The World is Not Enough
Whew! I just got back from a week in 12th century France, courtesy of my friend Zoe Olderbourg. (slaps a flea biting her arm) I bought this book, The World is Not Enough, a while back, and have tried to read it several times, but couldn’t get into it. This time, man, I got into it and couldn’t put it down!
We enter at the wedding of Alis to Ansiau, she (slapping the flea on my neck) the 14 year old daughter of Joceran of Puiseaux, Ansiau the son of Ansiau the Elder, castellan of Linnieres, who knows he is dying and wants to see his line continue before he goes.
“The two of them, standing there, were moved, as two children must be who have just been washed, dressed, lectured and left at teh altar by their parents in front of all the guests, their brothers, their sisters, their uncles, their playmates. They were so little alike. He was a boy and she a girl.”
Alis and Ansiau marry and fall quickly in love. (checking the bedding for fleas) They hunt, they go to tournements, Ansiau goes off on Crusade to the Holy Land – twice. Alis runs the daily life of the castle, has twenty pregnancies, 12 children who live. Ansiau has a mid-life crisis. In their late 50’s, we leave them, scratching one another’s flea bites and looking off into the sunset.
Reading this book, you are totally immersed in the daily life of the nobility. The nobility, as it turns out, are the original credit-crazy spenders – they borrowed against their inheiritance, they borrowed against their lands, they borrowed against their doweries. They were constantly short funds, and constantly mortgaging their future for a few baubles today.
The “castle” had a great hall downstairs, where most of the men slept and where cows and horses and chickens and sheep were brought if it got too cold in the stables in the winter, and up a laddar, one great room where there was one big bed for the king and queen and whoever else they invited to sleep there, and a couple other beds, mostly shared by four or five people. This was where ladies slept, and hung out, and embroidered, and (scratching at a fleabite on the ankle) exchanged gossip.
It was a fascinating visit into a world with no running water, no heat, no air conditioning, where babies died at birth as often as not. It was a world where people caught smallpox, and the lucky ones, those who survived, lived the rest of their lives with pock marks like craters on their faces. It was a world where the nobility didn’t read, and there were no books except in the monasteries. Only priests were authorized to read and explain scripture. It was a world where wolves and bear still roamed the forests of France.
The book is set near Troyes and Langres, in the Champagne area of France. Zoe Oldenburg captures the poverty and brutality suffered by the majority of people, rich and poor alike, without sacrificing the human joys and kindnesses which brightened the world, and made life worth living. The book is so realistic and richly detailed that you will be looking for flea bites when you finish!
“I’m Not Japanese Anymore”
she said, and we dissolved into gales of giggles. We struggled to regain control over ourselves. She was the Japanese ambassador’s wife, my dear friend, and we would hide out and have coffee together whenever our busy schedules would allow. We always sought out the quietest time of day, the most remote tables, so we could have complete and utter privacy as we shared our week, our worries about our kids, our lives.
Our topic was a recurring one in our conversations – that once you have left your native country and lived elsewhere, you aren’t the same anymore. Your eyes change, and you see things differently, your taste buds change and the unfamiliar becomes familiar. Unacceptable color combinations become acceptable, the cacaphonous and discordant become music to your ears. Once you have lived in a foreign country, you can never be truly the person you were before you left.
“I’m not so patient with ceremony any more,” she continued, and we dissolved into laugher again, because her life was full of endless ceremonial events. The great blessing in all this for both of us, is that we are both married to men who are at the same time traditional and ceremonial, and secret iconoclasts. Every now and then we could even get together, all four of us, and share an evening of relaxation and laughter, mostly laughing at ourselves and the difference between how others perceived us, and how we really are.
We treasure these friends. They are the kind that could call us late in the day and say “We are unexpectedly free tonight – can you meet us?” and if there was any way we could, we would. They were our playmates; when we were together we were free to be totally ourselves.
Sometimes in life we are handed roles to play, and if we are honorable people, we play them as best we can. The secret is to keep a very clear idea of where the role ends and we begin. We show respect where respect is due, we carry out the rituals that give richness and tradition to our lives, and heritage to our children.
But glory and honors are transient. Roles and job titles come and go. Good friends and those who keep your worst secrets – they are worth more than gold and diamonds.
Chicken Nuggets and Big Macs
Brava, Chicken Nuggets, you have taken what was apparently meant to be an insult, and turned it into a badge of honor. And well you should.
Kuwaiti has been a major trading crossroad for centuries. It would follow that there has been a lot of mixing, as traders pass through, people travel to foreign lands, historically, as well as now. As genetic testing becomes more acceptable, we are all bound to discover that we are much more mixed, and much more alike, than we ever knew. And, there are bound to be surprises, as men and women don’t always fertilize within acceptable societal boundaries.
When you walk around, you see Kuwaitis with the faces of India, Iran, Iraq, Africa, even possibly faces from the earliest adventures of Alexander the Greek. This is a good thing, the intermingling of cultures and bloodlines build strength, resilience and flexibility.
There is a wonderful book you will enjoy reading –
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Third Culture Kids
by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken. While the focus is on young people raised outside their own culture – diplomat kids, oil kids, missionary kids, international business kids – the findings apply to all those who learn to function in more than one culture. You learn that feeling alien and weird is NORMAL for TCK’s during adolescence, and well into their 20’s and even their 30’s.
At some point, however, you realize that every culture you understand, every additional language you master, every new experience brings a whole new tool chest to your life, new perspectives and additional ways of thinking through life problems.
You, dear ones, are the hope of tomorrow. You are international citizens, having a larger world view because of your mixed upbringing. You have MORE THAN double the advantages (culture 1 + culture 2) you have the additional advantage of the (C1xC2) blend. (Hearing strains of “We are Nuggets; hear us roar in numbers too big to ignore . . !”)
. . . . So. . . if you are (golden, delicious, juicy) little chicken nuggets, what are the men of mixed Kuwaiti and western heritage – Big Macs?? Burger Kings?? (cracking myself up)
AIDS in Kuwait
In yesterday’s Kuwait Times is a letter to the editor from a young medical student who had done training in the Kuwait infectious disease hospital. He writes that the hospital is not to tell ANYONE a patient has HIV, not even the spouse. The spouse is only told when the patient dies. The cause of death on the death certificate is never “AIDS”. When asked, the doctor in charge said “in a Muslim country having AIDS will damage the person’s reputation, and we just can’t have that,” adding that it was a sensitive issue, and the best way to deal with it was denial.
The writer goes on to say that it was not just this doctor’s policy, but the policy of the entire hospital. It goes on to say that legislation was proposed to ensure that before marriage, blood tests would be taken to insure they are clear of infectious diseases, but this legislation was shot down by more fundamentally religious members of Parliament.
My Saudi Arabian women friends once told me that a Muslim could never say a bad thing about another Muslim except in two cases – one case is if you are asked about a person’s suitability for marriage, and the second is about a person’s suitablility for a business partnership, and in these cases you must speak frankly. Isn’t having a family member with an infectious blood disease one of those cases? Or a proposed husband?
Wouldn’t you want to know if your proposed husband had a serious infectious disease? Or your current husband/wife? Aren’t there precautions that need to be taken as far as exposure to blood of HIV/AIDs infected persons? Aren’t family members, firefighters and traffic police running a risk with accident victims?
Upgrade
We’ve lived overseas most of our married life. One of our agreements is that when I am needed back home, I go. I am so blessed, my parents are both still alive, and as they age, they need a little more support and time. I’ve been back to the US four times this year, although one of the trips (WoooHoooo!) was for our son’s wedding.
My husband and I have developed a ritual; we go out for dinner before he drops me at the airport. It’s a nice, gentle way to part, gives us time to remind each other of business sorts of things (please remember to comb the cat while I am gone, please contact the insurance company and tell them . . . – you know, married couple stuff.)
So after a nice dinner at the Ribeye at Crown Plaza, he takes me to the dreaded airport and I get in the long snaking line. Most of the line is young Americans with huge backpacks. Behind me is a group of locals, one of whom lights up a cigarette – and he is standing right under the NO SMOKING sign! I HATE smoke. But when he saw the look on my face, he asked me if it was OK if he smoked. I pointed at the sign and said “Mamnua!” (forbidden!) and immediately . . . he apologized, and put the cigarette out. Wow.
When I finally got to the front of the line and handed my passport to the beleagered desk attendant, a great big Egyptian man bypassed the line and walked up with two porters, and ten huge suitcases encased in plastic. Somehow, I guess he didn’t see me, because he shoved a handful of passports at the desk clerk who was working on my ticket.
“Bas degiga, ahi” (only a moment, my brother) I punctuated my statement with the hand motion that means have a little patience. He gave me the look we call “the dog can talk!” (For some reason, maybe because so few xpats do, they are astounded when we speak a little Arabic.) And to MY astonishment, he stepped back and waited while my ticket was processed. The desk clerk was just grinnning; I guess he gets a lot of important people pushing his way to the front of the line.
As he passed me my ticket, he also passed me an invitation to the Lounge upstairs, which is wireless, and has nice, big clean bathrooms. “How kind!” I laughed, “thank you so much!” and was off to pass the next couple hours in relative comfort.
When it came time to board, I had a very nice seat, and I was hoping to have two seats to myself so I could curl up and sleep during the night flight. But no, just as I was really beginning to hope, a big gentleman came in and started putting things away just above me and put his book in the adjoining seat. “Oh well,” I thought. And I heard my name called on the intercom, asking me to find a flight attendant.
I assumed they were going to ask me to change with some family who arrived at the last minute, so that they could all sit together. My seat was close to a bulkhead, and that is always a chance you take. There was no flight attendant nearby, so I headed to the front of the plane, where I saw the desk attendant who had checked me in, grinning. “Madam, we would like to upgrade you tonight,” he said, handing me a new ticket and an ongoing ticket so I wouldn’t have to stand in line at my layover. I was SO grateful. The business class seats go almost full flat, and I can sleep like a baby.
I go back to gather my goods and the big man says “What? You’re getting an upgrade?” and he FOLLOWS ME up to the front, and complains! “Why her? Why does SHE get an upgrade? I’M a BUSINESSMAN!”
I busied myself settling in, but I couldn’t help laughing. The flight attendant soothed him and explained that there were no more seats available, and very reluctantly he returned to sardine class.
The seat behind me stayed empty the entire trip.
Stunned Silence
Five sets of eyes were looking at me with horrified fascination. The silence seems to last a millenium.
“No marriage contract?” gasped Latifa. “How can this be? We have met your parents! You are from a good family, a religious family! How could you have no marriage contract to protect you?”
It isn’t often that I am at a loss for words, even though we are all speaking in French, often times a comical method of communication, as I normally speak English and they normally speak a Berber Arabic. Words sometimes elude us, and now, words are very elusive.
Fortunately, they all started talking at once.
“Don’t you know, dear one, that a man’s heart is not always constant!”
“You must make him give you gold, and property, to protect yourself and your children!”
“You must be investing for hard times to come!”
One by one, they shared stories of how women had been left by fickle men, or widowed, and how only by the grace of material wealth gathered from dowry, from wedding gifts, from gifts on anniversaries, from gifts when babies were born were they able to maintain themselves, and to provide education for their children.
“But none of you are divorced!” I cried out. “You have faithful husbands.”
Warning glances, barely perceptible, were exchanged, and their voices turned soothing . . .”Yes, dear one, for now. But we all protect ourselves against a future that only Allah knows . . .”
I was barely thirty years old, with a very young child, and these kind women surrounded me in my villa in suburban Tunis. We had worked very hard to develop a relationship, all of us, in spite of early discouraging events.
This was my first time living in an Islamic culture. They would send dishes of food to my house, to make me welcome in the neighborhood, and I would wait until a decent hour – maybe 10 a.m. – to call on them to return the dishes, only to find that not even the servants were up when I rang the bell. They would call on me at 5:30, as I was in my bathrobe, drying my hair for some event at the embassy that night.
Thank God we didn’t give up on one another! Finally, one time they called on me, the mother, the grandmother, two college aged daughters and a small child, one afternoon when my husband was out of town and I didn’t have any engagements that evening. After all our meetings, with the sense of failure to communicate, this time they called when my maid had gone home and I knew I had to serve tea, and something to eat. But that would mean leaving them alone in the salon . . .what to do?
After visiting for ten or fifteen minutes, I confessed I wanted to make them tea, but also didn’t want to leave them. Would they like to come into my kitchen and keep me company?
Who knew that such a simple, desperate request would be the key to unlocking the friendship we had all been seeking? They came into my kitchen, but instead of sitting around the small table while I fixed tea, they began looking into all my cupboards, pulling things out, exclaiming, asking questions. We were suddenly all fluent enough, no longer so self-conscious.
Things were never the same after that. They enjoyed dragging me along, pretending to others I was some long lost cousin from southern France, covering me in their sefsari’s, taking me with them to weddings. My husband objected to the “maquillage” and I told them that because we were religious, I could not wear so much make-up, and they relented. At Eid, I was allowed to peel and crush the garlic, while they cleaned and prepared the slaughtered lambs. Their friendship turned an isolated and intimidating experience into a warm, laughter filled time in my life.
I know they influenced me, changed me in subtle ways, some of which I probably don’t even know. I think it’s like CSI, where they say the primary forensic law is that in every interaction, you leave something behind and take something with you. My husband and I started seriously investing, and if today we are comfortable, I smile and think of those sweet women, and their horror that I would be unprotected by having no marriage contract.
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