguised disgust. They flock behind him anyway, like goslings who have no pluck except under their father’s wing.

Judging by the buzz in the hallway and the faces of our action-hungry neighbors, this appears to be the seminal event of the year, and the young men aren’t going to miss it for anything. Never mind that several of them are deserters.

Inside the classroom, a heated exchange ensues between our Arabic professor and the Spanish professor. Like a cloud of neutrons around a positive- and negative-charged nucleus, the young men hover about the man and woman with PhD’s to their names. The Arab towers over the Spaniard and, after a quarter hour, it is clear to all that the Arabs have prevailed. Our professor declares his sovereignty and the Spanish troops withdraw, broken. Class, for them, is cancelled. Meanwhile, ours is called to order. The professor, having settled on his throne, turns to those who absconded. “You should be ashamed. The girls displayed more courage than you.” (I’m not sure how we non-combative, chatty girls exhibited any courage at all in this episode, but maybe that’s just his point.)

“We were grossly outnumbered!” A young man protests. “We told the girls come in, but they stayed in the hallway. They were uncooperative. How were we expected to–”

“Enough. Next time you don’t give in.”

I wonder at the permanently stamped frown on his face. He looks dead serious. If I were a bit more gullible than I am (which is really difficult to accomplish), I’d never guess that his sullen countenance masks a playful disposition.

A few paragraphs into a literary analysis of Surat Yusuf (the Qur’anic chapter named for Prophet Joseph), we hear a ruckus outside. Since the demagogues pose a threat to the quietude of his domain, the professor sends a youth to silence them. “Box his ears. And don’t tell them I sent you.”

Outside, the noise is stilled. The boy returns with a report: No more enemies will near our borders. ID’s will be checked from here on out, to verify allegiance to the Arabic class. The professor hardly acknowledges the comment. He calls on a student to read aloud.

Then, in the middle of a discussion about the applicability of Prophet Yusuf’s tribulations to Prophet Muhammad’s during the Meccan period, our aged professor suddenly revisits the fracas. “Listen, next time the Spaniards come near this room, you don’t let them have it, you hear?”

“Oh you bet,” a valiant young man answers, “Next time they won’t stand a chance. We’ll bring our kalashnikovs.”

purebred batteries

I needed to buy a battery for my Jordanian phone. The gentleman behind the counter had neatly a trimmed white mane and goatee. “There’s two options,” he offered, “An aseelah battery and a non-aseelah battery. The aseelah I can guarantee to work for life. But the non-aseelah, I can’t vouch for.”

In Arabic, aseelah is synonymous with original, purebred. One must be a name brand battery, I figured, and the other an imitation.

“What’s the difference, in price?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. There’s a big difference in price. The aseelah is for 8 JD’s and the other one’s for 3.”

My aunt who had accompanied me saw that I looked dangerously indecisive. “Three” was her definite reply. Without further deliberation, the man retrieved a non-aseelah battery.

As we walked out of the store, my aunt apologized for stepping in. “But I was afraid you’d pay 8 JD’s! You looked like you were actually contemplating that. Hah! He tells you it’s aseelah. What, is it a husband we’re shopping for? What do I care if its aseelah or non-aseelah.”

As we hailed a taxi, I thought to myself that, when I consider asalah (purebredness and good lineage) I certainly don’t think of cell phone batteries. Nor husbands, for that matter. I think of horses.

like the pyramids

I could be telling you about every detail of my life in Jordan, but instead I shall tell you about a (wonderfully depressing) poem I came across in cyberspace. It’s one that my Sido used to sporadically recite from memory as he lounged on his blue La-Z boy chair. A poem written by an eighty-some year-old man and recited by another eighty-some year old man 15 centuries later.

According to this (shady) online encyclopedia, the poet Zuhair ibn abi-Sulma was one of the six great Arabian pre-Islamic poets. So great, in fact, that some of his poetry was included among the Mu’allaqat (prize-poems draped on the Kaaba in pre-Islamic times). His sister is the eminent poet al-Khansaa, who practically wrote a whole diwan (book of poetry) eulogizing her beloved brother Sakhr. Zuhair ibn abi-Sulma is said to have lived long and, as his poem suggests, sort of outlived life.

Now, before I get to the poem, I’d like to alert you to the fact that this fool here is from the 6th century. That’s right, 6th. That’s like 500 A.D.

Keep in mind that I’m an English major who thought Beowulf (8th – 11th century) and the Canterbury Tales (14 century) were archaic and required translation. But Zuhair ibn abi-Sulma’s poem is comprehensible without any footnotes or glossary. And believe me when I tell you that I’m no Sibawayh by any stretch of the imagination, and I do have a pretty elastic imagination.

It’s hard for me to think of this poem’s age without feeling a swell of pride in being an inheritor of the Arabic language. I love the fact that Arabic (unlike many of its ancient sisters) has not passed on, but aged gracefully.

In a way, I can see Arabic as a great-grandmother sitting by the fireside (in genetics: P generation) who still communicates with the plethora of munchkins sitting at her feet (the F2 and F3 generations, although F15 generation is more like it).

(On the note of loving Arabic, man oh man, I have to share with you Hafez Ibraheem’s poetic personification of the Arabic language at some point. It’s one of Mama’s favorites, and especially appropriate in Jordan where English competes for billboard space with Arabic.)

[Refocus] To the poem, then, without further ado! An aging Zuhair ibn abi-Sulma slams life and living. Hurrah! Here it is in Arabic:

زهير بن أبي سلمى

سئمت تكاليف الحياة ومن يعش
ثمانين حولاً، لا أبالك، يسأم
واعلم ما في اليوم، والأمس قبله
ولكنني عن علم ما في غد عمي
رأيت المنايا خبط عشواء من تصب
تمته، ومن تخطئ يعمِّر فيهرم

And for my anglophone pals, it goes more or less like this:

I’ve grown bored of the requisites of living, for he who lives/ eighty years, [insert your favorite oath for emphasis], gets bored./ I know what is here today and what was yesterday/ but I am as to what comes in the future blind./ I saw death coming randomly so that whomever it hits,/ it kills and whomever it misses lives long and gets old [and dilapidated.]

Optimistic, no? Makes you feel like a trooper for chugging along anyway. Ah, but despair not. Until dilapidation and/or death do us part from our self-esteem, we may enjoy poetry.

One word that I’ve come to fall in love with is haram (not to be mistaken with its English name-twin haram, which means Islamically prohibited). In Arabic, harama the three-letter verb origin means to grow old. The pyramids, consequently, are referred to as al-ahram (the old things).

As a mnemonic device, let me tell you a little story. When Baba’s on the phone and someone (presumably) asks him, “Shoul akhbar? How are the news?” Baba’s comical reply is, “Zay al-ahram. Like the pyramids.”

So, the next time someone asks you about the news, tell them they’re old Egyptian triangles.

the devil of poetry

In Arabic, poetry’s goddess is not a muse, but a shaytan (devil). Phonetically it works well, of course, thanks to alliteration — shaytan al-shi’r (devil of poetry).

Devil or muse, the creature has taken hold of me tonight.

Days ago, I had mentally composed an essay, title and all, only to wake up the next morning without a scrap of paper to prove it. Without luck, I scrambled in search of it through the corridors of my memory.

Never again, I told myself.

Like the Dupont in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” my brain seems to turn on when the lights are turned out. I think more clearly when there is nothing to be seen. I write best when there is no pen or keyboard within reach. I mentally arise as my body prepares to sleep. And though I know my experience is not altogether uncommon, the storms in other quarters of the world hardly still the brainstorms brewing in my own waters.

Nature is lazy, my biology teachers said. I, too, am lazy. I would rather seize my elusive thoughts now, when they present themselves to me on a silver platter rather than hunt and gather them later to produce a meager meal.

I share my find with you in the wee hours of this night. Bon appetit.

knock knock delivery

At one point in my life (not too long ago), I had been interested in pursuing a career in optometry. Like any serious optometry student, I had shadowed an optometrist. Also like any serious optometry student, I had filed truckloads of paperwork and, on occasion, had the immense privilege of observing a riveting eye exam.

Once, during a conversation less inappropriate than it sounds, the optometrist mentioned to a patient that he belongs to a large, Catholic family and that, of his many siblings, only one looks strikingly different. It was therefore a running joke in his family that his sister must have been fathered by the mailman.

After I told this to my brother, I noted that such jokes are taboo under a roof like ours. I attribute this more to Islamic teachings than to Arabic culture. (Note: That doesn’t mean that you’ll not find Muslims and Arabs whose mouths need soaping.)

At any rate, in my house, fornication is no laughing matter. And generally speaking, among Arabs, to accuse one’s sister or mother of sexual impurity is to commit the Materazzi slip — an insult worthy of a world-class headbutt.

Even as the feminist in me knits her eyebrows at the double standard regarding male versus female sexual impurity, I smile at the fact that degrading words like “bitch” are not often tossed around like salad among the bulk of my acquaintance. (I’m probably not the first to notice that, even in the canine species, females get the short end of the stick.)

As I sifted through the reasons why the optometrist’s joke wouldn’t find the same welcome in my house, my brother dunked Chips Ahoy cookies into a cold glass of milk. Then as if I had said absolutely nothing, he remarked:

My brother – Maybe the mailman fathered you.

Me – [Taken aback. Then it dawns on me.] That’s not possible. We have a mail lady.

My brother – That’s not possible.

Me – What’s not possible?

My brother – A male lady.

hablas arabe?

aA, after a mostly demographic two-page application, I was accepted into the Program of Arabic for Speakers of Other Languages at the University of Jordan! If, during an exam in September, I can prove that the qawa’id (Arabic grammar) I learned in elementary school didn’t go in one ear and out the other, perhaps I’ll be able to ditch Arabic 101 and take classes in Arabic literature, with the rest of the native Arabic-speakers.

I should probably revisit 19th century Egyptian writer Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti’s novels. They’re predominantly adapted/plagiarized from French tragedies, like Les Miserables and The Poet, but infused with an Arabic flavor. If you care to cry and know how to read from right to left, pick one of these up and keep a Kleenex box close at hand. Oh, you’ll shed salt water or your money back.