“I Didn’t Teach You That!”
“I didn’t teach you that!” I exclaimed, mentally reviewing everything we had learned together in the last two years. This girl was SMART. If she learned this from me, I had to think carefully when I taught it – she was smart, and she remembers things.
We had just finished critiqueing a presentation she was about to make, in English, on quitting smoking. She had prepared puppets, and a dialogue, and oh! She did a great job! We were sitting in a restaurant, in a private room, where we could eat and still have fun without worrying about embarrassing ourselves.
“No, khalti, no, you didn’t teach us that in words. But that is what you DID,” she responded.
Hunh? Hmmmm. I had to think about that. While I was thinking, she continued.
“When we would say we wanted to do something, you would say ‘OK, what does your week look like? How would Monday after schoool work?’ and we would DO it. You didn’t just talk about things, you did them. When you start a project, you finish it. This is the most important thing I learned from you.”
There are some things you can’t teach; it’s just words. There are things you teach and you have no idea you are teaching. I have to admit, I got choked up.
And I have no idea where this smart young woman is going to go with her life, but I can’t wait to see.
Learning Opportunities
“Oh! I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. I caught them grinning as we worked on a project, and remembered the article I had read that morning in the Gulf Times.
“Sorry?” they looked puzzled. “Why khalti?”
“I’m humming! I’m so sorry! You are fobidden to hear music during Ramadan!” I apologized.
“No, khalti! Where did you get that idea?”
“In today’s Gulf Times” I replied, and went to get the morning paper. The three of us read through the article, on the religion page, together. It was in English, and I secretly rejoiced – a perfect opportunity!
I hate classroom teaching. I trained as a teacher, and actually, I loved my students, but oh, the classroom just overwhelms me. For one thing, I must be a little ADD (attention deficit disorder) because when the bell rings, and I know I have fifty five minutes in the classroom, I feel TRAPPED. I bet you didn’t know that some teachers feel that way, too!
What I like is living learning, and that is why I think those who are home schooling are enjoying so much success – really small classes, individual attention, and hands-on examples to illustrate what is being taught.
“We have to check with our Mom and Dad, they can tell us why, but we don’t believe this” they said, as we finished reading the article. (Teacher secretly dances for joy! They are reading in English with full comprehension!)
Later they came back to me and explained – in English – that while some believers felt that all music was forbidden at ALL times, not only during Ramadan, other believers felt that it was not forbidden, as long as it did not deal with forbidden things, like sex. This time, I really did dance. They could explain a complex subject to me in English, and I learned something too. This is the best kind of teaching, when the teacher also gets to learn from her students.
Change Two
It’s a continuing theme – the Locard Exchange Principal in every day life. We live in foreign cultures, we pick up foreign ideas. Change 1 was one of the earliest entries in the blog – investment. Investment is not alien to my culture; investing to protect yourself against an uncertain future, as insurance and as protection for your children – that got through to us and accelerated the investment process. Starting early in our married life paid off big dividends.
Change Two came in Jordan. We had finished an amazing dinner at a private home, mezze’s, a mensef (huge platter of rice flavored with leban, spices and sultanas, with meat – in this case, lamb, but we have also had goat or chicken served as mensef). The host was peeling an orange and had that look in his eye that tells you he is thinking about something and isn’t sure whether he should voice it or not. He struggles, and then he goes ahead . ..
“I don’t understand one thing about your culture” he says. I am surprised; this is a very sophisticated man, well educated, holding a high position. He has travelled. . . it will be interesting to see what comes next.
“Why is it you kick your children out of the house at such an early age? You love your children – I just don’t understand.”
We had observed the opposite – that in Jordan, young people lived with their parents, even after graduation from university, sometimes even after being married. . . and it seemed very alien to us, very uncomfortable.
We are raised knowing that the goal is to be independent, to live on our own. It is very very scary, but a rite of passage. You leave school, you find a place to live, you pay rent, you pay your own bills, you look for a mate – all on your own. You are supposed to be educated and wise, but you still feel very young and not at all sure of your own judgement. You can ask your parents for advice, but you are expected to make your own decisions. Eventually, you get the hang of it.
But . . . through the years, that question nagged at us. It opened us up to a new way of thinking. It would come up from time to time. Just that one little question, popping into our minds. Having friends from other cultures who helped their kids out well beyond college gave us some different ideas, a different model.
It’s a fine line. We don’t want to intrude on our son’s privacy; we want to be close without being interfering. And at the same time, he will inheirit everything from us – why should we not be helpful now, during the years of struggle, when he and his wife could use the help?
At the same time, we don’t want to be so generous as to preclude them from developing their own financial strategies, from learning thrift, and the thrill of finding a good buy. We want them to know the thrill of discovering for themselves how to balance spending and savings, investment in major purchases and investment in family.
We are so thankful for that thoughtful friend, a friend with the courage to risk asking a question that might be perceived as impolite.His question caused us to do things a little differently. It wasn’t immediate, but a long term effect; it caused us to question our own way of doing things and moderate it into a more supportive approach.
Autumn Splendor
I haven’t been home at this time of year for almost ten years. The sun is out, the beauty takes my breath away. Amidst the duties of life, some joyful blessings:
Trees close to the beach
A great place for playing and hiding in the driftwood
Fishing boat
Ramadan Fastathon
While I have learned to stream NPR (National Public Radio) on my computer in Kuwait, nothing beats listening to it in “real time” here. Today, while listening, I learned that university students locally are fasting in support of their Islamic brothers and sisters, and they call it a “Fastathon”. They sign up to fast for a day, and can attend that night’s Ifthar supper. Local merchants will donate money to some charity for every person who signs up.
The interviews – some students got it – that fasting cleanses the system, that it is to experience sympathy with the poor . . . and then there is one poor sap who says “Yeh, I heard of Ramadan. I think it is a political party that causes problems in the Middle East.” Doh.
My Mother just called to ask if Omar, my father’s health care aid, can eat the lentil soup I fixed for their supper. “No! No!” I cry, “it has Jimmy Dean sausage in it!” but Mom says it is no problem, as Dad really wants the chicken noodle soup from last night, and that one is totally halal. Omar can’t eat until seven, so they are waiting so they can all eat together. Ramadan awareness is definitely on the rise here.
Opposite World
I need to write this post while I am freshly back home, because it wears off, you forget the sharpness of the differences . . .
You have to think about how you will manage your bags when you get here, because there will be no willing men with carts to do it for you.
Getting on the highway . . . people are so polite. People drive exactly at the speed limit, or maybe up to 4 miles over. If you put on your turn signal, they slow down and allow you to enter their lane. No one weaves back and forth, no one gets on your tail and insists you get out of their way. Traffic flows smoothly, predictably. People are wearing seat belts; their babies are in baby seats and their children are buckled in the back seat. It’s five lanes, and it’s all very tame. Our testosterone drivers in Kuwait would find it very very dull. I didn’t see a single accident, or single wrecked car all the way home, about twenty miles.
At the grocery stores, there are places for inviduals to put their grocery carts back – and they really do. There are also enough parking places. The cashiers also put the groceries in a bag for you, but there is no one who carries them out to your car.
The streets are immaculate – not because we have hoards of people to pick them up, but because people here have a horror of littering – and huge fines that discourage the rare few who would toss a kleenex out a window.
Service providers are more helpful, and less servile. There is a sense of interchangeable rolls – the guy behind the counter at Starbucks might also be a full time IT student at the local university, just piling up a few barista bucks to pay his way through school. (There is always a tip jar in every Starbucks – Have you ever noticed there are no tip jars at the Starbucks in Kuwait?) The gal behind the counter at the grocery store might live just up the street from you. The guy at the Half Price book store has kids at the same school where your child goes to school. It’s different when all the workers are part of the same community.
The health care worker living with my parents to take care of my father is treated like family. He’s from Ghana. I watch him watch us as we gather. I imagine some of it is very familiar to him – the way women communicate when family gathers, laughter, tears, family business, making plans and arrangements. And I imagine some of it is very . . . foreign. I would love to read HIS blog!
There are seasons here. You need to have socks with you to keep your feet warm, and closed-toed shoes. There are trees that were green two months ago, and are now a flaming red, or orange, or yellow. I need a sweater outside, over a shirt. It’s cool, but not yet really cold.
Part of the transportation system here is ferry boats. People take them to get to work. My home town is, like Kuwait City, on the beach, but the water is not jade green, but a deeper, colder blue.
Karma Payback
When I started this blog, one of the first posts I wrote was about getting an upgrade. This trip, it was karma payback. I booked a ticket and paid online, and later when I tried to reserve my seat online, I kept getting an error message. When I got to the airport, (confirmation in my hand, thank God) the clerk said my reservation had been cancelled. I had paid extra to have an upgradeable ticket, and to be able to change dates if I need to – it took the fixer-guy over an hour and a half to figure out how to re-instate my reservation.
And I asked for an upgrade – I have thousands and thousands of frequent flyer miles; I don’t need a free ticket but it helps on the night flights to be in business class because you can lie down and sleep! Makes a difference when you have a long way to go. But they didn’t give any upgrades – and when I got on the place, the entire business section in front of where we were sitting was . . . EMPTY. Go figure!
In Europe, I asked for an upgrade for the next leg – not free, I am willing to cash in miles, but the snotty desk clerk told me my ticket was the non-upgradable kind. It doesn’t do any good to lose it in those circumstances, but I was steamed. What did I pay extra for??? When the guy who fixed my reservation fixed it, I guess he didn’t put in the right code. I’m screwed.
After the next flight, which was very long (had a good seatmate, though, quiet, like me, but when we talked it was about books and families and comfortable stuff) I went through immigration and because this was my fifth trip back home this year, when I filled out the immigration form, I listed that I wasn’t bringing back anything. And I wasn’t. I barely have the right clothes. But that got the attention of customs, and I got the full inspection, which after you’ve been travelling for more than 28 hours is annoying. They were cordial enough, but they went through everything, suitcases, carry-ons and purse, very thoroughly. And found nothing.
Last, but not least, I went to pick up my rental car, only to discover I don’t have my stateside driver’s license with me. After half an hour of desperate searching (I am an organized person; things are where they are supposed to be! but it wasn’t!) I offered her my Kuwait license, which she couldn’t read and said she couldn’t accept, and then, miracle of miracles, I came across my old Germany driver’s license. A German license is good for life. And, thanks be to God, she accepted it. And on top of that, for some amazing reason, using a German license made the rate even better than renting in my own state with a state license. Again – go figure.
And I just figure all of that is karma payback for all the good luck I have had in previous trips. We have a saying: Every monkey gets his turn in the barrel. I guess it was just my turn.
“Ill be there for you”
We Go Back a Long Time
I was a freshman at a big university, back home after years of living overseas. Never have I felt so alien as trying to figure out how I was going to survive in my own culture. I was really homesick. I missed my old life.
My first day in French 203 a group of laughing, talking girls walked in, one girl, a blue-eyed blonde, the center of it all. I hated her immediately, mostly for being so happy when I was so alone and so miserable. The semester dragged on.
The next quarter, there she was again, in French Literature. She walked in, saw me, and came and sat down next to me as if we were old friends. “What’s with that?” I thought, but there were a lot of students, and I guess I was a familiar face. I still didn’t like her. I didn’t like anybody very much.
But as the semester progressed, her smart-mouth sotto-voce remarks got me cracking up. I couldn’t help liking her in spite of all my determination not to. She was smart, and funny, and for some reason seemed to like me, even at a time when I wasn’t making much effort to be likable.
The third quarter, there we were once again, in Sociology. By this time, we knew that something was up in the grand scheme of things – This was a huge university, and you don’t end up in the same classes with anyone. We started meeting for coffee before class, after class, sometimes – skipping class! We became good friends. We never had another class together.
We graduated, and bought season tickets to the Symphony together. We would meet for a quick dinner, someplace cheap – we weren’t earning a lot. We would catch up on the latest boyfriend, the latest heartache, one another’s families. We each had our own busy life, but we made time for each other.
We married in the same year. We had our first babies within months of one another. No matter where I was in the world, we would write, we sent tapes, and I would visit whenever I was back in town. She also visited me, once with her husband (now ex) and many times with her children.
Our fathers are the same age. She called me night before last, my good friend, all these years. She knows Dad is in the hospital and I am coming back, she calls my mother and takes her to dinner sometimes, my family includes her in the family circle.
“No matter what you’re going through,” she said, “I’ll be there for you.”
All these years. She always has.
Mining the Kuwait Times: 4 October 2006
Ya gotta love the Kuwait Times. I admire their spirit so much, I forgive their weak editing and poor grammar.
Six KAC Officials Quit
Six officials were transferred from their posts by the operations manager at Kuwait Airways, so they submitted their resignations, which were accepted without any investigation, so says the Kuwaiti Times (and also the Arab Times). Appearantly, they were transferred because they refused to recommend for promotion two unqualified candidates for captain, and were horrified to discover that these assistant pilots were promoted – verbally – to full airplane captain flying A310 aircraft in spite of most of the training officers having (previously) rejected this decision.
(This is actually a compilation from both Arab Times and Kuwaiti Times. They seem to be saying these six men resigned because unqualified pilots will be flying planes they are not qualified to fly, and the Director of Operations and his deputy know this and promoted them anyway. Arab Times adds that the director and his deputy are also jeopardizing KAC’s reputation in the international community when they refuse to investigate technical flaws found recently in some KAC aircraft. )
Think I’ll pass flying Kuwait Air for a while . . . .
Driving Sheepish
I actually speak English fairly well, and I don’t have a clue what “driving sheepish” is. The article states:
Policemen suspected a motorist driving sheepishly in Kabd. They ordered the Kuwaiti to stop his car and found a hunting rifle and a number of drug tablets inside. Police registered a case and referred the man to authorities.
Non-Halal Meat
“While residents of Kuwait are still reeling from shock, where cases of contaminated fish imported from Iran were allowed in by the municipality’s food imports division, a new scandal has just appeared on the horizon, reported Al-Seyassahl. A report indicates that one of the officials in the same department tried to cover up a crime he was involved in, by permitting some local foodstuff companies to import frozen meat without being slaughtered in accordance to the Islamic law. They presumed they could get away with the deceit, as, since no one was aware of the fact, could get away with murder.”
This is buried way down near the bottom of page 4. In most countries, it would be at the top of the first page, and heads would roll.
And last, but not least, to the tune of “La Vie en Rose” . . . French Smokers Fume as Public Ban Looms
My husband and I hate breathing second hand smoke so much that we will request another table in a restaurant if someone should be so gauche as to light up near us, disregarding the no-smoking signs in a restaurant, or pay our bill and go. It just isn’t worth it, not for our health, not for our state-of-mind. And all the same, it is very hard to imagine a France with a smoking ban in public places.
French cigarettes just smell different. French smoke reminds me of early mornings at the flea markets, picking up a cup of cafe au lait and a fresh buttery croissant, watching the early risers through a haze of smoke tossing back shots of Pernod to get their day started. I guess, because they are French, I can forgive them just about anything.
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