homeward bound

“My home is here. Can I make a quick stop and pick up my son? He’s little and likes to come with me on my drives.”

“Sure.”

Our elderly taxi driver honked as he pulled up next to a concrete home with laundry and garbage in the front yard. A seven-year old boy with wavy auburn hair and washed-out clothes came running while putting on his shoes.

A girl — maybe 11 or 12 — bounded after him. She rested one hand on the car door and another on her waist. She peered in at us, then at her father. Her brother was already adjusting himself in the passenger seat.

“Can I come, too, Baba? Baba, can I come, too?”

“No. Stay here.”

Then, a wife some twenty years her husband’s junior wiped her hands on her pants as she came outside. After a loud conversation about dinner plans and the time of his return, the wife leaned in for a kiss.

“Khalas,” he said not unkindly. “Not now. Balash tiddalali in front of the girls.”

As we made our way from Areeha (Jericho) to a suburb of Ramallah, the seven-year old with his arm out the window excitedly proposed several detours. ”Take a right here, Baba. Let’s visit so-and-so.” And every time the dad replied, “But we have to drop off the girls, right Baba?” And the boy nodded understandingly.

About an hour later, we entered the village of N’s childhood. Beit Haneena.

Where exactly did we want to be dropped off? the driver asked. He had promised to deliver us right to our doorstep. Now it was her turn to tell him which was the right one.

“Straight or merge left?”

“Left,” N said intuitively. But another fork in the road emerged shortly thereafter. Our driver slowed to a stop.

“Keep going straight?”

We looked at her expectantly. She held the seat in front of her and looked around earnestly, like a frightened animal. Then, her eyes watered and she said something that made A and me shudder: “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything. I don’t know how to get there.”

It had been ten long years since she’d lived in this village near Ramallah. Of course she’d forgotten. For some reason, though, when I signed up for this trip, I thought we were going off of something more than childhood memories.

But before A and I could weigh the magnitude of our misfortune, N was crying and there was nothing to do but comfort her.

“What’s the name, ya binti?” The driver asked. He stopped at the first warsha (car shop) and asked after the person. They pointed straight ahead.

Tears made way for smiles of recognition. “That’s my school! My uncle’s house! It’s coming back! My God, guys, this was home.”

a feather for show and tell

I usually walk home from UJ, but with 25 copies of a chapter book in my hands (5 more than I had ordered) and a torn bag to carry them in, I wasn’t up for the walk.

Outside the University of Jordan crowds assemble, awaiting taxis, buses and carpools. Waiting there, to me, is like flushing time down the toilet. So I generally walk downstream  of the (human) traffic (try not to think of the toilet metaphor here), pass major forks in the road and, if I must take a taxi, wait at some juncture where fresh taxis come in — ones not already laden with passengers.

But clearly I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Several girls were already standing by when I got there.

I took a post among them and waited my turn. But my turn came and went, and with it many other girls. Girls who would brazenly walk into a taxi and climb in, even though they just joined the crowd.

Anyway, another girl and I were the last of the bunch to go, though we were the first to come. The sun was setting and we were still standing on the sidewalk for the gawking pleasure of drivers-by. What’s worse, help was not necessarily on the way.

Empty taxi cabs waved us away — their salaries must be exceedingly high — and full cabs drove on the far side of the road to signal their disinterest.

If a cab ever did stop, I reasoned, I’d probably get shy and let her go ahead, which means I’ll have to wait alone on the side of the road at sunset. Or I could talk to her.

“Excuse me, where are you headed?”

She named an affluent neighborhood, south of my place. I told her where I lived.

“You’re not from here, are you?” She asked.

Do Jordanians not share? I wondered. Is it the way I dress? Talk? Carry books? Everything about me was suspect. So be it. Guilty as charged. I confessed my otherness.

“I’m not from here either.”

“Really?” A stranger in city where I’m estranged is my friend. “Where are you from?”

“Lebanon.”

“The US.”

“And you’re a teacher?” She asked.

“Yes! How did you know?”

“The books. When I saw you, I said, you don’t carry a stack of books like that unless you’re a teacher.”

“And you’re a teacher, too? What is it, science? I majored in science! And my mom’s a teacher. I think she teaches the same curriculum, actually.”

We were fast becoming acquainted. We were going to tag-team the next taxi. We were going home.

They say eed wahda ma bitsaffi‘ (one hand cannot clap), but, with books busying two of our hands, our two free hands hailed cabs on perpendicular streets, we eventually clapped down on a taxi.

In the cab, our similarities gave way to differences. She loved her native Lebanon and hated Jordan. I haven’t seen Lebanon and I like Jordan just fine.  She was three years married, with a one-year old girl. I am single and that’s that.

When the cab neared my place, she kindly refused my dinar. As I hurriedly prepared to jump out of the (slowly) moving vehicle (the driver wouldn’t come to a stop), it struck me that I might never see her again. It was that keen nostalgia I often felt when parting with friends, a nostalgia rarely renewed in their absence.

Then, to the impatient driver’s anguish, she asked for my number. I recited it in English (my default language setting) and the taxi sped away.

It’s been a week and she hasn’t called me, nor do I think she will. For all I know, she may have taken it down wrong, accidentally or deliberately deleted it even. And still, I’m happy she took it.

Giving (if not swapping) phone numbers or emails, the very existence of Facebook or Twitter — these make me feel as though, at will, I can throw a noose around someone who, otherwise, would have fallen off the face of the earth. (Alternatively, I could let them plummet to a painful and untimely death. I’m so self-important.)

While throwing a noose can be her salvation (or mine), nooses (and clingy whiny contacts) also have a reputation for strangling. So, let’s rethink the metaphor.

When I take an acquaintance’s contact information, I’m effectively plucking one of her feathers and stowing it away. It serves as a quill (an instrument for keeping in touch), an autograph of sorts (evidence of our overstated relationship, should she become wildly famous), a moneymaker (I can sell it on eBay, also when she becomes wildly famous), a source of DNA (in case I’d like to clone her; not sure why). Most importantly, though, it serves as a keepsake, reminding less of the person than of the times we shared.

So, in that taxi, I got plucked at the last moment. Apart from demoting me on the pecking order, this also means I don’t have her number.

But I’m not entirely plucked. I have something by which to remember that friendly stranger. I, too, have a feather from her, one that is longer than a number but easier to recall. I just showed it to you, didn’t I?

he said, she said (nothing)

The most respectful taxi cab drivers are hard to acknowledge because they are, by definition, subdued. And yet they ought to be acknowledged. The majority of my drivers have been excellent, getting me from point A to point B using the shortest verbal and traffic routes.

But how can I, for your benefit, flesh out a conversation that is necessarily bare-bones?

Here’s this morning’s conversation:

“Assalamu alaikum. Peace be unto you.”

“Walaikumussalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. And upon you be peace and God’s mercy and blessings.”

“University of Jordan, main gate, please.”

“Insha’Allah.”

The bearded man listens to Qur’an on the radio and, in a hardly audible whisper, recites along without affectation.

“May I drop you off before the bridge, because of the congestion further down?”

“Um hm. That’s fine.”

Then, when I pay 20 qirsh (200 pence) extra — a negligible amount — he asks while averting his gaze, “Do you forgive me for the difference?”

Come again? Oh, that’s right, I’d heard about this inquiry from my aunt. On the Day of Judgment, her sheikh had said, Allah will hold us accountable for even the pettiest transactions, until all matters are settled among us. We’ll have to ask each others’ forgiveness for moneys we’ve taken unfairly, no matter how minuscule the sums. So forgive others, he advised, and ask forgiveness now, if you can.

“Of course.” I replied as I climbed out, “Yislamu (thanks).”

As I weaved among the buses outside the main gate, I thought how strangely satisfying it is to see a man whose piety makes him want so much not to talk to me, in this life and the next.

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.

a walk in our own shoes

A couple weeks ago, my friend and I lamented the fact that, as young women, we could not engage taxi drivers in conversation without seeming to have ulterior motives. Taxi drivers are notoriously well-informed and, for their ease in extracting information, would make for good informants. Who else overhears innumerable phone conversations daily, and knows the lay of the land as well as they?

Today, it was I who had a chance to overhear and now I shall play the informant. (That makes you, dear reader, the mukhabarat, the secret intelligence service.)

One of the cab drivers this afternoon was what my aunt’s husband calls a human train, puffing up smoke like it was his business. Thanks to a small car crash, traffic was at a standstill and the grey plumes wafted leisurely around my face. What’s more, the rain outside had subsided, and the smell of fresh car exhaust made me believe once more in the virtues of horse and buggy.

As we inched along, my taxi driver noticed an elderly Palestinian man awaiting a cab. Without asking my permission — a courtesy I’d twice before enjoyed — he offered his next client the passenger seat.

As he drove us through a small river, the frustration pent up within him burst. ”What is this?! You know, hajj,” he addressed himself to the old man, “I’ve seen Malaysia. It rains there one hour every day, come summer or winter. But look right, look left, and you can’t find any water.”

“But Malaysia’s not like here. It’s a resort.” The man in the thobe, suit jacket, white hatta and ‘i’gal replied.

“I’ve been to America, too.” The taxi driver continued. “It rains, but the water runs down the side of the street. No, hajj, it’s not because it’s a resort. It’s because it’s organized. Here, there’s no order. No infrastructure.”

“It’s cleaner than Damascus.”

“Leave us from Damascus.” The driver insisted. “Look at this. It rains here one hour and we’re all drowning.”

“You know, Jordan is a nation that profits off of other people’s problems.” (If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?)

“The S.O.S. nation.”

“Yes. Where are you from?” The old man leaned in to ask.

“Yafa.”

“I’m from al-Khalil. Muhammad Abed Yunus.” He proudly rattled off some tertiary name, presumably his own or that of some famous person from his village. They were now members of that fraternity called Palestinian Diaspora, brothers in refugeehood. “And I tell you, Jordan wouldn’t even be a country worth a fils (piaster) if it weren’t for the Palestinians. Your people, my people from Khalil, we built it. It wouldn’t be anything. It profits by others’ problems, I tell you.”

“You know they say a monkey went to Syria. It cried and cried and said take me to my home. I can’t live here. So they took it to Malaysia. Cried and cried. Take me home, take me home. They took it to the U.S., to Egypt, to India — it cried and cried. Then they took it to Jordan and it was happy here, surrounded by all the other monkeys. This is a country for sa’adeen (little monkeys and, in slang, mischievous people).”

For all their impassioned political tirades, I couldn’t help but think how mundane, how recycled the conversation felt. (All except for the monkey business; that “joke” was new to me.) I’d heard many a Jordanian resident slam this country that played host for refugees and itinerant workers since its inception. I understand that individuals can easily pin their disappointments on a country, on an idea. The uneven pavement, the poor drainage system, even the weather — all could be Jordan’s fault. That is the convenient, expedient way to go.

Last year, when I visited my aunt, I watched as a handful of workers laid cement on the path between our place and the adjacent business building. After a hard day’s labor leveling the wet cement, a couple of the men walked over their newly finished work. What remained in their wake were shoeprints that, to this day, evidence their indiscretion and irresponsibility.

Jordan is like a big slab of cement covered in shoeprints of all shapes and sizes. It’s easy to damn the cement and the shoes that walked on it. It’s much harder, however, to recognize those shoeprints as our own.

lost and loster

A couple weeks ago, during my first visit to an UNRWA site, I took a Mumayaz (Distinguished) taxi instead of the good ol’ yellow ones. These unabashed Mumayaz taxis are supposed to be more plush, reliable, traceable, punctual and (consequently) expensive. To be honest, every time I’ve taken a Mumayaz taxi it hasn’t been because of its comfortable cushions or its stellar reputation. Thrift is my middle name, but when yellow cars are nowhere to be seen, silver becomes my next-favorite color.

But the car paint and driver proficiency have little to do with it. Twice now I’ve been dropped off at the wrong place. The first time, I was dropped off at the wrong UNRWA office. The one I was looking for was a mile or so away. I walked it.

The second time was yesterday. I was dropped off on the wrong mountain. You heard right — the wrong mountain.

“Here’s the girls’ school in Nuzha,” the cab driver said. “This is it, right?”

“Sure.” I said, as my mind worked hard to pronounce eureka.

I stepped out of the cab. Astonishing. Last year, there was trash littering the alleyway. This neat brown wall didn’t exist. The principal’s office was in a different spot. Renovations work wonders here, I told myself. Wishful thinking, Tamatim. (Needless to say, a healthful walk to a main street and a taxi drive later, I was immensely pleased to come upon the trash I recognized. Ah, the smell of familiarity!)

I told my aunt about yesterday’s blunder, and she exclaimed that her husband would have been so worried if he’d known. He doctors at one of the UNRWA camps so he may well know about the risks of ambling about.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a naive out-of-towner. Maybe that’s why I felt quite at ease. After all, it was broad daylight. I tend to walk purposefully when alone, like I’ve a meeting to catch, and I amply survey my surroundings. I’m dressed not unlike residents of the camp — in a abaya, albeit a relatively new one. And I overcompensate on my first visits to places so, on both occasions, I’ve arrived with time to spare.

This is new to me, it really is. Not the getting lost part — that’s definitely old. The not-panicking is new, and welcome.

I’m the girl who’s been chauffeured by mother, father, sister and brother her whole life. The girl who, taking a new route on her own, can’t remember if it was the 70 and 71 freeway, goes for one, discovers it’s the wrong one, freaks out, parallel parks in some shady neighborhood, calls people who don’t pick up, tries the notoriously useless GPS (or gypsy as my brother calls it), then finally uses elementary logic to create an “escape strategy” and sets out again. At the end of my expedition (alas not in a Ford of the same name), aA I do have a way of arriving at the right destination.

Maybe that’s a synecdoche for my life. I sure hope so.

a tyrant among beggars

My aunt and I filed into a taxi.

“Where are you from?” came the yellow-flag question. (Not a red flag, but close.)

“We’re originally Palestinian.” I said, though according to Mama I shouldn’t answer questions like that. Period.

(For all my Libyan friends wondering how I could so easily betray my ancestry, allow me to explain. Three quarters of the blood in the back seat was Palestinian, and in Jordan, saying you’re Palestinian is like saying the sky is blue –unsurprising. Identifying yourself as Libyan, on the other hand, is marking yourself as foreign, memorable. And foreign and memorable are the last adjectives I’m going for when I’m taking a taxi.)

“I’m Palestinian, too!” the driver said all too enthusiastically. I looked again at him and had my doubts reaffirmed. He had decidedly Iraqi features . And his accent betrayed him. Yet he justified his non-Palestinianness by saying that he’d lived in Jordan a long while. Whatever.

He thumbed a yellow sibhah (prayer beads)  – an easy mark of piety I’ve long learned to distrust.

Moments later, he raised the hand holding the sibhah to his eye and began to whimper, sniffle, cry. Oh, please don’t, I thought. Baba and I had seen this in Amman and Cairo last year.

If you thought tearful cab drivers were bad, let me tell you. We found one who was happy, and was the worse for it. He presumably received glad tidings of son’s birth after several daughters and so named the newborn after the man sitting next to him at that moment — my father. That lovely ploy came complete with a phone conversation with the belabored wife and exultations of pride and happiness. Baba tipped him generously — after all, he’d named his first born son after him — and immediately realized that the guy had pulled his leg (or his ego’s).

In any case, this guy’s story was as follows: He had eleven children, and one little boy. And his refrain was, “I depend on Allah, and then on you. I depend on Allah, and then on you.” As he wiped away invisible tears, I depended on Allah and then my open window, through which I listened to honks, brakes and the hum of engines — anything but the whining behind the steering wheel.

“I depend on Allah, and on you. If I didn’t believe in Allah, I’d ram myself into a truck. Allah forgive me.” He pined.

Seeing us unmoved by his colorful display, the driver’s tears dried for the rest of the trip. The pleas only picked up again just as we arrived and, to my fascination, my aunt rewarded his acting with an extra JD. (Positive reinforcement never seemed so negative).

As if the anomalous taxi driver weren’t enough, we found ten to fifteen beggars lined up at the foot of the business building. We had gone there several times this week for my aunt’s appointments and I recognized the crates of green grapes outside the door. As I came to press the up button on the elevator inside, a hand intercepted me. It was that of an old man with bad teeth and a messy hatta.

“Where are you going?”

“Up.” We said, leery of the obtrusive stranger.

“You can’t go up.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s no going up.”

“We have a dentist’s appointment.” My aunt offered. “But, sir, what we do really isn’t your business.”

His voice rose. “What do you mean it’s not my business? Of course it’s my business. You’re not going up.”

He had moved in on us and we were backing away from the elevators. His finger was menacingly close to me, and I was moving back to avoid his touch.

“We have to go.” We said as we shuffled into the elevator. He came after us and blocked the elevator door as it closed on him.

Okay, at this point, I was terrified. He had no sense of personal space and seemed angry enough to hit. He wedged himself between the elevator doors, and I noticed a large cataract in his right eye. Although I had looked into optometry, this was the first cataract I’d seen live.

“Leave us alone!” I told him in a voice that wanted to be stern, but emerged broken and humiliated. “Just go. Leave us.”

Meanwhile, the chivalry-less men in the lobby shifted their weight from one foot to the other. I would have liked to strangle each of them. It really would have been a good opportunity to practice my rudimentary self-defense training. The eye-gouging, slap-grab-twist-pull maneuvers.

“You can’t tell me to go. I’ve been here 15 years.” He retorted.

He had a point. I’d been in Amman less than 15 days and he, well, he’d been here long enough to — order strangers around? “I’m following you up.” He said with a conclusiveness that startled me. He turned his back on us and the doors closed behind him yet, somehow, I felt no safer than before.

My aunt I looked at each other, a nervous laugh caught in our throats. “You want to go back to America now, don’t you?” and the dam holding back my frustrations broke. Like a fretful child, I jumped up and down (my version of stomping) and pounded the elevator wall. This was an afternoon all gone awry.

I wanted to tell the police. I wanted to tell Alain, our Fulbright ‘ammu (uncle) and 911 contact. I wanted to tell my dad or brother or even my mother. I wanted to tell on him.

Instead, we told the dentist. His assistant — a hijabi with braces and a beautiful smile — immediately exclaimed, “Oh, that’s Abu Salim!”

Great. They know him. And like him?

“Here he comes now,” she added, bringing my dread to new heights. I was still mentally charting an escape plan that involved any exit but the one at which he stood. There had to be an emergency flight of stairs. The windows did not escape consideration.

The old man came in and the dentist laughingly — I repeat, laughingly — reprimanded him for frightening “my customers.” I stared at Abu Salim’s hand, its round nails and hardened brown skin. I couldn’t meet his eye. He was unpenitent and I was inconsolable.

After Abu Salim had gone, the dentist then went on to explain that the building owner gives sadaqa (charity) out daily. As a result, a large cohort  assembles outside awaiting distribution, and some sneak up to the fourth floor for much the same reason.

So who, then, is Abu Salim? Well, he is a sort of tyrant among beggars. A man a little too possessive about the building he attends, who believes he has a say as to who begs where.

And we, Abu Salim thought, were beggars.

To nurse my wounded self-esteem, I’m blaming it all on his cataract.

excuse me while i justify my road rage

I was in a taxi yesterday with a friend when a not-unusual communication mishap nearly caused a little collision. The tempers of my taxi driver and the other man flared. Maybe it was because they were fasting and it was afternoon. Maybe each of them had family problems. Maybe they felt underpaid. In any case, they honked at each other and slapped their steering wheels in frustration. Business as usual, right?

Then the two cars lined up nose to nose, and through their open windows shared the following conversation:

“What was that, man? Can’t you see that the guy in front of me was moving out? How do you expect me to move if you’re coming this way?” Our taxi driver fumed.

“Can’t you see there’s a bus behind me that I can’t hold up?” The man in the red car said this, of course, while holding up the bus further.

“Ya zalameh! Oh man!” They both threw their hands in the air in utter disgust and exasperation, then continued on their way.

What I thought was funny about this whole episode is that they felt the need to explain themselves, at a time and place where communication is hardly verbal.

Some stories, I think, are not really worth telling, are not all that interesting to hear. Stories that do not lead to a resolution. But we have to tell them anyway, because the telling takes a burden off our shoulders. And sometimes the only person who cares to listen is the person who nearly killed us just a second ago.

we few, we happy few

It’s not St. Crispin’s Day, I’m not at war, and (much as I wish I were) I’m not Shakespeare’s Henry V. Still, I cannot help but think: “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters).”

During the Fulbright orientation in D.C., I met a hijabi Fulbrighter, A, among a myriad of other beyond-awesome people. As she and I and other newly met girlfriends strolled through our nation’s capital, we were accosted right and left — in the best possible way.

For example, the Muslim hotel concierge asked us about our countries of origin. On the street, a woman in hijab and salwar kameez requested directions. (We were just an ounce less clueless than she was.) Then, as we waited for the crosswalk, we witnessed a taxi driver make a perilous turn, with hands and face poking out of his window — all in order to tell us assalamu alaikum, peace be unto you.

One of our friends, K, regarded us quizzically after one of these perilous hi-and-runs. So we explained that salams were greetings of peace, an etiquette of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). “Do you… like that?” she asked hesitantly. I completely understood where she was coming from. It looked like were being tokenized, that random passersby were making assumptions about our religious affiliation simply based on our appearance. And yet A and I couldn’t repress our smiles. “Do we like it? We love it!”

Nothing kicks estrangement out the window like a stranger’s salam. It’s like a “welcome to my ‘hood” sign. It’s like an “if you need any help, I’m here” signal. (Salam with a smile is like an In-N-Out burger with onions. Yes, it’s that good.)

Unfortunately, I realized that I only experience the euphoric hallucinogenic effects of salams where Muslims are scarce. Why, you ask? Because, ironically, where Muslims are ubiquitous, salams are harder to come by.

Take, for example, Egypt.

Cairo alone has a 7 million+ Muslim-majority population (which, by the way, outnumbers the entire population of its Sahara-plagued neighbor, Libya.) If Muslim residents of Cairo were to say salam every time they came across a fellow Muslim — well, they’d do little else.

As a guest of Egypt last summer, however, I didn’t know that. It was my first trip to a Muslim-majority country — correction, to any country outside the U.S. As I ventured with Baba onto new territory, I told myself I was going to be educated, thoughtful, attentive. What I succeeded in being, however, was naive.

After committing several touristy foibles at the airport (like taking pictures of the “Enter [Egypt] in Peace” banner — an allusion to a verse in the Qur’an), I militantly guarded my suitcases as Baba tried to retrieve a lost bag. As hijabi janitors passed by in their Guantanamo-like orange jumpsuits, I said my salams. They looked at each other, amused, but humored me nonetheless. I quickly noticed that no one — I mean, no one was saying salam.

Oh, I thought to myself. This is what it must feel like to be in places like Dearborn, Michigan, where seeing Muslims is like breathing air — taken for granted. I’ve heard about places like that, where a Muslim will meet a Muslim and look upon her with an indifferent eye. (Who but me goes to Cairo to learn about Dearborn? That’s like going to the sea to study the little pool of rainwater in your backyard.)

That made me think — yes, as a hijabi, I do wear a costume that, on most days, wins me gawking looks at the local Albertsons or no word of acknowledgement from the librarian. And yet, a single comical salam out of a taxi cab window makes this sore thumb a little proud to stick out.